It's religious conservatism, specifically Christianity, that is the source of antisemitism as we know it. It stems from Jewish people being blamed for killing Jesus. This has resulted in thousands of years of persecution of Jewish people throughout countries where Christianity is the dominant religion. Even the Islamic Middle East today picked it up from Christian Europe in late 19th century.
Wealthy Arabs started sending their children to European Universities to learn why they were so far ahead, but at this time the Enlightentment was nice and dead. The Universities were overrun with anti-reason villains, and so all they learnt was military marching bands, fascism, and, of course, antisemitism.
Nationalism is also an irrational and collectivist ideology, that is profoundly un-American and anti-Western, but it's not driving antisemitism.
Did anyone hear the interview Brett Cooper gave to Brian Inskeep on NPR on December 10? Girlie got such softball questions vis a vis Fuentes and antisemitism and equivocated with the best of them. What a damaging personality and person. I wish she would’ve kept “Gen Z” out of her mouth.
Inskeep wrote:
When asked if she agrees with Fuentes' claim that "Jewish gangsters" control the country, Cooper said, "Not really," though she added, "I am concerned about the impact of Israel in our country."
She said she did not "agree with Nick Fuentes on everything," but largely didn't criticize him. "I don't think I need to sit here and condemn anyone either way."
The question I always ask is "why is anyone listening to people like Cooper, Fuentes, etc?"
There's no field in which you would engage unemployed, unqualified randoms, who happen to have loud opinions about topics they know nothing about. But then when it comes to politics, suddenly we drop all standards for some reason.
Yoram Hazony might claim that he's been "amazed by the depth of the slander of Jews as a people that there’s been online the last year and a half" -- but he shouldn't be surprised. More likely, he's being disingenuous -- and so, too, is the author of this article. The problem is deeper (and the distinctions are skewed differently) than either of them fully acknowledge.
Hazony has made a point of opposing all varieties of universalism (including liberalism) -- which he views as a symptom of "empire." His brand of Zionism -- rooted in ethnonationalism -- has little sympathy (and ultimately, little place in its world) for universalist, Diaspora Jews.
We Jews face a deeper dilemma than either Hazony or Somin might be willing to acknowledge. Either we embrace the notion that self-determination is an individual right -- and that the State exists to provide equal protection to all people, regardless of ethnicity (including Jewish people, as individuals) -- or we embrace a notion of (collective) "self-determination" in a State that exists explicitly to provide protection to "THE Jewish People."
We can't have it both ways. This doesn't mean that by embracing liberalism, we cease to be Jews; it merely means that we're people (as individuals) in the political realm -- as members of a polity -- free to pursue our multi-faceted identities (including those we pursue as "members of 'a People'") in civil society.
Here's how it works:
Israel has a right to exist, and Jews have a right to live in our entire ancient homeland (from the river to the sea!) -- but not necessarily in a "Jewish State." "Next year in Jerusalem" doesn't require a demand for "Jewish sovereignty" or a "Jewish State" upon our Return. (FWIW, I'm equally opposed to any ethnonationalist "Palestine" whose very raison d'etre [and distinction from Israel] is "Jews not welcome here.")
In other words -- as opposed to Hazony -- Israel has a right to exist -- as a liberal democracy. If we've learned anything worthwhile about statecraft in 2,000 years of wandering the globe (most recently in America), THAT's a homeland worth defending.
But then, Hazony is part of a long-standing, particular (and particularistic) Jewish tradition. After all, these are the sorts of folks who excommunicated Spinoza, and they have little use for the insights of a Jewish liberal like Isaiah Berlin.
"Jewish sovereignty," my ass!
"Israel" and "Palestine" are the same (home)land -- embroiled in a bloody civil war, from the river to the sea -- and Israel needs a Lincoln.
PS: Liberal democracy and emancipation (as a manifestation of Enlightenment universalism) have provided the very situation in which Jewish Americans have flourished (even as a minority), both as Americans and as Jews.
I haven't given up on America -- at least not yet. But if Hazony's notion of "national conservatism" (side-by-side with "progressive" identity politics) fully takes hold in America (as I fear might well occur) -- and if American Jews must flee to Israel -- we'll be bringing our liberal notions of individualism and pluralism with us (along with our recognition of how "collective rights" [AKA the Oppression Olympics] ruined America).
Of course, with such an influx of Jews, full-fledged liberal democracy (as opposed to an ethno-state) will no longer pose a "demographic threat." If America has failed, perhaps it will then be up to us Jews to show the world how different people can get along.
It could be a liberal democracy with the right of return for Jews enshrined in its constitution, and a commitment to protecting the Jewish diaspora, but otherwise protective of multiculturalism and pluralism.
Israel has a right to exist, and Jews have a right to live in our entire ancient homeland (from the river to the sea!) -- but not necessarily in a "Jewish State."
Does Saudia Arabia have a right to exist as a "Muslim State"? How about Great Britain as an "Anglican State"? Or Poland as a "Catholic State"? Are you even aware how many countries have an official religion, or is just Israel that can't have one? And who the hell are you to decide what kind of country Israel, or any other country, can be?
Actually, no -- I don't recognize the legitimacy of an "Arab Republic" any more than that of a "Jewish State." (In that regard, too bad that Israel has evidently chosen to emulate its ethno-state neighbors rather than the US.)
And as a Jewish person (living in a liberal democracy), I have a stake in the ramifications of Israel's self-characterization as a Jewish State. What gives you (or Israel) any right to tell me that I don't?
As for religion? Who gets to control the Temple Mount? IMHO, that won't be settled until al-Aqsa (or whatever building is left standing) is emblazoned with the words, "My House shall be a House of Prayer for all People."
Remote as that prospect might seem, it sure beats the "solution" suggested by an atheist friend: "Nuke Jerusalem!"
Oh you’re more than allowed to think whatever moronic things you want. But I do hope that you realize that your ability to confer legitimacy in any meaningful way is, well, its limited.
Oh, just as an aside, you should look up the various Tshuvas on the name of God in electronic “writing” and whether the hyphen is necessary. If I had to guess, you align with those who hold that its not.
What gives me the right to confer legitimacy? Maybe I should have answered "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God." Since the name's contained within a quote, I can spell it as per the original.
In any event, before you bite that apple, it might behoove you to remember that there's a reason the Name in question can't be reduced to (and operates beyond) language: It's the sound of one hand clapping. We don't own G-d; G-d owns us.
Meanwhile, I've had the decency to refrain from calling your beliefs "moronic." It would only be decent for you to reciprocate. :-)
Well done, Ilya. Tiny criticism: Franco’s Spain was not a “fascist” regime. Franco loathed every modern ideology, including fascism. (I’m not defending Franco or conservative authoritarianism — just arguing that he/it was not fascist, per se.)
Sharp analysis linking nationalism to antisemitism through zero-sum thinking. The connection between viewing success as inevitably harming the majority and then defaulting to conspriacy theories to explain it is pretty revealing. When ethnic particularism becomes the defining lens, it seems almsot inevitable that groups like Jews who succeed disproportionately become targets.
Extrapolate forward in time. What happens when every white person intermarries with a nonwhite person, as will inevitably happen in the not-so-distant future without population controls?
The European race will cease to exist, diluted into genetic incoherence and erased from the story of humanity. All the ethnic diversity of our planet's peoples will be homogenized into one undifferentiating shade of brown.
The very people who cheer for "diversity" are the ones pursuing the exact policies that would permanently eradicate it.
Well, I am definitely not cool with the prospect of my race ceasing to exist in the future — a preference shared by the vast majority of humanity, outside of one small faction of the self-hating anti-white left.
If the "vast majority" have that preference, it seems like you wouldn't have to worry about intermarriage. No one is forcing them to marry and have kids.
The problem is, that vast majority does not include white people. So if current trends continue every other race will have their races preserved except mine.
It's religious conservatism, specifically Christianity, that is the source of antisemitism as we know it. It stems from Jewish people being blamed for killing Jesus. This has resulted in thousands of years of persecution of Jewish people throughout countries where Christianity is the dominant religion. Even the Islamic Middle East today picked it up from Christian Europe in late 19th century.
Wealthy Arabs started sending their children to European Universities to learn why they were so far ahead, but at this time the Enlightentment was nice and dead. The Universities were overrun with anti-reason villains, and so all they learnt was military marching bands, fascism, and, of course, antisemitism.
Nationalism is also an irrational and collectivist ideology, that is profoundly un-American and anti-Western, but it's not driving antisemitism.
I assume that there will be one about antisemitism from the left coming soon.
Did anyone hear the interview Brett Cooper gave to Brian Inskeep on NPR on December 10? Girlie got such softball questions vis a vis Fuentes and antisemitism and equivocated with the best of them. What a damaging personality and person. I wish she would’ve kept “Gen Z” out of her mouth.
Inskeep wrote:
When asked if she agrees with Fuentes' claim that "Jewish gangsters" control the country, Cooper said, "Not really," though she added, "I am concerned about the impact of Israel in our country."
She said she did not "agree with Nick Fuentes on everything," but largely didn't criticize him. "I don't think I need to sit here and condemn anyone either way."
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/10/nx-s1-5630495/brett-cooper-youtube-conservative-gen-z-influencers
The question I always ask is "why is anyone listening to people like Cooper, Fuentes, etc?"
There's no field in which you would engage unemployed, unqualified randoms, who happen to have loud opinions about topics they know nothing about. But then when it comes to politics, suddenly we drop all standards for some reason.
Yoram Hazony might claim that he's been "amazed by the depth of the slander of Jews as a people that there’s been online the last year and a half" -- but he shouldn't be surprised. More likely, he's being disingenuous -- and so, too, is the author of this article. The problem is deeper (and the distinctions are skewed differently) than either of them fully acknowledge.
Hazony has made a point of opposing all varieties of universalism (including liberalism) -- which he views as a symptom of "empire." His brand of Zionism -- rooted in ethnonationalism -- has little sympathy (and ultimately, little place in its world) for universalist, Diaspora Jews.
We Jews face a deeper dilemma than either Hazony or Somin might be willing to acknowledge. Either we embrace the notion that self-determination is an individual right -- and that the State exists to provide equal protection to all people, regardless of ethnicity (including Jewish people, as individuals) -- or we embrace a notion of (collective) "self-determination" in a State that exists explicitly to provide protection to "THE Jewish People."
We can't have it both ways. This doesn't mean that by embracing liberalism, we cease to be Jews; it merely means that we're people (as individuals) in the political realm -- as members of a polity -- free to pursue our multi-faceted identities (including those we pursue as "members of 'a People'") in civil society.
Here's how it works:
Israel has a right to exist, and Jews have a right to live in our entire ancient homeland (from the river to the sea!) -- but not necessarily in a "Jewish State." "Next year in Jerusalem" doesn't require a demand for "Jewish sovereignty" or a "Jewish State" upon our Return. (FWIW, I'm equally opposed to any ethnonationalist "Palestine" whose very raison d'etre [and distinction from Israel] is "Jews not welcome here.")
In other words -- as opposed to Hazony -- Israel has a right to exist -- as a liberal democracy. If we've learned anything worthwhile about statecraft in 2,000 years of wandering the globe (most recently in America), THAT's a homeland worth defending.
But then, Hazony is part of a long-standing, particular (and particularistic) Jewish tradition. After all, these are the sorts of folks who excommunicated Spinoza, and they have little use for the insights of a Jewish liberal like Isaiah Berlin.
"Jewish sovereignty," my ass!
"Israel" and "Palestine" are the same (home)land -- embroiled in a bloody civil war, from the river to the sea -- and Israel needs a Lincoln.
PS: Liberal democracy and emancipation (as a manifestation of Enlightenment universalism) have provided the very situation in which Jewish Americans have flourished (even as a minority), both as Americans and as Jews.
I haven't given up on America -- at least not yet. But if Hazony's notion of "national conservatism" (side-by-side with "progressive" identity politics) fully takes hold in America (as I fear might well occur) -- and if American Jews must flee to Israel -- we'll be bringing our liberal notions of individualism and pluralism with us (along with our recognition of how "collective rights" [AKA the Oppression Olympics] ruined America).
Of course, with such an influx of Jews, full-fledged liberal democracy (as opposed to an ethno-state) will no longer pose a "demographic threat." If America has failed, perhaps it will then be up to us Jews to show the world how different people can get along.
So what else is new?
It could be a liberal democracy with the right of return for Jews enshrined in its constitution, and a commitment to protecting the Jewish diaspora, but otherwise protective of multiculturalism and pluralism.
Israel has a right to exist, and Jews have a right to live in our entire ancient homeland (from the river to the sea!) -- but not necessarily in a "Jewish State."
Does Saudia Arabia have a right to exist as a "Muslim State"? How about Great Britain as an "Anglican State"? Or Poland as a "Catholic State"? Are you even aware how many countries have an official religion, or is just Israel that can't have one? And who the hell are you to decide what kind of country Israel, or any other country, can be?
Actually, no -- I don't recognize the legitimacy of an "Arab Republic" any more than that of a "Jewish State." (In that regard, too bad that Israel has evidently chosen to emulate its ethno-state neighbors rather than the US.)
And as a Jewish person (living in a liberal democracy), I have a stake in the ramifications of Israel's self-characterization as a Jewish State. What gives you (or Israel) any right to tell me that I don't?
As for religion? Who gets to control the Temple Mount? IMHO, that won't be settled until al-Aqsa (or whatever building is left standing) is emblazoned with the words, "My House shall be a House of Prayer for all People."
Remote as that prospect might seem, it sure beats the "solution" suggested by an atheist friend: "Nuke Jerusalem!"
What gives you the right to confer legitimacy?
My conscience (and continued existence) as a human being -- both of which are ultimately (as they are for us all) a gift from G-d.
And what gives you the right to deny that?
Oh you’re more than allowed to think whatever moronic things you want. But I do hope that you realize that your ability to confer legitimacy in any meaningful way is, well, its limited.
Oh, just as an aside, you should look up the various Tshuvas on the name of God in electronic “writing” and whether the hyphen is necessary. If I had to guess, you align with those who hold that its not.
What gives me the right to confer legitimacy? Maybe I should have answered "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God." Since the name's contained within a quote, I can spell it as per the original.
In any event, before you bite that apple, it might behoove you to remember that there's a reason the Name in question can't be reduced to (and operates beyond) language: It's the sound of one hand clapping. We don't own G-d; G-d owns us.
Meanwhile, I've had the decency to refrain from calling your beliefs "moronic." It would only be decent for you to reciprocate. :-)
Well done, Ilya. Tiny criticism: Franco’s Spain was not a “fascist” regime. Franco loathed every modern ideology, including fascism. (I’m not defending Franco or conservative authoritarianism — just arguing that he/it was not fascist, per se.)
Sharp analysis linking nationalism to antisemitism through zero-sum thinking. The connection between viewing success as inevitably harming the majority and then defaulting to conspriacy theories to explain it is pretty revealing. When ethnic particularism becomes the defining lens, it seems almsot inevitable that groups like Jews who succeed disproportionately become targets.
White ethnic cleansing is your sister marrying a Mexican guy. Lol.
Extrapolate forward in time. What happens when every white person intermarries with a nonwhite person, as will inevitably happen in the not-so-distant future without population controls?
The European race will cease to exist, diluted into genetic incoherence and erased from the story of humanity. All the ethnic diversity of our planet's peoples will be homogenized into one undifferentiating shade of brown.
The very people who cheer for "diversity" are the ones pursuing the exact policies that would permanently eradicate it.
It's kind of weird to think about but I'm cool with people doing what they want.
Well, I am definitely not cool with the prospect of my race ceasing to exist in the future — a preference shared by the vast majority of humanity, outside of one small faction of the self-hating anti-white left.
If the "vast majority" have that preference, it seems like you wouldn't have to worry about intermarriage. No one is forcing them to marry and have kids.
The problem is, that vast majority does not include white people. So if current trends continue every other race will have their races preserved except mine.