There's a strange connection between antisemitism and failure.

Most Jew-haters are a bunch of losers.

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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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What do Adolf Hitler, Palestinian society, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Black Lives Matter, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Kent have in common?

Nothing, it seems, and yet something strange at the same time.

They are all failures.

Not always in the obvious sense, not always permanently, but there is a pattern — one that is easy to miss if you focus only on ideology, politics, or headlines. Look closer, and a different thread begins to emerge: failure, frustration, and the search for something, or someone, to blame.

Start with Hitler. Before he became history’s most infamous mass murderer, he was a failed painter — rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, drifting, resentful, and humiliated. His later ideology did not emerge from strength, but from grievance. The Jews became a convenient explanation for his personal and Germany’s national failures.

The same dynamic appears, in different forms, elsewhere.

Haj Amin al-Husseini emerged as a leading Palestinian Arab voice during the British Mandate period. But rather than focusing on constructing political institutions, economic foundations, or a pathway to statehood, his leadership was defined by opposition — first to Zionism, then to any compromise that might have created a viable future alongside it. When faced with the opportunity to shape a national movement, he chose absolutism over pragmatism.

That pattern reached its most extreme form during World War II, when al-Husseini aligned himself with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He met with Hitler, broadcast propaganda, and tied his cause to a regime that would go on to commit the greatest crime in modern history. It was a decision not rooted in strategy or statecraft, but in ideological obsession. And it led nowhere. No state. No institutions. No lasting foundation for his people. Only deeper isolation and a legacy that would complicate the Palestinian cause for decades to come.

Unsurprisingly, the Palestinians quickly became one of the most antisemitic societies on this planet. Why? In the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Palestinian society was shaped by a profound and disorienting defeat. Many had been led to believe that the Arabs’ war against the newly declared State of Israel would end in swift victory. Instead, it ended in loss, displacement, and a long-term identity crisis.

For many Palestinians, 1948 was not just a political turning point; it became a psychological and cultural anchor. In that environment, frustration and grievance became central organizing forces, with Palestinian leadership directing much of that frustration outward — toward Israel and, at times, toward Jews more broadly. Rejectionism and violence became their core strategy, while repeated opportunities for state- and institution- and society-building were missed. The result is repeated failure after failure thanks to a movement defined less by what it builds and more by what it opposes.

The Islamic Republic of Iran was no different. It presented itself as a revolutionary power, but beneath the slogans lies a regime that has failed its own people — economically, socially, and politically. Decades of mismanagement, corruption, and repression have left millions struggling. Inflation in the Islamic Republic of Iran is among the highest in the world (around 40 percent), ranking roughly fourth globally. The rial has lost massive value, around 90 percent since 2018. Estimates suggest up to 50 percent of Iranians live under the poverty line.

And yet, instead of confronting its own failures, it projects outward. Israel — and by extension, the Jews — becomes the focal point of the regime’s anger, a symbolic enemy used to unify and distract. Iranians abroad, the byproduct of decades of brain drain and many of whom are successful today, detest the Islamic Republic and support Israel, with which Iran had diplomatic relations prior to the Islamist takeover in 1979.

Islamists (some of the most vile Jew-haters on this planet) in general are losers. Everywhere they’ve tried to build a country based on Islamism, they’ve failed. Hamas in Gaza tried to frame itself as a “resistance” movement rooted in Islam. Yet the territory it governs faces deep economic hardship, limited infrastructure, and recurring conflict — no less after October 7th, a terrible miscalculation by Hamas leadership that left Gaza in literal ruins.

The same pattern appeared with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. When it briefly held power after the Arab Spring, it struggled to govern effectively, alienated large segments of the population, and was ultimately removed. Ideological certainty did not translate into stable leadership.

Even more extreme cases, like ISIS, show the pattern in its starkest form. At its peak, it controlled territory and declared a caliphate. But what followed was brutality, collapse, and near-total destruction. It could conquer through violence and fear, but not build.

The “Black Lives Matter” movement also belongs in this conversation. It rose with enormous cultural force, but struggled to translate that momentum into lasting structural success. Internal controversies, leadership disputes, corruption, and unrealistic expectations eroded its credibility. When movements lose direction, they often search for new narratives to sustain themselves — and sometimes, those narratives drift into hostility toward Jews, framed through power, privilege, or conspiracy.

In media, the pattern is more subtle but no less real. Tucker Carlson, once one of the most powerful voices in American television, built a brand on provocation and grievance. His eventual firing from Fox News was a sharp fall from influence. In the aftermath, his rhetoric — particularly around elites, globalism, and power — has increasingly tapped into antisemitic and anti-Israel themes.

And then there are political figures like Joe Kent, who made news this week by announcing his resignation as Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center due to “the ongoing Iran war” and “pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” He claimed that his wife Shannon, a cryptologist in the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed “in a war manufactured by Israel,” but she actually died in a suicide attack while fighting ISIS in Syria in 2019. Not only is Kent a liar; he’s a loser, having lost two elections for Congress since 2022. And now the FBI has opened an investigation into him.

Across these examples, the connection is not ideological. These actors do not agree with each other. They would, in many cases, despise one another.

The connection is psychological.

Failure creates a vacuum. And into that vacuum often comes resentment. Resentment looks for a target. And historically, the Jews have been one of the most convenient targets available — visible enough to identify, successful enough to envy, and distinct enough to be cast as “other.”

This is not new. It is one of the oldest patterns in history.

When societies succeed, they tend to integrate Jews. Look across history and the pattern becomes clear. In periods of economic growth, intellectual openness, and relative stability, Jews are not pushed to the margins; they are pulled into the center. They become merchants, scholars, physicians, bankers, investors, artists, and advisors. They participate in building the very societies in which they live.

This was true in parts of medieval Spain during its more tolerant periods, where Jewish thinkers like Maimonides contributed to philosophy, medicine, and law. It was true in segments of the Ottoman Empire, where Jews expelled from Europe were absorbed and became economically productive. And it was especially true in modern Western democracies, where Jews found unprecedented opportunity to integrate, contribute, and thrive.

Why does this happen?

Because successful societies tend to share certain traits: confidence in their identity, strong institutions that don’t rely on scapegoats, economic dynamism that rewards productivity, and pluralism (or at least tolerance) as a practical necessity. In those environments, Jews are not seen as a threat; they are seen as an asset.

But when those conditions weaken, something shifts. Economic stagnation breeds competition over scarcity. Political instability weakens institutions. Cultural insecurity creates anxiety about identity. And in that environment, integration can give way to suspicion.

The same visibility that once made Jews valuable (distinct communities, strong networks, cultural cohesion) can be reinterpreted as separateness. Success can be reframed as manipulation. Participation can be recast as control.

And so, in declining societies, Jews are often not integrated, but blamed, then isolated. This is why the pattern is so consistent across time and geography. It is less about the Jews themselves, and more about the condition of the societies around them.

Strong societies absorb difference. Weak societies weaponize it. That is the underlying dynamic, and it helps explain why Jewish history so often tracks not just the fate of a people, but the rise and fall of the civilizations around them.

What is striking today is how this pattern transcends traditional boundaries. It appears on the Far-Right and the Far-Left, in authoritarian regimes and democratic societies, in grassroots movements and elite institutions. That is the “strange connection.”

It is not about what these groups believe. It is about what they lack: stability, success, clarity, confidence. And when those things are missing, blame becomes a powerful substitute.

The lesson here is not just about antisemitism. It is about understanding the conditions that produce it. If you want to understand why the Jews so often find themselves at the center of hostility, don’t just study the Jews. Study the failures of those who oppose them.

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