Rabbinic midrash reinterpreted Ishmael’s play as concealed murderous intent

Evidence

It is quite remarkable that the only two doctrines which at least attempt to explain the political significance of the antisemitic movement deny all specific Jewish responsibility and refuse to discuss matters in specific historical terms. In this inherent negation of the significance of human behavior, they bear a terrible resemblance to those modern practices and forms of government which, by means of arbitrary terror, liquidate the very possibility of human activity. Somehow in the extermination camps Jews were murdered as if in accordance with the explanation these doctrines had given of why they were hated: regardless of what they had done or omitted to do, regardless of vice or virtue. Moreover, the murderers themselves, only obeying orders and proud of their passionless efficiency, uncannily resembled the “innocent” instruments of an inhuman impersonal course of events which the doctrine of eternal antisemitism had considered them to be. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 77 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A Jewish midrashic claim that Ishmael invented idols entered Christian encyclopedic tradition — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 130; The Koran inverts the biblical portrait of Ishmael as rejected son; Explanatory doctrines denying Jewish responsibility prefigured extermination practice — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 77 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Religious precedent can reframe hired murder as legitimate practice #corroborates (0.95)
• The Koran inverts the biblical portrait of Ishmael as rejected son #complicates (0.85)
• Explanatory doctrines denying Jewish responsibility prefigured extermination practice #complicates (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 77