Constantly playing the victim makes us Jews the victim

Hello ladies and gentleman!

“Anti-Semite!”, you must be shouting by now. Just for saying hello. I surely need to apologise immediately for offending you.

I’m being ridiculously facetious, but it’s exactly this type of excessive oversensitivity our Jewish community has become responsible for.

We already have to walk on eggshells today for anything we say in case it causes offence. The aforementioned “Hello ladies and gentleman” is now considered insensitive to trans-gender people, as the PC brigade and continues to dictate to us.

But, along those same lines, have you ever considered, why, just possibly, Jews are targets for hatred and persecution? I know there’s the age-old theories going back millennia, and these are probably innate now. But how about the notion that constantly playing the victim is in fact a reason?

This has a significant impact in driving persecution and hatred of Jews.

As someone who has practiced martial arts and studied human psychology, let me ask: what kind of person is the biggest target for muggers and bullies? That’s right, the ones who look weak and give off a vibe of vulnerability. Muggers, and certainly bullies, do not pick on those they feel will fight back, look confident and are perceived as strong.

So why, when anyone says anything that’s non-PC against Jews, do we jump up and down and demand an instant, even if fake, apology? It’s a bit like an annoying tell-tale school kid who constantly whines to the teacher. No one likes that sort of irritating “grass’, and it’s this behaviour that only exacerbates people’s dislike of Jews.

All the so-called community leaders like the Jewish Leadership Council and Board of Deputies do, apart from indulge in continual self-massage of their over-inflated egos, is demand apologies from every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Is playing the perennial victim going to help in the goal of being treated as an equal? Of course not.

We now have a body called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. What a largely pointless organisation it must be if it wastes time and energy practicing well-versed victimhood by snitching to the teacher to demand an apology for every minor misdemeanour.

No wonder we Jews are easy targets. For instance, do I care when someone talks about the powerful Jewish lobby? No. I’m actually rather proud of the influence we have considering our small numbers.

Did I care when Ken Livingstone likened a journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard? Not really. I know well enough Red Ken is no friend of ours, so ignore, and don’t give him attention he doesn’t deserve.

In the same way I take issue when Israeli leaders still jump up and down that the Palestinians and many others won’t recognise our right to exist. What? That’s their problem. We exist and will continue to do so, so let them get used to it.

There’s an old saying: ”You can’t change the world, but you can certainly change yourself”. If we play the victim less, and instead, walk tall and proud, then perhaps people’s attitudes about us would change. (By the way, proud, does not mean arrogant, as those who do that are also doing the community no favours).

So-called community leaders are gutless and ineffective, and constant “he/ she must apologise” (often for very little) only makes people hate us more.

Recently, I heard the head of the Board of Deputies at a gathering of pro-Israel activists say Jeremy Corbyn must change! No he shouldn’t, and no he won’t. We must change – we must be stronger, proud, less over-sensitive, and hold our heads high, and not try and change those who are unchangeable, and never to be our friend.

If more of us did that, particularly the community leaders, (actually we wouldn’t need half of them any longer), then, just maybe, we’d be less of a target.

I have a motivational brand called Cojones, where I have identified the foundation of any form of success in any area of life is having Cojones, the Spanish slang for ‘balls’. In that regard, it really is time our community and representatives “grow a pair” in the fight of this age-old hatred, rather than doing a great job in promoting it by playing the constant victim.