The Virtue Trap

Why Jewish Self-Criticism Fuels Extremism, Not Peace

If only those who identify as “Palestinian” were even a fraction as self-reflective and self-critical as Jews and Israelis often are—some so desperate for moral approval that they’re willing to betray their own people just to be embraced by the world—this war would already be over. The hostages would be home. And peace could be possible.

But instead, we live in a world where the good are expected to be perfect and the evil are never expected to be good at all. Where the good guys are so “good” that they contort reality, cast themselves as the villain and beg for forgiveness for crimes they didn’t commit—all in pursuit of an illusion of peace. Meanwhile, the bad guys are so bad, consumed by hate and emboldened by the self-doubt and appeasement of their enemies, that they’d rather sacrifice their children, glorify death and reject any accountability, all to sustain a narrative of victimhood.

Why?

Because victimhood has become power—a currency in the global moral economy and a pathway to victory. And we, the liberal West—and tragically, some Jews—keep handing them that power wrapped in virtue-signaling and moral confusion.

Every time a so-called “progressive” Jew legitimizes Palestinian lies—crying “war crimes”, “genocide,” “apartheid,” or “occupation”—they don’t actually advance peace at all. They strengthen the machinery of extremism. They become moral shields for a movement that doesn’t want coexistence, but domination. That only wants victory. A world without Zionism—and ideally without Jews altogether. And no, I’m not talking about Hamas or a radicalized minority of “Palestinians.” The modern “Palestinian” national identity was forged in violent, extreme rejection of Jewish sovereignty.

Organizations like B’Tselem, Jewish Voice for Peace, Standing Together, Breaking the Silence, +972 Magazine, Haaretz—to name only a few—elevate this culture of Jewish self-rebuke to the point of collective suicide. This is why many are funded by Islamist regimes (or European antisemites) hostile to Jewish existence, while others are propelled by a 2,000-year diaspora trauma, a guilt complex or sheer ignorance. They’re applauded for their “courage” while fueling the propaganda that seeks to justify Jewish erasure.

Where is the Palestinian B’Tselem? A “Muslim Voice for Peace”? A single mainstream Arab institution openly advocating for accountability on their side? For the rape, beheadings, torture, abductions, extortion and systemic barbarism committed in the name of “liberation?” There are none. Not because there is nothing to confront, of course, but because in their cultural and political milieu, moral self-examination is not a virtue. It’s a weakness.

But among Jews? It has become a religion unto itself.

That’s the great inversion: The freer, more self-critical and morally scrupulous Jews are, the more easily they are cast as the oppressors.

The more genocidal, the more regressive and the more hateful the Palestinians are, the more readily they are embraced as victims.

Until we stop handing power to lies, peace will remain impossible—not because of our failures, but because of our refusal to name theirs as a unified collective.