John Brose recently argued:
It is difficult to overstate how historically loaded that sentence is.
This is not a new claim. It is one of the oldest accusations ever levelled against the Jewish people. It has surfaced in pagan Rome, medieval Europe, Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, and in parts of the modern Middle East. It has justified expulsions, pogroms, ghettos, forced conversions, blood libels, and genocide.
The pattern is strikingly consistent: Jews are mistreated. Jews are hated. Jews are attacked. And somehow, Jews are blamed for causing it.
The Scapegoat Mechanism
The French thinker René Girard described the “scapegoat mechanism” – under stress, societies displace internal tensions onto a minority and then construct moral justifications for why that group “deserved” it.
The accusation that antisemitism is caused by “Jewish behaviour” is a textbook example of this mechanism. It reframes hatred not as a prejudice in the mind of the hater, but as a rational response to the alleged flaws of the hated.
The victim becomes the cause.
History Refutes the Claim
If antisemitism were caused by “Jewish behaviour,” we would expect consistency in the charges. Instead, the accusations contradict each other across time and geography.
In medieval Christian Europe, Jews were accused of being poor, dirty, insular, and clannish.
In 19th-century Germany and Austria, Jews were accused of being wealthy, powerful, cosmopolitan manipulators of finance and media.
In Tsarist Russia, Jews were portrayed as revolutionary Bolsheviks undermining the state.
In Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, Jews were simultaneously blamed for capitalism and communism, decadence and subversion, weakness and domination.
These charges cannot all be true in the way they are asserted – as defining traits of an entire people. What they reveal is not Jewish behaviour, but projection.
Antisemitism adapts to its environment. Jews are blamed for whatever a society fears most at a given moment.
The Logic of Collective Guilt
To say “Jewish behaviour” causes antisemitism is to apply collective guilt to an entire people.
Would anyone say that racism against Māori is caused by “Māori behaviour”?
Would anyone argue that Islamophobia is caused by “Muslim behaviour”?
Rape is not excused by citing the victim’s attire.
We rightly reject such claims as racist and morally grotesque.
Yet when it comes to Jews, some still feel comfortable asserting that hatred toward them is self-inflicted.
This is not criticism of policies. It is not a debate about geopolitics. It is the assertion that Jews, as Jews, are responsible for the prejudice directed at them.
That is not policy critique. It is antisemitism.
The Post–October 7 Reality
After the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas, Jewish communities around the world experienced a surge in threats, vandalism, harassment, and violence — including in New Zealand.
Were Jewish schoolchildren in Auckland responsible? Were Jewish pensioners in Wellington responsible? Were synagogues in Melbourne or New York responsible?
Blaming antisemitism on “Jewish behaviour” in this context reveals something chilling: the willingness to hold every Jew on earth accountable for the actions of a state — or, more precisely, to treat Jewish existence itself as provocation.
A Standard Not Applied to Anyone Else
Few other minorities are so readily told that the hatred they face is their own fault.
When Black Americans were lynched in the Jim Crow South, serious people did not say the “leading cause” was Black behaviour. When Asian communities were attacked during COVID, responsible voices did not say Asian behaviour caused it.
We understand that prejudice originates in the prejudiced.
To exempt Jews from this moral clarity is not a courageous truth-telling exercise. It is an ancient pattern.
Criticism Is Not the Issue
Let us be clear: criticism of Israeli government policy is legitimate. Israelis themselves debate their government vigorously.
But blaming global antisemitism on “Jewish behaviour” is not policy critique. It is collective condemnation.
It shifts moral responsibility from the aggressor to the target.
That move — subtle but deadly — has followed Jews for two thousand years.
The Danger of This Narrative
The idea that Jews cause antisemitism has never ended with rhetoric. Historically, it has paved the way for discrimination and violence by reframing persecution as self-defence.
It is the logic behind:
- “They brought it on themselves.”
- “If they would just behave differently…”
- “People wouldn’t hate them if…”
That logic does not reduce hatred. It legitimises it.
The Simple Truth
Antisemitism is caused by antisemites.
It is caused by conspiracy thinking. It is caused by ideological extremism. It is caused by the refusal to see Jews as individuals rather than as a collective abstraction.
Blaming Jews for antisemitism is not a bold insight. It is the recycling of one of the oldest lies in Western history.
And it remains as dangerous now as it has ever been.
