Much has been made in recent years by defenders of Israel of the
purported estrangement of the political Left from the cause of Zionism. This
perceived anti-Israelism, borne out of the Leftist view that Israel is a
fundamentally unjust and inequitable colonial-settler state, is argued to
extend further from an ideological animus to one of racial hostility; a state
of affairs which has been expressed as “the Left’s Jewish problem”. One of the
key manifestations of this hostility is claimed to be a putative alliance
between the Left and political Islam. Jewish and Israeli critics have written perplexedly about a union
between the “illiberal Left and political Islam”, and other times of the Left’s
“hypocritical embrace of Islamism”. However, these critics are somewhat muted
and even silent about the links between pro-Zionist Jewish organisations and
individuals with extremists of the political Far Right. Further, Israel has
developed alliances and arrangements with several European parties of the
Far-Right, a phenomenon that is redolent of the agreements reached between some
within the Zionist movement and the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy prior to World War Two. These contemporary alliances with
nationalist movements, many of which are overtly racially conscious and in most
instances, avowedly anti-Muslim, raise three key problems. First, is that such
collaborations carry with them the risk of legitimising racist attitudes and
philosophies. Secondly, it brings into sharp focus troublesome parallels
between political Zionism and white nationalist aspirations, and, thirdly, it
can be argued that they contribute to facilitating the creation of a climate of
racial and religious intolerance, which will in the long run produce negative,
unintended consequences for Jewry.
“In working for Palestine, I would even ally myself with the devil.”
- Vladimir
Jabotinsky
The rise of
nationalist sentiment has historically being a thing of concern for Jewish
diaspora communities. The inevitable emphasis by nationalist movements on
having a shared cultural identity and what often tended towards an inevitable
insistence on racial exclusivity, left Jews vulnerable to being designated as
an alien people upon whom fear, hostility and contempt could be focused.
For instance,
during the interwar years of the 20th century, many European countries
experienced a surge in the numbers of political parties espousing nationalistic
ideologies which were defined by anti-Semitism. The anti-Republican alliance
prior to and during the Spanish Civil War was marked to a degree by anti-Jewish
attitudes. And while Spain had a relatively small Jewish population, the larger
Jewish communities in eastern Europe were victimised during a period of
increased influence of Fascist parties such as the Iron Guard in Romania, the
Arrow Cross Party in Hungary, as well as the ultra-nationalist parties which
emerged in Poland after the era of the philo-Semitic Marshal Pilsudski. In
Fascist Italy, the promulgation of the leggi
razziali in 1938 followed the template set by the Nuremberg Laws three
years earlier by Nazi Germany. These developments were, of course, part of the
prelude that led to the catastrophe that befell European Jewry during World War
Two.
Today,
nationalism and white identitarian-thinking is on the rise in both Europe and
North America. Among the pot-pourri of political parties, pressure groups and
media outlets are those designated as the ‘alt-right’ who espouse philosophies
such as biological determinism, and who pronounce political agendas that aim to
create white-only ethno-states. They are usually anti-immigration and
invariably anti-Muslim. Some are avowedly anti-Jewish. Yet, while they are
universally judged to fit into the far-Right of the political spectrum, there
are significant links between many of these movements and Jewish individuals,
Jewish organisations and the Jewish state of Israel.
While the
record of historical and contemporary alliances and accommodations with
extremist movements may ultimately be construed as a survival strategy for a
people who have long perceived themselves as being constantly imperilled by the
threat of periodic outbursts by other peoples who seek their destruction, these
connections require scrutiny, not least because of the moral contradictions
which they reveal.
What is more,
the rationalising by some of the efficacy of such accommodations as the prudent
exercise of pragmatism may come to be seen in hindsight as short-sightedness in
circumstances where links can be made with situations where Jews as individuals
and communities are harmed. For instance, if Jewish individuals or
organisations co-operate with or otherwise give succour to white nationalist
organisations on the basis of each having a shared hatred for Islam and its
adherents, to what degree should there be a residual responsibility for acts
directed at Jews in a climate of fomented hate?
They may also
raise an uncomfortable analysis of a coherence in philosophies between the
ideologies of groups deemed to be objectionable and that of the state which
much of organised Jewry is pledged to preserve and protect. After all, it was
Richard Spencer, an intellectual leader of the ‘alt-right’ who proclaimed his
“great admiration” for Israel’s recently passed nation-state law. “Jews”,
Spencer tweeted, “are, once again, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and
sovereignty for the future, showing a path forward for Europeans.”
The
implications of Spencer’s praise are not lost to the objective bystander. They
speak of an ideological affinity which he has consistently alluded to. It was
Spencer who while informing an audience at the University of Florida in October
2017 of the states from the past to the present which had influenced his
thinking, offered a conclusion that “the most important and perhaps most
revolutionary ethno-state, the one that I turn to for guidance, even though I
might not always agree with its foreign policy decisions (is) the Jewish state
of Israel.”
Spencer’s
views about Israel and its state ideology were echoed by the far-Right Dutch
politician, Geert Wilders, who in praising the passage of Israel’s nation-state
law as “fantastic” and an “example to us all”, called on his countrymen to
“define our own nation-state, our indigenous culture, our language and flag,
define who and what we are and make it dominant by law”.
Many were
simultaneously perplexed and repulsed by the presence of Israeli flags at
rallies of Pegida, the German nationalist movement which is stridently
anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant. This is a phenomenon repeated at rallies by
offshoot groups in countries such as Britain and Australia where the flag of
Israel has been waved alongside banners identifying with neo-Nazism and
neo-Fascism. The blue hexagram and blue stripes of Israel have also been flown
at demonstrations and meetings of the far-Right English Defence League (EDL),
which for a period of time had a Jewish Division led by Jewish individuals
respectively of Brazilian and Canadian origin.
In Germany, some members of the Jewish community offer vociferous support to the far-Right
Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party. And as was the case with the EDL, it
formed its own Jewish wing in October of this year headed by a female Jewish
physician of Uzbek origin. The aims of the Jewish component is revealing.They
are against the immigration of “Muslim males with anti-Semitic views”, and
consider the AfD to be “defenders” of German Jews and Israel.
Some months
ago, it was revealed that the Middle East Forum (MEF), a hardline pro-Israel
think-tank had helped fund the legal expenses of Tommy Robinson, a former
leader of the EDL, as well as the the costs of organising protests which had
taken place in support of him while he was in jail for contempt of court.
The MEF
issued a statement explaining that it had helped Robinson “in his moment of
danger” in “three main ways”. These were firstly, by using “monies to fund his
legal defence”, secondly, by “bringing foreign pressure on the UK government to
ensure Mr. Robinson’s safety and eventual release”, and thirdly, by “organising
and funding” a rally held on June 9th, 2018.
The MEF along
with the David Horowitz Freedom Centre, which describes itself as a “right-wing
Conservative foundation”, were both recently involved in attempts to organise a
speaking tour of the United States by Robinson. Robinson is also employed by Rebel Media, which is run by Ezra
Levant, a Jewish-Canadian who is often at pains to emphasise the boundaries
between the sort of civic nationalism he purportedly represents and the
race-based nationalism of white identitarians. Yet, what these
Israel-supporting entities have in common alongside individuals such as Debbie
Schlussel, Laura Loomer and Melanie Phillips is a raison detre to stoke up
anti-Muslim sentiment. It is an objective that is consistent with an
overarching aim of political Zionism.
Stirring up
anti-Muslim sentiment has been an avowed goal of Israel for many decades. The
rationale behind this strategy is based on the desire to reframe the conflict
with the Palestinian people and the wider Arab world from one between a
colonising power and a people with genuine grievances about being dispossessed
of their land, to that of a conflict between two antithetical philosophies with
Israel purportedly reflecting the Western value system that is ‘democratic’ and
‘tolerant’, and the majority Muslim Arabs reflecting ‘tyranny’ and
‘intolerance’.
In other
words, it is intended to create a climate in which the injustice of
dispossessing the Palestinians of a substantial portion of land upon which they
lived for centuries is overshadowed. A corollary of this is to legitimise the
ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from what land they have left in the
militarily occupied West Bank, which many Jews, regardless of their ideological
inclinations or level of religious observance believe is the God-given land of
what they refer to as Judea and Samaria.
Israel’s
relations with far-Right governments in Europe is based on harnessing the fears
and misgivings that they have about Islam to the disadvantage of Palestinian
interests. Thus it is that Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister,
sees the Right-wing governments of Poland and Hungary as key allies among the
member states of the European Union who are useful when it comes to blocking
policies and initiatives which are favourable to the Palestinians.
It is an
alliance which Israel has strenuously sought to preserve despite misgivings
over the overt anti-Semitism that plays a part in the policies followed by the
ruling parties of both countries, as well as the historical legacy of eastern
Europe as the repository of the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism.
Indeed, the
Christian nationalist anti-Semitism of Poland’s Law and Justice Party and
Hungary’s Fidesz Party, both purveyors of what has been termed “Zionist
anti-Semitism”, forms the basis of a consensus
ad idem with the Jewish state. The mentality of Zionist anti-Semites, whose
ranks have included the Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Breivik, is to consider
Israel to be the first line of defence against the Muslim hordes who in their
thinking are primed to expand into Europe.
Netanyahu has
praised Hungary for its abstention from the United Nations General Assembly’s
overwhelming rejection of the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. It had, along with the Czech Republic and Romania, blocked
an EU statement criticising America’s decision to move its embassy in Israel to
Jerusalem.
But such
alliances with anti-Semitic, far-Right and other extremist states and
organisations are not new to adherents to the cause of Zionism. There is a
well-documented history going all the way back to the deeds of the modern founder
of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, as well as key Zionist figures such as
Vladimir Jabotinsky and Avharam Stern.
Herzl, the
founding father of modern Zionism, reached out to Vyacheslav von Plevhe, the
Tsarist minister of the interior who is said to have been the brainchild behind
the pogrom in Kishenev, Bessarabia during the Easter of 1903. Herzl’s goal was
to convince Russia’s influential ministers to use the taxes collected from its
Jewish subjects to fund emigration to Palestine and to finance any forms of
negotiation with the Ottoman Empire over the creation of a Jewish homeland in
Palestine.
Eighteen
years after Herzl’s meeting with von Plevhe in August 1903, Vladimir Jabotinsky
met with Maxim Slavinsky, the ambassador of the pogromist Ukrainian leader,
Symon Petlura in Prague. The idea was that Jabotinsky, the founder of the
Haganah (the precursor of the the Israeli Defence Force), would organise a
Zionist police force which would guard Jewish populations found in territories
that Ukrainian nationalists could manage to reclaim from the Bolshevik
Expeditionary Force which had run Petlura’s short-lived government out of Kiev.
Jabotinsky’s
Ukrainian Pact of 1921 earned the scorn of many Jews who were aware that
Petlura’s armies had been responsible for about half of the deaths of an
estimated 60,000 Jews murdered in Ukraine between 1917 and 1921. But while his
agreement had brought the disapprobation of members of the World Zionist
Organisation, Jabotinsky, whose efforts on behalf of the allied cause during
World War 1 had rendered him in the eyes of many Jews as an associate of the
dreaded Tsarist government, would appropriate the words of Giuseppe Mazzini and
boldly state “In working for Palestine, I would even ally myself with the
devil.”
A deal with
the devil is how many perceived -and still perceive- the agreement reached
between elements within the Zionist movement and Nazi Germany. The Ha’avara (or
Transfer) Agreement was achieved because of a coincidence of interests: The
National Socialist aim of removing the Jews from Germany somewhat mirrored the
Zionist goal of persuading German Jews to leave. And to Nazis such as Adolf
Eichmann and Reinhard Heydrich, there appeared to be an inexorable logic to
refer to themselves as “Zionist”.
Heydrich, a
prominent leader of the SS is claimed to have remarked to his associates: “As a
National Socialist, I am a Zionist”. And in a conversation with one Anny Stern,
a survivor of Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Eichmann, after ascertaining
that Stern was a Zionist, told her “I am a Zionist too. I want every Jew to
leave for Palestine.” Eichmann was quoted in a 1960 Life magazine article as informing Jews with whom he had dealings
that if he had been a Jew, “I would have been a fanatical Zionist”.
The Ha’avara
Agreement observed the following modus operandi: A German Jew would deposit
money into a specific account in a German bank. The money would then be used to
buy German goods for export, usually to Palestine. The Jewish emigres to
Palestine would then receive payment for the goods which they had previously
purchased after their final sale.
This occurred
at a moment in time when the majority of world Jewry was embarked on a trade
boycott against the Nazi regime, and the German Zionist-Nazi trade agreement
arguably served to undermine this. It split the Zionist movement, and one
consequence was the 1933 assassination of Chaim Arlosoroff in Tel Aviv soon
after his return from negotiations in Germany.
While
Jabotinsky had opposed any dealings with the Nazis and had sneered at
Mussolini’s Fascist movement in the 1920s, as the 1930s progressed, he warmed
to Italian Fascism which he began to perceive as “an ideology of racial
equality”. In fact, he made an alliance between his Betar youth movement and the
Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini by establishing a naval training academy at
Civitavecchia, a naval base north of Rome. Mussolini himself would tell David
Prato, who later became Chief Rabbi of Rome that “For Zionism to succeed you
need to have a Jewish state, with a Jewish flag and a Jewish language. The
person who really understands that is your fascist, Jabotinsky”.
Another
Zionist leader who counternanced forming an alliance with Fascist Italy was
Avharam Stern. Stern was the leader of the terror group known as Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Fighters for the
Freedom of Israel), which is better known today by the British designation ‘The
Stern Gang’. The group was formed after Stern’s release from British custody in
1940 and was an offshoot of the Irgun, the main Zionist terror group in
Palestine.
While other
Zionists suspended operations against the British for the duration of the war
against Nazi Germany, Stern refused to do this unless the British recognised
the claim for a Jewish state on both sides of the River Jordan. In his
thinking, only the defeat Britain in the Middle East by an outside power would
bring about a Jewish state. To this end, he sought a pact first with Fascist
Italy, and, after being rebuffed, he pinned his hopes on forming an alliance
with Nazi Germany.
Stern was
contemptuous of liberal democracy and imbued with a volkish-like racism. The
proposed pact with Nazi Germany referred to the “establishment of the
historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis” in a new order in
which there would be “cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed
Volkish-national Hebrium”. The 1941 document, which was discovered among files
in the German Embassy in Ankara, offered to “actively take part in the war on
Germany’s side.”
That is the
history. And the state which came into being in 1948 has continued to nurture
alliances with a range of politically extreme forces. Apart from Israel’s
arrangement with eastern European Christian Nationalist parties, there is
evidence of links to far-Right groups in Ukraine and a long relationship with a
litany of Islamist groups.
The United
States-sponsored Maidan coup which culminated in the overthrow of the elected
government led by Viktor Yanukovytch, involved the use of far-Right and
ultra-nationalist proxies, most, if not all of whom were Banderovsti, the name given to contemporary disciples and
worshippers of Stepan Bandera, the nationalist figure whose organisation was
behind the slaughter of Jewish and Polish communities during the Second World
War. During that conflict, Banderites were members of the specially composed Ukrainian
Waffen-SS Galician Division and the Abwehr-controlled Nachtigall and Roland Battalions.
Yet, Israel
supplies arms to the Ukrainian military which is composed of significant
elements who honour Bandera’s legacy, and whose members are unabashedly
anti-Semitic in attitude and ideologically neo-Nazi. According to the founder
of the militia, Andriy Biletsky, who is now a Ukrainian member of parliament,
“(Ukraine’s) historic mission at this critical juncture is to lead the final
march of the white race towards its survival. This is a march against
sub-humans who are led by the Semite race.”
Pictures of
members of the Azov Battalion, a former volunteer militia that has since been
incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, posing with Israeli-made
weapons incensed Israeli human rights groups who filed a petition seeking a
court injunction to prevent arms exports to Ukraine. This is not the first time
that the government of Israel has armed an anti-Semitic regime. Back in the
1970s, it supplied arms to the Argentinian military Junta which was responsible
for the deaths of thousands of Jews.
It is also
worth noting the involvement of Israeli citizens during the Maidan coup. Five
Ukrainian Jewish emigres, who were former Israeli Defence Force soldiers, led a
group of 40 street thugs in battles against the security forces of the
Yanukovytch government. These street fighters belonged to the ultra-nationalist
Svoboda Party whose leader Oleh Tyahnybok had in the past spoken about
liberating Ukraine from what he described as the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia”. An
article in April 2013 carried by the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency reported a cadre of Svoboda thugs wearing white T-shirts
emblazoned with the words “Beat the kikes.”
Tyahnybok
would in the latter part of 2013 given a pledge to the Israeli ambassador that
his party was no longer anti-Semitic. Similar assurances were given in February
2014 by the neo-Nazi Pravy Sektor group to the ambassador when its leader
claimed that it had rejected xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
As to what
motive Israel would have beyond financial gain and diplomatic influence in
Ukraine, it may be that such support is predicated on a trans-generational
Jewish antipathy towards Russia, a country with which it maintains a complex
relationship. But as with its links to Polish and Hungarian ruling parties, it
raises the disturbing issue of the Israeli state supporting governments which
seek to minimise and even deny the historical role of their nations in the
calamity that befell Jews in the 20th century.
Israel has also
cultivated links with Islamic extremist groups. From funding the nascent Hamas
organisation so that it would serve as a counter-weight to the Palestinian
Liberation Organisation (PLO), to funding, arming and medically treating
militia men linked to al-Qaeda who are fighting the secular government of
Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Israel has sought to bolster its geopolitical
objectives.
While such
scheming may be justified on the rationale that it operates on “strong survival
instincts”, it again opens up the legitimate criticism of the policies of the
Zionist state being prone to short-sighted expediency and to moral
contradiction.
It accuses
Hamas, a group elected to power in Gaza, of being a “terrorist” body when in
fact it bears a huge responsibility for its genesis into a political and
military force. Israel’s role in building Hamas was admitted to by
Brigadier-General Yitzhak Segev, a military governor of Gaza in the 1980s.
Its support
of Islamist groups in Syria, which was recently revealed not to be limited to
those located near the Golan Heights, has helped prolong a particularly cruel
conflict.
The initial
position that it was offering medical aid to jihadists professing the ideology
of those who are said to bear responsibility for the September 11 attacks for
humanitarian reasons, was exposed as patently untrue. When Efraim
Halevy, a former head of Mossad, asserted that it was
always useful to “deal with your enemies in a humane way”, he was challenged as
to whether Israel would support the treatment of wounded Hezbollah fighters. To
this, Halevy responded that while Israel has been targeted by Hezbollah, it had
not been “specifically targeted by al-Qaeda.”
It should
also be noted that during the Soviet-Afghan War, Israeli military intelligence
was responsible for arming and training the guerillas of Herzb-i-Islami Mujahideen, one of the most hardline of the
anti-Soviet Islamist groups of that war. Led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the group
splintered after the war and its remnants merged into al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
From the time
of its creation, Israel has worked tirelessly through multifarious channels to
ensure that it has the political, economic and military backing of the United
States. It has an extremely well-funded and aggressive lobby working on its
behalf. One of the most critically important alliances forged by Jewish
organisations and the government of Israel in the realm of American politics is
that with conservative Christian Christian evangelicals.
In Christian
Zionism, political Zionism again has formed an alliance with an ideological
partner which ultimately is antithetical to Judaism. For while many such as
John Hagee, chairman of Christians United for Israel, pledge a love for Israel,
the eschatological doctrine is premised on the belief that the Jews, who
rejected Jesus, will be given a final opportunity to accept Christ as their
saviour and will be put to the sword if they refuse.
Arthur
Balfour, whose letter to Lord Lionel Rothschild, the leader of Britain’s Jews,
provided a critical step towards the creation of a Jewish homeland, was what
would be termed today a Christian Zionist. Such homeland made perfect sense to
a man who recoiled from the idea of Britain accepting more Jewish immigrants
from eastern Europe. Modern leaders of the pre-tribulationist, pre-millennial
dispensationalists of the pro-Israel Christian Right have on occasion betrayed
anti-Jewish sentiment. For instance, Pat Robertson, the founder of the strongly
pro-Israel Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) once referred to the Jewish
founder of the US Military Religious Foundation as a “little Jewish radical”
for promoting secularism in the American military. Robertson had earlier
claimed that Jews were too busy “polishing diamonds” to do weekend chores. His
contemporary, the late Jerry Falwell once stated that “most evangelicals believe
the antichrist will, by necessity, be a Jewish male”.
Yet, for
Israel, nurturing American evangelicals has been a beneficial task because of
the importance of the Christian Right in American politics. They have exercised
influence on American foreign policy and have contributed millions of dollars
to Israeli groups. Their practical use for Zionism is that they economically
support those in Israel’s society who are most opposed to any form of
concessions to the Palestinians and encourage the colonisation of Palestinian
land by the most fanatical Jewish settlers.
While it is
argued that this “long, uneasy love affair” may have peaked, the American evangelical Right is still viewed
favourably by the Israel. In early 2018, Naftali Bennett, the leader of the
Right-wing Home Party, expressed his happiness at the relationship and was
quoted as saying: “We need to use the opportunity to the best of Israel’s
national interests and security.”
In Donald
Trump, the current American president, Israeli interests and security are
assiduously catered to. The most pro-Israel president since Lyndon Johnson has
recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and has moved his country’s embassy to
that city. He has abrogated the Five Plus One Treaty in which the United States
and other world powers reached agreement with Iran to monitor its nuclear
development programme. Indeed, Trump’s overarching objective in cultivating an
anti-Iranian Middle East coalition, at the heart of which are Israel and Saudi
Arabia, is clearly designed towards staging a military attack on Iran.
So lauded
have Trump’s efforts being that Binyamin Netanyahu compared him to Cyrus the
Great, the ancient Persian King who enabled the return of Jews from exile 2,500
years ago. Netanyahu also compared Trump to Lord Balfour and President Harry
Truman, the former being the instigator of ‘The Balfour Declaration’ while the
latter provided Israel with de facto recognition after its declaration of
independence in 1948. Balfour’s anti-Semitism is well known, and while Harry
Truman was largely thought of as being a philo-Semite, a posthumously revealed
entry in his diary recorded that he found Jews to be “very, very selfish”.
“When they have power”, he continued, “physical, financial or political,
neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment for
the underdog”.
While in
Trump, the Jewish state has found an extremely supportive ally in the White
House, it is also clear that he has purposefully courted those among his
countrymen who are sympathetic to the cause of white nationalism. In doing
this, he resorted to using what were considered as anti-Semitic tropes during
his campaign for the presidency. There were numerous examples of this. For
instance, his comments before a gathering of potential Jewish donors at the
Republican Jewish Convention about them not supporting him “because I don’t
want your money”, more than hinted at the stereotype of Jews controlling
electoral candidates. So too was his delay in disavowing the endorsement given
to him by David Duke, the former Klansman who now styles himself as a white
civil rights activist. He also posted a twitter meme of Hillary Clinton
implying that what he captioned “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” was backed by
Jewish money. Then his final campaign advertisement, which juxtaposed images of
Jewish figures in the financial world with rhetoric alluding to Jewish power
(“global power structure”), effectively suggested that Jews were at the heart
of America’s economic malaise.
Yet, this has
not stopped influential Jewish figures such as Alan Dershowitz from offering
Trump critical support because of Trump’s pro-Israel policies. Prime Minister
Netanyahu has often voiced his support for Trump including his proposal to
build a wall on the United States border with Mexico. “President Trump is right”,
Netanyahu tweeted in January 2017. “I built a wall along Israel’s southern
border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
Netanyahu’s
comments came after the furore caused by using Israel as an example when
forcefully putting forward his case that a wall be built on the US’s southern
border. Trump’s proposal was criticised as being symptomatic of the intolerant
streak running through many of his policies. Yet, many of his critics do not
react in the same manner when attention is turned to Israel.
Contemporary
Israel is not the bastion of tolerance which many of its advocates are fond of
proclaiming. The coalition government which presently governs it is by common
agreement the most Right-wing in Israeli history. It is a drift which several
people foresaw in 1948 when Herut, the Right-wing nationalist party headed by
former Irgun leader Menachem Begin was formed. This development was met with
great dismay by many Jewish intellectuals including Albert Einstein and Hannah
Arendt who took it upon themselves to write an open letter to the New York Times to warn that Israel would
head down a path which legitimised “ultranationalism, religious mysticism and
racial supremacy”.
Israel
maintains a brutal occupation of what is left of Palestine in the West Bank and
continues the strangulation of Gaza via a blockade, showing no moral qualms
when snipers of the IDF kill and maim unarmed Palestinian protesters with
little chance of breaching the system of iron wiring and moats which surround
them. The colonising of West Bank continues with Palestinian land being taken
by force while plans for the fresh construction of settlements are given
intermittently. The Jewish settlers are then given choice land on which to
reside and their security as well as day-to-day living needs are catered to.
For instance, they travel on roads reserved only for Jews and have access to
water resources which are increasingly in short supply to the inexorably
constricted Palestinian enclaves.
In
contemporary Israel, which demonises African migrants as ‘infiltrators’ -a term
consistently used by Netanyahu himself- a clear majority of the population
oppose the accepting of refugees. African refugees, who at a peak population of
60,000 would amount to one per cent of the 8 million Israeli population, were,
because they were black and non-Jewish, claimed to pose a threat to Israel’s
Jewish character. According
to Miri Regev, a Likud member of the Knesset who is now culture minister, they
are like a “cancer in the body”. Although she offered an apology, a poll
conducted soon after her statement by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI)
Peace Index in May 2012, found that 52% of Israelis agreed with her.
As of
writing, fewer than a dozen African migrants had been granted asylum, and
Israel has consistently sought ways by which refugees can be removed or
otherwise persuaded to leave: by threat of jail, deportations to third party
African states, and through a regulation whereby 20 percent of their
wages are retained by the state until they leave the country. In 2012, set
against a rise in widespread fear and animosity over migrants who were blamed
for worsening the economy and crime rates, anti-black rioting broke out in
Tel-Aviv. This involved acts of vandalism, looting and firebombing. No deaths were
reported, but there were many injuries.
Anti-black
racism has also been directed at Ethiopian Jews, many of whom live in poverty
and are socially ostracised. Some years previously, it was discovered that the
Israeli state had embarked on programme of secretly sterilising Ethiopian
Jewish women. They are also subjected to harassment and brutality at the hands
of police. In a notorious incident in 2016, an IDF soldier of Ethiopian
ethnicity was captured on camera being violently assaulted by a police officer
who had threatened to put a bullet in his head.
But the
passage of the nation-state law, which one Arab member of the Knesset bitterly
denounced as “the end of democracy”, and “the official beginning of fascism and
apartheid”, is in many respects merely consolidating a long-existing state of
affairs. After all, Israel’s identification as the Jewish state found quick
expression through the passage in 1950 of the Law of Return. This has
intrinsically meant that the needs of its non-Jewish citizens, the
approximately 21 percent Arab minority, is less of a priority than those of its
Jewish citizens, and, indeed, that of the Jewish diaspora. The discrimination
against and the neglect of Arab-Israeli communities was acknowledged in the
report issued by the Orr Commission in 2003.
The governing
Likud Party, which first came to power in 1977, and which for a lengthy period
of time has returned the largest number of seats in the Knesset, is an offshoot
of Begin’s Herut party, the creation of which caused such consternation in the
likes of Einstein and Arendt. Likud thus traces a direct line of influence to
the Revisionist Zionism of Jabotinsky, who Mussolini referred to as a
“fascist”.
The ‘Iron
Wall’ mentality and its values permeate Israel today. After all it was, Yair
Golan then deputy chief of staff of the IDF who at a speech at the Holocaust
Remembrance Day in May 2016 likened “revolting trends” in Israeli society to
that of pre-Holocaust Nazi Germany. And Moshe Yaalon, a former IDF chief of
staff, who resigned from his position as minister of defence prior to being
replaced by the hardliner Avigdor Lieberman, said that he was “fearful for
Israel’s future” given this tilt to the Right.
Israel’s
embrace of the global far-Right led by Likud’s Netanyahu thus cannot be
characterised solely as an expedient manoeuvre that is a continuum of the
Zionist mentality aiming to perform any bargain that advances the interests if
its cause. There is also a marked coherence in ideology. When Netanyahu hails
the electoral victory in Brazil of Jair Bolsonaro and refers to Bolsonaro as “a
true friend of the state of Israel”, and the Italian far-Right politician,
Matteo Salvini as “a great friend of Israel”, his gestures have not gone
unrequited. Like Netanyahu, both are nationalist and xenophobic in both
philosophy and policies.
And just as
Avharam Stern contemplated an ethno-Jewish state forming a part of a New Order
in the Middle East which would complement the racial New Order he expected to
come to fruition in a Europe under Nazi domination, Netanyahu’s actions in
highlighting the commonalities between Israel and the global far-Right provides
evidence of an acceptance and welcoming of a new-era form of global
ethno-nationalism.
It is
something Israel has sought to impose on its neighbours in the Middle East via
their balkanisation into ethnic
and religious mini-states, albeit that its motivation for doing this is to
promote its regional hegemony. The creation of Sunni, Shia and Christian
mini-states would serve not only to weaken countries such as Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon, but also provide a justification for Israel’s existence as an
ethno-state.
The allure of
ethno-nationalism to Right-wing secular and religious Jews is apparent to those
in Jewish communities who have been dismayed by those Jews who offer support
and succour to the extremist element of the European and North American extreme
Right. Among American Orthodox Jews, the majority of whom voted for Donald
Trump, there has been a noticeable spread of white
nationalist sentiment. They, along with those neoconservatives such as Ben
Shapiro, Joel Pollack and Dennis Prager, as well as those associated with the
alt-right such as Laura Loomer who applaud and condone the typically derogatory
statements directed at non-whites and Muslims by the alt-right are accused by
their fellow Jews of creating the conditions which will have negative
consequences for Jews.
These stances
reveal a fundamental hypocrisy. For those Jewish individuals who claim to be
supportive of European nationalism and North American white nationalism, so
long as it is a “healthy” sort, it is often the case that they are contented
only when vitriol is directed at others and not at Jews.
But even
then, the support by some is not overridden by demonstrable anti-Semitism.
Consider for instance the statement made by the co-leader of the German AfD who
minimised the Nazi persecution of Jews when stating that the Nazi-era was a
mere “speck of bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful German history”. And
Ezra Levant was noticeably forgiving after Gavin McInnes, a contributor to
Levant’s Rebel Media, once spoke
about the Jews “ruining the world with their lies and their money and their hooked-nose
bagel-eating faces”.
As noted
earlier, the key reason why the embrace of the alt-Right and white nationalism
by some Jews is considered to be a surprising development is because they have
historically borne the brunt of attendant hatred and persecution from
nationalist movements. Thus, Jewish communities have, for good reason, long
being considered to be ineluctably hostile to nationalist movements, albeit
that the extreme Right has traditionally maintained that leaders of organised
Jewry conveniently do not extend their reservations to Jewish nationalism.
Jewish-American
uneasiness about Donald Trump, whose recent statement that he was a
“nationalist” was interpreted as a coded reference to the ideology of white
nationalism, was expressed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) when Trump first
referred to his election platform as being one of “America First”. The ADL
urged him to drop his ‘America First’ campaign slogan on the grounds that it
had an “anti-Semitic past”, owing to the stance of prominent members of the
America First Committee such as Charles Lindbergh who asserted that Jews were
pushing isolationist America towards military involvement in the European war
that became World War II.
Some may be
inclined to consider whether some Diaspora Jews have been lulled into a false
sense of security. They have, after all, lived during an era when levels of
anti-Semitism fell to record lows, are proud of their social and economic
achievements, and consider themselves conservative and sufficiently distinct
from the traditional extreme-Right conception of the Jew as a dangerous leftist
radical. Importantly, most are white-skinned and of European (Ashkenazi)
descent.
But this is,
of course, not the equivalent of possessing an Ariernachweis, and many would consider it to be a dangerous
speculation to assume that Jewish communities will be unscathed when, amid
great polarisations in society, campaigns of demonisation ensue and violence
erupts.
Yet, for
those Jews who support the sentiments of white nationalist hatred and contempt
for non-whites, the remarks made by Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch in a sermon
delivered at the Stephen Wise Synagogue after the murder of of eleven
worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, present a cautionary
note: “Even if we are not the immediate target of prejudice, sooner or later it
will come back to the Jews anyway,” adding poignantly, “Did anyone think that
an atmosphere of intolerance would bypass Jews?...that we can mark the doorposts
of our house and that the angel of death can pass over us?”
They are
words worth ruminating over by those Jews, whether as representatives of the
Jewish state or as individuals, who enthusiastically continue to ride the tiger
of white nationalism.
© Adeyinka
Makinde (2018)
Adeyinka
Makinde is a writer based in London, England.
