The article argues that the
current wave of anti-Israeli paranoia in the West constitutes neither
an outbreak of visceral anti-Semitism nor a legitimate response to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it stems from the need to
present an overarching “explanation” of history. Western anti-Semitism
is not an ethnic prejudice but a philosophy of history that uses the
Jews as a metaphor for the underlying causes of historical events. The
meanings attached to this metaphor are multiple and often
contradictory. But what matters is that Israel can never be seen
simply as a country, or the Jews simply as a people. Because of the
long tradition of metaphysical speculations intertwined with
references to the Jewish “enigma”, the Jews, and now Israel, are
always read as a sign of some deeper historical processes and not
merely in terms of their own actions. The article compares Israel to
the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 19th-century novel
The Scarlet Letter, forced to wear a sign imbued with multiple
meanings by her community. Israeli culture has lost its ability to
cope with the metaphorical dimension of Jewish experience. Thus, it is
incapable of understanding the complex ways in which Israel is being
engaged in the contemporary debate over globalization and American
hegemony.
