The eternal-antisemitism thesis survived refutation because it absolves victims of complicity

Evidence

In view of the final catastrophe, which brought the Jews so near to complete annihilation, the thesis of eternal antisemitism has become more dangerous than ever. Today it would absolve Jew-haters of crimes greater than anybody had ever believed possible. Antisemitism, far from being a mysterious guarantee of the survival of the Jewish people, has been clearly revealed as a threat of its extermination. Yet this explanation of antisemitism, like the scapegoat theory and for similar reasons, has outlived its refutation by reality. It stresses, after all, with different arguments but equal stubbornness, that complete and inhuman innocence which so strikingly characterizes victims of modern terror, and therefore seems confirmed by the events. It even has the advantage over the scapegoat theory that somehow it answers the uncomfortable question: Why the Jews of all people?—if only with the question begging reply: Eternal hostility. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 76

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the toolkit theme of how explanatory frameworks persist despite disproof when they absolve victims of agency — parallel to how scapegoat theories operate in the Islamophobia readings.