It had better not be you

Zionism came about as a response to a popular narrative prevalent in Europe at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century – anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was a story people told to explain the effects of modernity on the then rapidly changing cultural landscape. The assaults of modernity on tradition were explained away as the effects of the pernicious Jews. 

Anti-Semitism was a narrative strategy that worked because the Jews altogether represented simply a narrative reality in the minds of the Europeans. The existential of the Jew throughout the world was a narrative existential. Zionism was the Jews' counter-narrative to answer the attacks of the anti-Semites. Anti-Semitic propaganda ignited the European 'street' and had the effect of disabling the standlanim who, before emancipation, were accustomed to protecting Jewish interests by collaborating with the host countries' ruling elites. Once the Emancipation eliminated the relation between the rulers of the state apparatus and the kahal as a unit, the 'democratic' relationship between the individual Jew as citizen and the general public of the host country had to be dealt with through public relations and not through back room deals between elites. 

Zionism was a defensive counter-narrative. It was, however, a narrative about the Jews rather than about the anti-Semites. After the establishment of the State of Israel and the subsequent evolution of anti-Zionist propaganda as a contemporary form of anti-Semitism, Zionism could no longer serve as a counter-narrative. There was nowhere for the State of Israel to go to solve the Middle East's 'Jewish problem.' The Israeli foreign ministry tried to go the stadlanim route and make backroom deals with the imperial overlords' ruling elites in America and in Europe. That strategy inevitably led to involving Israel in doing the dirty work of those foreign elites. 

What the Israeli foreign ministry didn't appreciate is that in today's world ruling elites need to answer to their domestic 'streets.' Given a ruling elite that needs to answer to the 'street,' for that to operate in Israel's favor requires an Israeli public relations strategy which goes beyond the defensive approach that was Zionism and moves the Israeli foreign affairs strategy on to focusing on the adversary, to defining the adversary as the cause of the domestic ills in the host societies, a sort of reverse anti-Semitism. The enemies of Israel must be turned into a counter-distraction that will allow the ruling elites of the overlords' societies to blame Israel's enemies for the ills of their own societies rather than their getting to blame Israel for their societies' ills. 

Modernity represented a challenge not only to the rabbinic authorities of the traditional kahal; it also represented a challenge to the lay authorities of the traditional kahal. Modernity demands a public relations response to foreign affairs. Someone will always be chosen to explain away the public's discontent and it had better not be you.