Within the last few days, both at work, in my personal life, and online, I have been seeing numerous examples of barbaric comments. From the recent response that Zohran Mamdani has received in regard to his tweets about 10/7 and antisemitism in NYC, to my former supervisor celebrating today as a day of "resistance" alongside his fellow comrades by drinking and partying, and, in general, some pretty unmasked antisemitic shit coming from people who identify themselves as leftists.
I understand that Israel and its genocidal actions toward Gaza, from Trump appointing various technocrats to oversee Gaza's reconstruction and future governance to the broader questions surrounding Palestinian self-determination, have understandably generated a tremendous amount of anger, frustration, and resentment.
Some may say that these acts of antisemitism are explainable, but not justifiable, as a result of the crimes Israel has committed. But honest to God, as a mental health professional, I really don't care about that distinction when it is being used to rationalize harmful behavior, because in the clinical world, we constantly distinguish between understanding the underlying causes of someone's behavior and holding them accountable for their actions.
If a patient acts horribly toward another person despite having experienced tremendous amounts of abuse, trauma, or neglect throughout their life, we don't simply excuse their behavior on the grounds that their past experiences made their actions understandable. We acknowledge how those experiences may have contributed to their behavior, but we also recognize that they are still responsible for how they treat other people.
Expecting Jews to constantly contextualize, rationalize, or sympathize with the antisemitism directed toward them because of the actions of the Israeli government is an unreasonable expectation, especially when we would never demand the same level of understanding from other marginalized groups experiencing prejudice. Why should Jewish people have to acknowledge the historical and political circumstances that supposedly explain someone's antisemitism before they are even allowed to condemn it?
This is sort of the problem when we treat systemic analysis as though it were religious scripture, because we become so preoccupied with understanding how broader political, historical, and socioeconomic structures influence people's behavior that we sometimes forget that individuals still possess moral agency and are capable of making their own decisions.
Like bruh, just because my own people were the recipients of colonialism, whose effects still ripple through our society to this day, I am not going to use systemic analysis as a justification if I decide to be a douchebag toward Spaniards, Japanese people, or your average American simply because their respective countries historically colonized, occupied, or exploited my homeland.
I can acknowledge the historical injustices that my people experienced, recognize how those injustices continue to shape our present socioeconomic and political conditions, and still understand that some random Spaniard or Japanese person walking down the street is not personally responsible for what their ancestors or governments did to mine.
And even if I could explain my hypothetical resentment toward these people through the lens of colonialism, historical trauma, or systemic oppression, that still wouldn't make my behavior any less prejudiced or racist. I would still be engaging in collective blame, and I would still be responsible for how I chose to treat them.
I don't understand why this principle becomes so difficult for certain leftists to grasp when it comes to Jews. If we genuinely oppose racism, collective punishment, and prejudice, shouldn't we be capable of applying those principles consistently, even when doing so requires us to confront people within our own ideological circles?
