Scapegoat – Blame Is Easier Than Truth
Every civilization eventually learns that solving problems is difficult.
Finding someone to blame is easy.
History is filled with societies convinced that complicated problems can be explained by a single, convenient answer.
Economic decline.
Political division.
Crime.
Inflation.
Housing.
War.
Social change.
Find one villain.
Everything else becomes remarkably simple.
For more than two thousand years, the Jewish people have served that purpose with astonishing regularity.
When plague came, they poisoned the wells.
When economies failed, they controlled the money.
When revolutions erupted, they were the capitalists.
When capitalism succeeded, they became the communists.
When nations lost wars, they were traitors.
When nations won wars, they became imperialists.
The accusation changes.
The target rarely does.
That is history’s first warning.
This does not have to belong to one political party.
It does not have to belong to one movement.
It belongs to a habit.
A dangerous habit.
When one nation or one people becomes the universal explanation for a society’s unrelated problems, history tells us we should recognize the warning signs.
Scapegoating has never required evidence.
Only repetition.
The Black Death found its scapegoat.
European pogroms found their scapegoat.
The Soviet Union found its scapegoat.
Hitler did not invent the scapegoat.
He inherited one that Europe had been cultivating for centuries.
He simply demonstrated how catastrophic that habit could become when an entire society accepted blame in place of reason.
Many believed that lesson had finally been learned.
History has a habit of disappointing optimists.
Today, criticism of Israel is commonplace.
So is disagreement with its governments.
Healthy societies thrive upon honest debate.
What should concern us is when Israel ceases to be one issue among many and becomes the explanation for everything.
When inflation becomes Israel.
When housing becomes Israel.
When education becomes Israel.
When social injustice becomes Israel.
When foreign policy becomes Israel.
The issue is not even Israel.
The issue is the reappearance of a familiar historical pattern.
Antisemitism.
The Democratic Socialists of America did not invent that pattern.
But when Israel becomes the recurring answer to an ever-expanding list of unrelated grievances, the movement is no longer merely criticizing a nation.
It is repeating one of history’s oldest political habits. We have seen this before.
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Images courtesy of The Witness Ledger
Posts not related to Israel can be viewed at https://substack.com/@steventeplitsky
