An Evolutionary Perspective on Israel Bias in the UN and Endemic Anti-Semitism

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on the last day of its annual general conference, voted against a non-binding resolution urging Israel to accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).The paper -- which Washington had asked Arab countries not to table at all for fear it could jeopardize a conference on a nuclear weapons-free Middle East to be held in 2012 -- was rejected by the 151-member general assembly with 51 votes against it, 46 votes in favor and 23 abstentions. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100924/wl_mideast_afp/iaeanuclearpoliticsisrael).

Why is this news?

Over the last 60 years every apparatus of the United Nations -from the General Assembly (UNGA) to the Human Rights Council (UNHRC, previously the UNCRH )- has served as instruments to channel the international community’s anti-Israel fervor. One egregious example of this long standing trend had the 2010 session of the UNHRC (as of March 25) passing 5 resolutions condemning Israel -more than the total combined amount of resolutions it dedicated to all other countries in the world — one each on Burma, North Korea and Guinea. No mention of Darfur, Tibet, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Russia, Congo, Libya etc.

Some attribute this blatant lopsidedness to the nature of the UN. Namely its various committees, especially the human rights council, are controlled and/or heavily influenced by political blocks. The block with the most votes is that of non-aligned states i.e. most non-Western states. This means, for example, that France may verbally condemn Iranian violations but because it does not want Iran and its allies to vote against Frances interests in the future France abstains from voting for a resolution condemning Iran. Furthermore, because non-aligned states outnumber western states, they can vote any member-state into any commission. For example, Libya, a gross violator of human rights was elected to the UNHRC. But Israel, with its few allies is one state that the world can agree to condemn without fearing any vote related backlash. Indeed condemning Israel is often used to justify the existence of an otherwise inept UN. After all the UN is fighting injustice, just not ALL injustice.

Still others contend that the reason that Israel is so predictably and consistently targeted is because Israel deserves it. In other words, the fact that HAMAS cannot rearm openly, because of Israel’s embargo, and Israel’s often overwhelming defense of its population trumps the wide-spread government sponsored suppression, rape, and murder of UNHRC members like Libya and Iran.

I agree, politics is one factor that contributes to the UN’s track record but there is another.

Yes you guessed correctly, my input relates to anti-Semitism but only so far as anti-Semitism is a label for what evolutionary theory calls natural selection and what others conflate with "survival of the fittest”.

Briefly, natural selection is “the ability of an organism to survive, adapt, and proliferate in its environment” this success is attributed to genetic traits. On the other hand the “survival of the fittest” implies superior fitness/external traits. This difference is key to understanding Hitler’s conception of the uber race, anti-Semitism, and is at the root of the UN’s obsession with condemning Jews/Israel.

Hitler argued that the physical traits of the Aryan, blond hair and such, were evidence of their genetic superiority, whereas Jewish noses, somehow proved genetic inferiority . But Hitler confused the cause and the effect. It is internal genetic traits that enable organisms to thrive -ones hair color and height are the effect of genetic traits not their cause. Thus such external traits cannot serve as evidence of genetic tenacity.

OK, so Hitler confused cause an affect, whats the point?

First a question:

Why did Hitler reach for a genetic reason to condemn Jews, why didn't he focus only on the usual stereotypes?

Because many anti-Semites throughout history made the claim that Jews were inferior. At first it was Jews did not assimilate into the Roman empire. Then Jews refused to convert to Christianity. Then the Jews killed the Jew Jesus. Then the hate was justified by Jewish disloyalty to their host state, and/or the Jewish control of world banks etc...

Hitler assumed that all these Jewish "sins" must reflect a deeper inferiority of the Jew, he proved this by pointing out the Jewish nose and hair color. The irony is that Hitler's reasoning was just as flawed as his predecessors. For he used perceived external traits as evidence of internal flaws. His forbearer's pointed to Jewish stubbornness, Hitler pointed to Jewish physical characteristics

This illogical trend raises an obvious question: why do anti-Semites continually condemn Jews based on external factors like noses and conspiracies to control banks? Can one really make a claim about the innate properties of a people based on external sins? Indeed, can UN nations really sit in judgement of Israel's excessive self-defense while many of its own members rape and murder by the thousands!?

It would seem then that the proclaimed/conscious flawed reasoning of the anti-Semite reflect "survival of the fittest" principles, whereas their true sub-conscious motivations reflect natural selection

Hitler, the anti-Semite, and the UN are all motivated by a similar concern. Namely the unwillingness to accept that their hate is not based on objective external factors like noses, religion, or propensity for economic malfeasance ("survival of the fittest"). Rather it stems from a deeply rooted evolutionary fear that the Jews success, despite everything, is evidence of natural selection working in favor of the Jews.


The UN has simply institutionalized, on a global scale, the irrational fears of the simple anti-Semite.

At first Israel teetered on the edge of a social, political, and existential abyss, but now it has emerged as a small world power. The nations of the world are worried once again. The UN's collective subconscious is crying “evolution is at work the Jews are supplanting us”. The conscious manifestation of this is the inexplicable and abysmal bias against Israel expressed in every corner of the UN and the reemergence of anti-Semitism in every corner of the world.

In short there is reason to believe that evolutionary principles are at the root of all this preponderance of hate by the anti-Semite and in the UN. Caused by overwhelming Jewish success that spans all known history that was, and is, perceived as an existential threat to the ascendency of the non-Jewish species. The manifest result of this perception is labeled "anti-Semitism". The perceived threat of the Jewish "species" was compounded by the failure of the various state-sponsored measures of forced conversion expulsion, and ghettos. Despite every effort the Jew not only survived but prospered. The anti-Semite interpreted this, subconsciously, as evidence of the Jewish evolutionary ascendancy and responded to it consciously by discounting Jewish success as nefarious and ill-gained, -anything to not have to face up to their own insecurities- and then persecuting the Jew.

It seems only natural that the UN manifests this carnal fear of Jewish superiority in its treatment of Israel. As Israel, like the Jew, continues to experience ever greater success despite global efforts of boycott, sanction, condemnation, terror, to force Israel into submission. Yes, the UN has taken on both the deep-seated motivations and misinterpreted manifestations of the anti-Semite. The UN justifies its hate-campaign by pointing to Israel’s wrongs, but the extent and bias of this pointing is at its root a subconscious motivation- the collective fear of Israeli success.

The tragedy is that anti-Semites and the UN continue to make Hitler’s mistake by assuming that external factors such as Jewish success, “survival of the fittest”, is valid evidence of natural selection choosing the Jew. Not only is this a inverted conception of natural selection (as described above), and thus in itself should not arouse the subconscious fear, it is also the Jewish perspective that if natural selection is correct it is in itself a tool of a higher power. It is not the final determinant of survival and success.

The world need not perceive Israel’s successes as a threat, just as the anti-Semite need not perceive the Jew as attempting his dissolution.

On the contrary:

As is evidenced by global Jewry in general and the Jewish-American experience in particular, Jews can and do contribute in every way to society.

Interestingly all the above may explain Americas pro-Israel track-record.

Why is America an exceptional example of Jewish contribution? Because America is a society that is secure in its own inherent worth and is not threatened by a subconscious psychosis that natural selection is favoring the Jew, to the detriment of the rest.

THAT is a major factor contributing to Americas general (though not unanimous) support of Israel in the UN, and Americas/Americans relatively stellar record on anti-Semitism.

Understanding the Israeli Exhortation "Why Not Them" (1)

In a recent piece published in Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/to-the-free-gaza-movement_b_602061.html),one amongst many, David Harris, the President of the American Jewish Congress (AJC), asked the now infamous question of the Free Gaza Movement, "why not them".

The Free Gaza Movement was one of the major organizers of the "provocation with a bad ending" flotilla. Harris asked them, rhetorically, why don't you organize to stop mass human rights abuses all over the world -why Israel? His conclusion, is that they do not seek to help Gaza but to hurt Israel.

Amongst his supporting evidence is the assertion that if they wanted to help Gaza, they should have delivered the aid the fastest way possible, via established land routes.
For the sake of balance, the Free Gaza Movement responds that they organized to help Gazans not other victims.

But this essay is not about this specific article or event. Rather it is meant to offer a number of perspectives on Harris’s underlying argument, as his observation is not new. Pro-Israel, and watch-dog groups covering NGO's, human rights groups, and of course the UN Human Rights Council - (UNHRC) in response to habitual and sustained criticism of Israel- regularly make this same accusation .

The "why not them argument" boils down to the question of why so much energy and resources are expended on criticizing Israel while the other more sever human rights violations are ignored?

Is this a legitimate argument?

Before that can be answered a more expansive understanding of this oft cited rhetorical question and the corresponding answers offered is in order.

Here I will attempt to analyze and expand the underlying question from three perspectives.

1. The implications perspective.

The implications perspective is always offered rhetorically and is historical in nature. It asks what can possibly explain the obsession with Israel, and the disproportional negative attention it engenders, except history? History explains the criticism of Israel as it comes from the same quarters that perpetrated the crusader riots, the wave of expulsions of Jews from almost every nations-state of Western Europe and later the Arab world, ghettos, and of course the holocaust.

Some in the Jewish community point to the Talmudic maxim, “Esiv Sonei et Yaccov” Esau hates Jacob –the decedents of Esau -commonly understood to refer to the descendants of Rome -as part of their nature hate the descendants of Jacob, the Jews (please see post “http://factoru.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-do-i-hate-jews.html).

The implications perspective argues that the disproportionate criticism of Israel, is explained by the source of the criticism, i.e. much of criticism is not of Israel but of the Jewish nature of the state of Israel (please see post http://factoru.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-have-no-problem-with-jews-its-just.html). The implications are that good old historical anti-Semitism is alive and well, as evident by the, otherwise unexplainable extent of criticism of Israel, to the detriment of 10’s of millions really being oppressed across the globe. The point being that anything Israel does, short of disappearing, is open to attack.

This is one way to understand the “why us not them argument”. In part two we look at two others and attempt to draw a concrete conclusion.

An open Letter to UN Watch

To Whom it may Concern:

I have been following your organizations vital activities for over two years now. As a graduate of Brooklyn College, editor of an internationally based online magazine, and a staunch advocate of a fair and balanced international legal doctrine (not as currently delineated in the Rome Statute which was the real premise for the Goldstone report, a connection UN Watch has failed to recognize and address) that is needed if only because globalization is inevitable.

As a human and as a Jew I appreciate all that UNWatch is doing. However, there is one area where it seems that you are clearly and unnecessarily failing. Namely, you have not watered the "roots of the grass".

When I talk with my Turkish, Palestinian, Russian, Australian, or American colleges your organizations work NEVER comes up. Not because they disagree with the hierarchy of human rights initiatives that you accurately espouse. But because you have not even attempted to introduce, recruit, or advertise the validity of your cause amongst the young, in the cities of America.

Erecruiting databases for UNPAID interns are rife with advertisements for HRW, AI, and other misguided organizations. These recruits imbibe the ideologies that such organizations advocate, and they in turn influence the extraordinary and unprecedented diversity that exists on American campuses.

UNWatch would be well advised to reach out to the young and diverse population centers, such as those found at schools like Brooklyn College, because THAT is where the war for the hearts and minds of the future is being fought not in the UN OR UNHRC. Recruiting student leaders from the Sudanese, Burmese, or Chinese student populations would be a simple matter, if there was an effort to that end.

I along with the few others in Brooklyn who are aware of your existence wish you the best in your rightly guided endeavor.

With best wishes for success,

Menachem M. Hecht