Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

250 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:249
meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will
not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers . . .
Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help
realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed.
Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall
of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems.
The concept of apocalyptic thinking as motivating, structuring, and
driving the behaviors of leaders of countries that have devastating arsenals
of weaponry is frightening. Throughout history, madmen with images of
world domination have wrought enormous devastation. Add to this a charismatic
individual leader, super-powerful archetypal images of gods and messiahs,
and magical thinking, and there are huge numbers of people who will
follow such manifestations blindly. Order them to die for the cause, and
they will. Order them to kill for the cause, and they will.
After all, the minds of all of us human beings constantly use fantasies,
images, pipe dreams, and far-reaching wishes for one or another magical or
total event to embody some perfection that we dream of in our personal
cosmology.
The further terrifying truth about our human species is that a large
number of us—possibly a majority—are susceptible to believing the magical
nonsense proclaimed with certainty by our leaders, especially in religious
or ideologically fervent governments.
Apocalyptic thinking goes beyond murdering target groups to achieve
a more beautiful world, as the messianic leaders describe their vision. It
also involves images of bringing about the end of all of world civilization as
it currently exists, generally for the mythical purposes of inviting a world of
messianic reconstructed replacement. And the terrifying truth is that human
science is moving toward the means to destroy the entire ecosphere and the
planet; in fact, some scientists believe that the means are already at hand,
such as the possibility that multiple nuclear explosions could affect the very
force of gravity of Planet Earth.
SUICIDE BOMBING THINKING
Apocalyptic thinking also includes the bizarre, ridiculous, but deadly
thinking that is manifested in suicide bombings, where people assign martyr
status to being the agents of the deaths of other people through their own
deaths—always of course in a quest for the “better world.” Some years ago,
the Western world guffawed at the thought that there could be anywhere
near a sufficient number of human beings who would be willing to give up
their lives to be suicide bombers. In fact, what proved to be the case is that,