The Jew as the Eternal Scapegoat

Micha Danzig examines here the role of the Jew as eternal scapegoat, through history and still, alas, today.

There is a pattern that appears repeatedly across European and Middle Eastern history — especially when ordinary people feel the ground beneath them shifting in ways they cannot control.

Economic instability. Political fragmentation. War. Technological upheaval. Institutional distrust. Fear of decline.

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And then comes the search for a “villain” large enough to explain the feeling.

For centuries, Jews have repeatedly served that role.

Not because Jews uniquely possessed power. Every era had monarchs, aristocracies, industrial and military elites, clergy and political machines that were certainly not Jewish. But Jews repeatedly occupied a different role in the political imagination: the hidden hand. The mysterious “they” supposedly behind events.

We saw it in medieval Europe and throughout history, and the phenomenon intensified in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jews were depicted at once as hyper-capitalist exploiters and anti-capitalist revolutionaries, and also as rootless cosmopolitans and clannish infiltrators.

The accusations were incoherent because coherence was never the point. Jews became a civilizational scapegoat onto which societies projected their anxieties during periods of instability and decline.

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The same pattern later emerged across parts of the Arab world following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Which brings us to the reaction surrounding Thomas Massie’s electoral defeat in Kentucky.

To be clear, criticism of lobbying organizations – including AIPAC – is entirely legitimate within democratic politics. AIPAC did spend enormous sums on the race. So do many other powerful interest groups across American politics, including over $5.5 million by pro-Massie Super PACS.

But the reaction online frequently moved far beyond ordinary criticism of lobbying, campaign spending, or foreign-policy influence.

The discussion did not remain confined to conventional arguments about money in politics. It metastasized almost instantly into something much older and more familiar.

“Israel controls Congress.”

“Jews buy American elections.”

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“Kentucky chose Israel over America.”

“The Zionists own Washington.”…

Particularly alarming was rhetoric from prominent political influencers like Cenk Uygur, whose post-Massie commentary generally sounded less like electoral analysis and more like political demagoguery against “the Israel lobby” as an embedded enemy within the American system itself.

In perhaps the most inflammatory example, Uygur responded to Massie’s defeat by declaring that America is now effectively “occupied,” that “Israel controls our government,” and that politicians who support Israel are not “actual Americans” but rather “servants of Israel.” He urged Americans to “fight” to “free America from Israel’s control,” describing the struggle in revolutionary and quasi-national liberation terms.

This was not ordinary criticism of lobbying, campaign finance, or foreign policy….

Maureen Galindo, the leading Democratic congressional candidate emerging from the March primary in Texas’s 35th Congressional District, publicly fantasized about using ICE detention camps for “Zionists.”

And then came Massie himself.

In his concession speech, Massie “joked” that he had difficulty reaching his opponent – a retired Navy SEAL and Kentucky farmer – because the man was “in Tel Aviv.” The implication was obvious.

But the reality is that there were entirely rational explanations for Massie’s defeat that required no theories about Jewish or “Zionist” control over America….

And that broader context matters because we are once again living through one of those periods of historical turbulence in which conspiracy thinking flourishes.

Artificial intelligence threatens industries and professional classes. Institutional trust is collapsing. Young people increasingly doubt they will live better than their parents. Social cohesion is weakening across much of the West.

Across Europe, social cohesion is weakening primarily because of the tens of millions of Muslims now in these countries who as the “best of peoples” (Qur’an 3:110) have no desire to integrate into a society that was created by Infidels, who are “the most vile of created beings.” (Qur’an 98:6).

Jews do not control the world. If they did, they would have prevented the Holocaust. They can’t be both all-powerful and vulnerable to mass murder. They are not a sinister enemy working from within to undermine our wellbeing; everywhere they have been given a chance to thrive, which means the West, they have contributed economically, politically, and above all, culturally, to the wellbeing of the countries where they are citizens. They are entitled, like everyone else, to prefer and support one candidate over another, and Tom Massie’s nasty little joke about wanting to congratulate his opponent on his win, if only he can locate his whereabouts “in Tel Aviv,” should not obscure the fact that that there were many reasons to oppose Massie, though his animus toward Israel was undeniably one of them. Is he suggesting that Jews are sinister because they dare to support candidates who are friendly to the Jewish state and to reject those who are hostile? Why?