If the #1 question in the Jewish world today is how to respond to the rise in Jew-hatred, perhaps the #1 mistake is that we’re fighting that hatred from a position of weakness.
That thought hit me last Sunday night as I watched comedian Elon Gold entertain the crowd at the American Jewish University gala honoring Harold Masor at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
As I saw Gold perform, it struck me that comedians may be the best fighters against Jew-hatred. They’re not like regular activists. They fight with attitude. They don’t play to argue, they play to win, or, if you prefer comic lingo, they aim to “kill.”
The activist way of fighting is typically to counter the hate with compelling arguments. Here is why what Israel is doing is not genocide; why Israel is not an apartheid state; why Israel has the right to exist and the right to defend itself and so on.
The problem is that even if we win all these arguments, the best we can hope for is to get back to zero, back to OK, Israel isn’t that bad and has a right to exist. But even if we could accomplish that, is that a worthy aspiration?
Not for comedians. Their game is to aim very high. They know how hard it is to make people laugh. They must compel us to surrender to their humor. That’s why comedians like to go for the jugular.
Imagine, then, if they applied that incisive skill to fighting Jew-hatred. Gold gave the crowd a little taste of that skill the other night. In the midst of a raucous act, when he got to the subject of Israel, he threw out this stunning idea:
“Instead of demonizing and vilifying Israel,” Gold said, “the world should be thanking Israel for being on the front lines in saving Western civilization and the free world.”
In that one idea, Gold captured a key mistake the Jewish world makes when fighting antisemitism: We don’t aim high enough. We settle for playing defense. Instead of aiming for the moon, we stay in the mud.
For a comedian like Gold who aims to kill, it’s not enough to not hate Israel. He’s telling the world that if you value everything Western civilization has to offer, Israel is worthy of your admiration and even gratitude.
That may sound crazy to the average person. Israel is accused of being genocidal colonizers and we counter that it’s really a gift to the world? For comedians, though, it’s not crazy at all. That is how they play. That is how they kill. They take a piece of truth and stun you with it.
If you harbor any doubts about the truth in Gold’s statement, you may want to check out Matthew Schultz’s review of Douglas Murray’s new book, “On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization,” in this week’s Journal.
The book chronicles how so much of the Jew-hatred and Israel bashing we’re seeing today is rooted in the growing movement to overthrow Western liberal democracy. Schultz quotes this passage in the book:
“The fact that… Western organizations such as ‘Queers for Palestine’ can support groups that would kill them is often described as ‘cognitive dissonance,’ but that is not accurate. Such groups are not ‘confused.’ They are simply betraying a completely different agenda. For them the most important thing is to support the revolutionary left and the overthrow of Western liberal democracy. Supporting armed Islamic movements that rape and murder and execute is a necessary condition to achieve this goal.”
So, when Gold says that “the world should be thanking Israel for being on the front lines in saving Western civilization and the free world,” he’s not just trying to shock us. He’s trying to shake us up.
What Gold is doing is a variation of a persuasion technique called “thinking past the sale.” In other words, it’s so obvious all those vile accusations against Israel are unworthy we can go right to the truth that matters. And that truth makes the bashing of Israel feel not just wrong but absurd.
After all, if Israel is on the front lines of saving Western civilization and the free world, isn’t it absurd to accuse it of things like genocide?
There are no silver bullets in the fight against the world’s oldest hatred. But as we continue the fight in myriad ways, it behooves us to also aim higher. Instead of settling for “we’re not that bad,” it may be time to elevate to “we’re that good.” That doesn’t mean Israel does everything right; it means a country fighting for the future of the West has tremendous value.
A “Thank you Israel” campaign would indeed shake up the world and throw haters off balance. That’s what comedians are good at. They throw curve balls. They shake things up. Given that we’re in a war right now, maybe it’s time we listen to those clever souls who make a living out of killing — even if it’s only in comedy clubs.
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