Prophecy, Antisemitism and Pattern Recognition

Antisemitism is a symptom of societal breakdown any wise prophet will recognize

“The prophet with the authentic message is the man with the unpopular message.”

I read this during my morning coffee and book session. Likely because I read it on October 7th, and am deeply interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I immediately saw modern parallels.

The book, The Great Code by Northrop Frye, is on my Jordan Peterson great books list and is a literary critique of the Bible. It also ties the Bible to the generation of literature in Western society as a whole.

Typology

This particular chapter focuses on typology. Typology is a specific means of biblical interpretation that focuses on establishing a real, historical connection between an earlier event, person, or object (the type or figure) and a later, corresponding one (the antitype or fulfillment).

The Bible is full of these connections, or types and antitypes. Christ specifically asserts that he is the Word that existed at the beginning of time, making him an antitype where God, or the Word (logos), is the type. The important thing about Biblical typology that separates it from mere allegory is that the events actually occur in history. They are not simply abstract ideas that form patterns.

This is why prophets are often referred to as “wise men.” Their ability to understand the patterns of humanity gives them an ability to predict, not from a necessarily magical source, but through pattern recognition. A current version of that wisdom is the ability to see the patterns of human behavior today and predict the outcomes, in general, based on understanding how those patterns manifested in history.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” — misattributed to Mark Twain

Today’s Prophecy

Today’s “unpopular message“ is a recognition of the patterns of scapegoating, which are manifesting as antisemitism. To be fair to many people who are spouting these bad ideas, I don’t believe they are specifically aware of the implications of their words. Most people don’t put much effort into understanding the implications or origins of their ideas or resulting words. Often, they receive information from the media and come to rational conclusions, assuming that information is valid.

The accusations of apartheid and genocide, especially taken together, are great examples of this dynamic.

Just walk through what it would take to believe that Israel is first an apartheid state, and then that they are trying to wipe an entire ethnic community off the face of the earth. This “apartheid state”, whose citizens are twenty percent Arab Muslim. Those Arab Israelis have universal health care, and are over-represented in providing that healthcare:

Based on 2023 data for employed Israelis up to age 67:

• Arab physicians constituted approximately 25% (one-quarter) of Israel’s physicians.

• Arab nurses constituted approximately 27% of Israel’s nurses.

Arab citizens of Israel are also heavily represented in other healthcare professions, making up about 49% of pharmacists and 27% of dentists in 2023.

Arabs serve in the IDF, are elected to office and serve in the Knesset, which is the Israeli parliament. Currently, they have twelve members in the 120 member Knesset. When Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister was sentenced to jail, there was an Arab Supreme Court judge who was involved in sending him there: Justice Salim Joubran.

While Arab citizens of Israel face significant socio-economic gaps and disparities compared to Jewish Israelis, their standard of living and health indicators are generally considered the highest in the Arab and Muslim world.

There are more than four-hundred mosques in Israel.

This is “apartheid”?

Now, these people who have a legally egalitarian society, the freest in the Middle East, also have pride parades every year where Israelis and Arabs can openly express their sexuality. There is even an underground gay community for gay Palestinians who fear reprisal from their communities.

But then these people completely drop all of that spirit of liberty and equality to turn evil as soon as they cross an imaginary line in the sand? None of the fundamental worldviews that created this diamond in the rough are maintained beyond its borders by its people?

That’s not to say that no war crimes are committed by young people in war, but that is to be expected. The best way to avoid war crimes is to not start a war.

But a brutal war with civilian casualties is not necessarily genocide. If it was, then the Civil War would have been a genocide. The Union Army burned down forty percent of Atlanta and committed more war crimes than the South. But we don’t call it genocide nor do we think of the Union as “the bad guys.”

Narrative Building, Not Revelation

So why do people shout these fallacies from the rooftops with so much vigor?

What they don’t know is that the people who are the source of information are often operating from a belief that narrative building, as opposed to the revelation of truth, is their job. They will omit facts and focus on stories that support the direction they want society to go, as opposed to just laying out the who, what, when, and where, allowing us to come to our own conclusions.

“The appearance of anti-Semitism in a culture is the first symptom of a disease, the early warning sign of collective breakdown.” — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Today, the unpopular but authentic message is the recognition of this societal breakdown whose symptom is antisemitism. When people are frustrated and there is free-floating anxiety, they seek out a reason. They want something or someone to blame. Today, on the right and the left (we tried to tell you) that target is the Jews.

Those of us pointing it out will be unpopular, but not wrong.