A disturbing pattern has emerged in contemporary Jewish political behavior. According to exit polls, approximately one-third of Jewish voters in New York City supported Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist candidate who has been vocally critical of Israel and reluctant to condemn Hamas terrorism. Survey data indicates that 16 percent of U.S. Jewish adults believe Hamas’s reasons for fighting Israel are valid. Reports suggest that roughly 12 percent of Jewish students at Columbia participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests. Multiple Jewish organizations including Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, Neturei Karta, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Jewdas, and Independent Jewish Voices have positioned themselves in opposition to Israel. Even segments of the Reform Jewish movement have adopted positions sympathetic to Israel’s critics.
They may not understand that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iranian regime explicitly seek their destruction.
This phenomenon is remarkable. It rivals “Queers for Palestine” in its apparent contradiction, a coalition that ignores Hamas’s brutal treatment of LGBTQ individuals in Gaza. The comparison is not hyperbolic. Both represent groups supporting movements that would, by their own stated principles, oppose or harm them.
Consider the absence of analogous behavior in other communities. One does not find undocumented immigrants cheering for ICE enforcement operations. It would be extraordinary to discover black Americans seeking membership in the Ku Klux Klan. During the Troubles, Irish Americans did not celebrate British policy in Northern Ireland. No descendant of the Aztecs sends charitable contributions to foundations honoring the Conquistadores.
Why, then, do a significant minority of Jews adopt political positions that appear contrary to their community’s interests and even survival?
We propose six hypotheses to explain this phenomenon.
Hypothesis One: Secular Jews Are Committed to Liberalism, Not Judaism
Most of these Jews are no longer Jewish in any lived sense, but liberals/leftists. Liberalism, and especially civil rights activism was, in effect, an accommodation secular Jews made with American life, a way to shed their ethnicity without reverting to religious orthodoxy. They largely retained their “Jewish” identities because doing so carried no penalty in America and even provided a certain aura of distinctiveness. Now liberalism, having shifted from equal rights to racial identity have turned on them, and they are just “white,” exploiting all of the privileges accruing thereto. As Jacob Savage wrote recently in Tablet, “American liberalism, our civic religion, has turned on us.” When the choice is forced upon them, they’re commitment is to liberalism, not Jewishness.
Hypothesis Two: Lack of Information
Perhaps these Jews simply lack awareness of the positions and goals of the movements they support. They may not have read the original Hamas covenant, which states: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’” They may not understand that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iranian regime explicitly seek their destruction.
We find this explanation insufficient. Jewish Americans are, as a demographic group, fairly well-educated and informed. They are disproportionately represented among professionals, academics, inventors, and intellectuals. The Ashkenazi Jewish population consistently scores among the highest on standardized measures of cognitive ability. It strains credulity to suggest that such a well-informed community simply fails to understand the positions of the groups they support.
Hypothesis Three: The Influence of Progressive Academia
Paradoxically, the high educational achievement of American Jews may contribute to their political positions. Jews are overrepresented not only among college graduates but among those with advanced degrees. And American academia, particularly at elite institutions, has become increasingly hostile to Israel.
The professoriate at major universities leans heavily toward progressive and leftist ideologies. Few major universities could pass what might be called the “ideological diversity test“: finding even 10 (not 10 percent, but 10 individuals) faculty members who identify as conservative or libertarian. This ideological monoculture has embraced a framework that categorizes Israel as a colonialist oppressor state and Palestinians as an oppressed indigenous population.
Through exposure to critical theory, postcolonial studies, and intersectionality frameworks, Jewish students and intellectuals have absorbed an analytical lens that casts Israel as the villain in the Middle East conflict. The concepts of affirmative action, DEI initiatives, and “decolonization” discourse have been applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in ways that delegitimize Israel’s existence. Jews who have spent years in this intellectual environment may have internalized these frameworks even when they contradict their own community’s interests.
Hypothesis Four: Universalist Ethics and Particularist Tensions
Jewish intellectual tradition has long emphasized universal ethical principles, justice for all peoples, and skepticism of tribal loyalties. The prophetic tradition called for justice even when it contradicted immediate national interests. Tikkun olam, the imperative to repair the world, has been interpreted by many progressive Jews as requiring support for all oppressed peoples.
This universalist ethical commitment can create a genuine tension. Some Jews believe that supporting Palestinian national aspirations, even while opposing Hamas, represents the consistent application of their values. They may distinguish between criticizing Israeli government policies and supporting Israel’s enemies, even if outside observers conflate the two positions.
However, this explanation fails to account for Jews who explicitly support Hamas or march alongside those calling for Israel’s elimination. There is a difference between advocating for Palestinian rights and supporting organizations committed to Jewish genocide, (though those lines are now increasingly blurred). The line has been crossed when Jews join movements that celebrate October 7th or chant “from the river to the sea.”
Hypothesis Five: A Modern Stockholm Syndrome
Jews constitute approximately 0.2 percent of the world’s population. Throughout history, they have been expelled from host countries, subjected to pogroms, and faced systematic persecution. The Holocaust represents only the next most recent and systematic attempt at their annihilation. Even today, Israel faces more United Nations condemnations than all other countries combined. In 2022, the UN General Assembly passed 15 resolutions against Israel compared to 13 against all other nations.
Numerous countries accuse Israel of war crimes and genocide. Antisemitism surges on both right and left. Jews face attacks on campuses, in North American and European cities, and online. The libertarian movement, once welcoming to Jewish intellectuals, now includes prominent voices that have turned against Israel and ostracized pro-Israel libertarians.
In this environment of near-universal hostility, some Jews may experience something analogous to Stockholm Syndrome. Feeling besieged, isolated, and vulnerable, they identify with their accusers. By joining the chorus against Israel, they hope to be seen as “the good Jews,” distinct from those deserving of hatred. It is a survival strategy born of fear.
Hypothesis Six: Anticipatory Appeasement
This hypothesis extends the previous one. Some Jews may calculate that antisemitic violence is inevitable and prepare for it through political positioning. They reason that when Hamas supporters or others come calling, they can point to their political credentials: “I voted progressive. I supported Mamdani. I marched with Palestinians. I wore the keffiyeh at campus protests. I was among the Harvard students who condemned Israel on October 8, 2023, before the IDF even responded.”
The implicit message: “I am one of the good ones. Pass over my door and find another Jew to attack.”
This strategy has historical precedent. The Association of German National Jews (Verband nationaldeutscher Juden), founded in 1921, had between 3,000 and 10,000 members who believed they could accommodate themselves to the Nazi regime. In a 1934 manifesto, they wrote: “We have always held the well-being of the German people and the fatherland, to which we feel inextricably linked, above our own well-being. Thus, we greeted the results of January 1933, even though it has brought hardship for us personally.“ They believed that by demonstrating loyalty to Germany and distinguishing themselves from Eastern European Jews, they would be spared persecution. They were not. The organization was dissolved in November 1935, its founder was arrested by the Gestapo, and most members and their families were ultimately murdered in the Holocaust.
A Pattern Without Precedent
These six hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. The phenomenon of Jewish anti-Zionism likely stems from multiple, overlapping causes. The influence of progressive academia combines with universalist ethical commitments. The psychological pressure of isolation and hostility intensifies the temptation toward appeasement.
What remains clear is that this political behavior is historically anomalous and potentially catastrophic. Jews supporting movements that explicitly call for their destruction represent a form of political self-sabotage without parallel in other communities. Whether driven by misguided political beliefs, miseducation, ideological commitment, psychological vulnerability, or calculated appeasement, the result is the same: Jews providing legitimacy and support to those who would destroy them.
The question is not whether these Jews have the right to hold these positions. In free societies, they certainly do. The question is whether they understand the historical pattern they are repeating and the consequences that have always followed.
READ MORE:
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It’s Not Fair! Disproportionate Deaths in the Middle East
, 2025-11-23 03:23:00, 
, The American Spectator | USA News and Politics, %%https://spectator.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://spectator.org/feed/, Walter E. Block
