Reports surfaced last week that stuxnet, the computer virus mysteriously implanted in the computers running Iran's nuclear sites, is still wreaking havoc, despite claims by Teheran that it has been contained. No one knows for sure how much damage is being done, or if it can be stopped, or who in the first place infected Iran's mass-death program — but Israel is a prime suspect. When it was found that the name of a key file in the computer worm's code is easily a cognate for Queen Esther, many imagined that the Jewish genius who delivered the poison pill to the Persian plotters did it while poetically recapitulating the Purim story — in malware. Compared to that feat, the wiki-leaks gambit is child's play, simple pilferage.

But even if this is true, and Jewish technological genius can thwart or mitigate a looming disaster — just as her military genius has done in the past — we cannot afford a truly needed rest, because the sobering reality is that Jewish technological and military prowess has proved inadequate, necessary but not sufficient, to safeguarding Israel. For her long-term security, what matters is how the Jewish state is viewed and valued in the world, especially in the Jewish community, and the skill set required for this fight — what we now called "the information war" — seems congenitally absent from the Jewish collective. Far from being geniuses, when it comes to rhetorical combat with Israel's defamers, or creating a culture of discourse that is honest and fair, world Jewry seems, tragically, imbecilic. Compared to almost every nation on earth, but particularly compared to her adversaries and accusers, Israel is a stellar state. Yet she is branded and portrayed in the media, on campuses, and in increasing swaths of civil society in the West, as among the cruelest of nations. How can this be?

I think the dynamic is something akin to the virus that flummoxes Iran's computers. Jews may be susceptible to a particular type of rhetorical virus — so devastating that once implanted it prevents them from acting in their own self-defense and turns otherwise eloquent people into stuttering blockheads. The worm is simple, and ancient. It's called "accusation." Accuse the Jews. Accuse them unfairly and with such disproportionate frequency that anyone who wishes to can see there's an agenda at work that has little to do with the actual charges raised. Accuse the Jews and they instinctively, like moths fly to candles, do the stupidest: they start believing they can cleverly explain themselves, and convince their accusers of their innocence and goodness. Powerful stuff, this cognitive malware.[...]

I bring this up because the Jewish Week's editor, Julie Wiener just reported that the major Israel Advocacy organizations have done a major re-think and are now calling for a “more open, critical approach to teaching about Jewish state." “Even centrist players," Weiner wrote, “like Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the David Project and people in the Jewish federation system are calling for more open, critical discussions about Israel." Why? Because much of our youth feels that Israel Advocacy as it is now taught, makes them “check their liberalism at Zionism's door."

And so, rather than lose the kids who have fantasy notions about international politics, Jewish educators now think (I'm hoping Weiner got it wrong) students shouldn't be advocates for Israel, but referees or judges in the Middle East contest. Their lessons will no longer be: "Israel is imperfect but fundamentally right, and the obstacle to peace is nothing more and nothing less than the Arab/Islamic refusal to abide Jewish sovereignty." Instead it will be "on the one hand the Israelis say 'x,' and on the other hand, the Palestinians say 'y'." "Can't we all get along?"

So the net result is that the radical leftist professors and the growing Muslim student population are permitted to be advocates and propagandists for the Arabs while Jewish students rise above the fray to contemplate the conflict. The vast student body will still only receive a mostly one sided version which will demonize Israel and so the next generation of American leadership will be less likely to empathize with the Jewish State — like the man in the White House.

But what's really happened in the discourse is that authentic Jewish liberalism has been anesthetized, paralyzed — not by Zionism, but by anti-Zionism. By the "accuse the Jews" worm, inserted into the discourse, that paralyses the Jewish instinct to fight the good fight. Infected, Jewish students forget the ideals and the history of valiant battling for a universal standard of human conduct, of fighting for precisely those victims abandoned by the "civilized world."

Instead of explaining to our students the dynamic of "accusation" that has been used to hobble Jews from time immemorial, we teach them to sit in the dock. Instead of exploring with them just how Israel is under a massive ideological assault which masquerades as legitimate criticism, we teach them to keep the focus of discourse Jewish conduct, Israeli behavior, which is exactly what our adversaries want. Instead of turning our fingers back on the tyrannical Arab/Muslim world whose criticism of Israel defines chutzpah, we answer their charges. Instead of exposing the hypocritical Western liberal elites — the "human rights" establishment, the media, and the professoriate — who have abandoned for reasons of political correctness whole classes of people in the worst of circumstances: women, gays, apostates, Christians, democrats in the Islamic realm — we accept playing the role of defendant. In other words, instead of making the subject of this entire discussion the actual world tyrannies and the execrable Western hypocrites who aim to destroy us, we are bitten by the "accusation" virus, and we simply lose our minds.

In 1911, Jabotinsky had it perfectly right. "Every accusation causes among us such a commotion that people unwittingly think, 'why are they so afraid of everything? Apparently their conscience is not clear.'" Exactly because we are ready at every minute to stand at attention, there develops among the people an inescapable view about us, as of some specific thievish tribe. We think that our constant readiness to undergo a search without hesitation and to turn out our pockets, will eventually convince mankind of our nobility; look what gentlemen we are — we do not have anything to hide! This is a terrible mistake." You'd think all the smart Jews would've figured that out by now.
 

Charles Jacobs is president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance. Previously, he was co-founder and director of the David Project. In 2004, the David Project produced a film documenting the intimidation and harassment of pro-Israel students by Arab professors at Columbia University. Few Jewish faculty at Columbia openly backed the students.

This article appeared in the Boston Jewish Advocate and was posted December 14th, 2010 in UCI

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