Naturally, it goes without saying that, like any self-respecting \u2018self-hater\u2019, I don\u2019t regard myself as such. Rather, I believe that many of the people who fire off accusations of self-loathing are usually self-righteous and cannot admit their side commits any wrongs. They tend to abide by the precept that it is \u2018my side, right or wrong\u2019 and that we shouldn\u2019t \u2018hang our dirty laundry\u2019 out in public.<\/p>\n
So, why do some people adopt such harsh tones against members of their group who express dissenting views, no matter how rationally or honestly expressed?<\/p>\n
In general terms, not conforming to the mainstream view of your community carries with it the risk of ostracisation. More specifically, the concept of \u2018self-hate\u2019 seems to enjoy the most currency among groups, minorities and peoples who feel under attack, threatened marginalised or demonised and so feel that it is important for all members to pull rank.<\/p>\n
In the Jewish context, the long and painful history of anti-Semitism and discrimination, not to mention pogroms and the Holocaust, as well as popular Arab hostility towards Israel, has bred a level of hyper-defensiveness in the minds of many.<\/p>\n
This explains why the \u2018self-hate\u2019 label \u2013 which gained popular currency following Theodor Lessing\u2019s 1930 book Der J\u00fcdische Selbsthass<\/em> (Jewish Self-hatred<\/em>) \u2013 probably has a longer history among Jews than among other groups. It can also be particularly virulent, as illustrated by the toxic Jewish SHIT list of over 7,000 allegedly \u201cSelf-Hating and Israel-Threatening\u201d Jews.<\/p>\nThis sense of embattlement engenders the misguided belief in the mainstream of the Jewish psyche that Israel should be defended at any cost and regardless of its actions.<\/p>\n
Similarly, though Arabs have not experienced anything as apocalyptic as the Holocaust, most of the Middle East lived through centuries of foreign domination (Greek and Hellenic, Roman and Byzantine, Persian, Arabian, Turkic and Ottoman, British and French, etc.) in which the locals more often than not lived as effective second-class citizens in their own countries, over-taxed, oppressed and largely excluded from the corridors of power.<\/p>\n
So, when the promise of independence came around after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the fact that the Palestinians were the first Arabs to be denied their freedom has transformed the Palestinian question into one of the most emotive issues in the collective Arab conscience, leading many to view it with greater irrationality than most other issues. (…)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Khaled Diab, ein bemerkenswerter arabischer Intellektueller \u00e4gyptischen Ursprungs, der lange in Br\u00fcssel gelebt hat und nun aus Jerusalem bloggt, hat ein St\u00fcck geschrieben, in dem er prophezeit, dass nur Juden und Araber, die sich selbst hassen, dem Nahen Osten Frieden bringen k\u00f6nnen. Sein Blog ist lesenswert, ebenso die Kolumnen im Guardian (wie diese \u00fcber die […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[168,173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","category-palastina"],"yoast_head":"\n
Bekenntnis zum arabischen Selbsthass - J\u00f6rg Lau<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.zeit.de\/joerglau\/2011\/08\/23\/bekenntnis-zum-arabischen-selbsthass_5042\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bekenntnis zum arabischen Selbsthass - J\u00f6rg Lau\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Khaled Diab, ein bemerkenswerter arabischer Intellektueller \u00e4gyptischen Ursprungs, der lange in Br\u00fcssel gelebt hat und nun aus Jerusalem bloggt, hat ein St\u00fcck geschrieben, in dem er prophezeit, dass nur Juden und Araber, die sich selbst hassen, dem Nahen Osten Frieden bringen k\u00f6nnen. 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