We Demand that Palestine Solidarity Campaign Rejects the Resignation of Jenny Tonge as Patron

Cowardice Beyond the Call of Duty - PSC forces Jenny Tonge’s resignation and Briefs Against Her 

Yesterday I learnt from the Facebook page of the far-Right Sussex Friends of Israel that ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign issued “deep concerns” about its patron Baroness Jenny Tonge, after she appeared to blame Israel for a resurgence in antisemitism in the wake of the deadly Pittsburgh massacre.’

In Jewish News I learnt that ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign told Jewish News it has “contacted Jenny Tonge to express our deep concerns at her post and is in the process of considering any further steps.” What did Jenny say that the Zionists reacted so furiously to and which PSC found impossible to defend?

Jenny Tonge said, in response to the Pittsburgh massacre:

“Absolutely appalling and a criminal act, but does it ever occur to Bibi and the present Israeli government that it’s actions against Palestinians may be reigniting anti Semitism? I suppose someone will say that it is anti Semitic to say so?”

The offending remarks

Jenny was attacked by Eric Pickles, former Chair of Conservative Friends of Israel and the nearest thing to a rattle snake in human form. Pickles ‘called on the minister to condemn the “the words of Baroness Tonge in suggesting that the murders in Pittsburgh were caused by the actions of the Israeli government”. It would apparently ‘cause great pain in Pittsburgh and falls foul of the International Holocaust definition of anti-Semitism.” I doubt if anyone in Pittsburgh was even aware of the comments of the noble Baroness but of course that wasn’t the point of Pickle’s attack.

Open Letter to Ben Sofa, Secretary of Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Pickles is the same foul creature who defended the Tory’s alliance in the European parliament with the European Conservatives and Reformists.  A group that contains at least 3 anti-Semitic parties and which was chaired by Michal Kaminski, who used to belong to the anti-Semitic and fascist National Revival before founding the mainstream anti-Semitic Polish Law & Justice Party. The ECR also included Robert Zile of the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party/LNNK. 

Unlike PSC America's Liberal Zionist The Forward isn't afraid to draw the connections between the Pittsburgh murderer, Trump and Netanyahu

Zile has a quaint habit of marching with the veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS every March, something which Pickles had no problem defending. As Jonathan Freedland observed Pickles

‘offered an appalling defence, telling the BBC last month that the Latvian Waffen-SS were only conscripts fighting for their country, and to say otherwise was a Soviet smear. Again, this misses the fact that a substantial minority of the Latvian Waffen-SS were eager volunteers, including veterans of pro-Nazi death squads who had already taken part in the first phase of the Holocaust – and that should be enough to decide that those who march in celebration of men who fought with Hitler, and against Britain and its allies, are beyond the pale. Once no self-respecting politician would have gone near people such as Kaminski

Pickles who sees nothing wrong with forming an alliance with Kaminski, who excused the Jedwabne massacre of Jews in 1941 (up to 1600 were herded into a barn which was then set alight) on the grounds that they had collaborated with the Soviet Union and a Latvian MEP who marches with formers members of the SS, was however concerned about “the words of Baroness Tonge in suggesting that the murders in Pittsburgh were caused by the actions of the Israeli government”. Apparently it “will cause great pain in Pittsburgh and falls foul of the International Holocaust definition of anti-Semitism.”

Netanyahu makes it clear that his and Trump's refugee policies are one and the same

Well it may well fall foul of the IHRA because that is the sole purpose of the IHRA, to conflate anti-Zionist comments with anti-Semitism.  Jenny herself posted on her  Facebook page that:

‘PSC are very worried about the furore surrounding my remarks following Pittsburgh and I have resigned to save them embarrassment!!! Sad day.

Let us look at the comments which have so aroused the Zionist ire and which PSC is too cowardly to defend.  First she condemned without hesitation the murders in Pittsburgh.  No one bar a malevolent mischief maker could therefore accuse her of anti-Semitism.

She then asked whether it has ever occurred to Netanyahu and the Israeli government that their actions may be reigniting anti-Semitism.  That is a fair question.  The only possible objection to the comment is not that it is wrong but that the actions of the particular individual, Robert Bowers, were those of a more traditional neo-Nazi who believed that Jews were responsible for the destruction of the white race by introducing into them non-white refugees.

What is though clear is that Bowers was motivated by the racist atmosphere that has been stirred up to fever pitch by Donald Trump against refugees, in particular the refugee caravan. It can hardly have escaped even PSC’s notice that Netanyahu has been to the forefront of this campaign.  Netanyahu has done his best to deport 40,000 Black African refugees because they are neither Jewish or White.  He has even tweeted in support of Trump’s plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Clearly Netanyahu has contributed to this anti-refugee campaign of Trump with his own, not inconsiderable efforts.

Jenny’s observation that Israel’s attacks against Palestinians are stirring up anti-Semitism in the West is a fact.  Zionist bodies go out of their way to say that Jews, all Jews, support Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians.  Only recently the Board of Deputies defended Israel’s shooting of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. Is it surprising that when the self-proclaimed body that represents British Jews supports Israel’s murderous actions in Gaza that some people will then blame and even attack British Jews?

However just as racists like Pickles reject the idea of connecting what Israel does with anti-Semitism in the West, so Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett was reported in The Times of Israel as saying that connecting Trump to the attack is wrong because Trump has been a good friend to Israel and has strongly condemned anti-Semitism, in particular he had moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Bennett defended Trump’s anti-Semitism on the grounds that he is pro-Israel. This is the standard Zionist defence of anti-Semites. 

“Using the horrible anti-Semitic massacre to attack the president is unfair, it’s wrong. He condemned anti-Semitism in the strongest possible words. Clearly President Trump is a great friend of Israel and of the Jews.’

There is however a very clear connection between Trump and anti-Semitism (and therefore Netanyahu). After the election of Trump Dana Millbank of the Washington Post wrote Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody. In it Dana described how Trump’s election campaign had deliberately used anti-Semitism as a means of appealing to the White Supremacist vote.

In the wake of the Pittsburgh massacre Dana Milbank wrote describing how Trump’s election ‘began with genteel anti-Semitism, progressed to dog whistles and ended with a full-throated targeting of Jewish “globalists.’ Millbank gave us a few examples:

Telling Jewish Republicans they wouldn’t support him “because I don’t want your money.”

Tweeting an image from an anti-Semitic message board with a Star of David atop a pile of cash.

Saying “I don’t have a message” for supporters who threatened anti-Semitic violence against a Jewish journalist, and Melania Trump saying the writer “provoked” the threats.

Branding his campaign with the “America First” slogan of the anti-Semitic pre-war movement.

Alleging that “blood suckers” and “a global power structure” including “international banks” are secretly plotting against ordinary Americans.

And, when urged by the Anti-Defamation League to stop using traditionally anti-Semitic tropes, repeated the tropes in an ad with images of prominent Jews, including George Soros.

Once in office, in addition to making common cause with the Nazis of Charlottesville, Trump stocked his administration with people like Stephen Bannon and other figures of the nationalist “alt-right;”, issued a Holocaust remembrance statement without mention of Jews; and lamented the attempts to silence Alex Jones, who peddles anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; declaring himself a “nationalist,” as well as increasing verbal attacks on “globalists,” particularly Soros. This was in addition to appointing as an advisor the openly neo-Nazi Sebastian Gorka.

PSC shamefully leaked against its own patron

The attacks on Jenny Tonge are wholly hypocritical and for PSC Executive and its Secretary Ben Sofa, to have bowed before the tide of Zionist hypocrisy, beggars belief. If PSC Executive don’t retract and either refuse to accept Jenny’s resignation or alternatively invite her to reconsider then I shall move a motion of censure on PSC Executive at the forthcoming AGM.

It would appear from the latest issue of Jewish News that PSC have accepted Jenny’s resignation and they also quote me as saying ‘“I suggest that you retract your resignation as nothing you said was in the least bit wrong. I am at present writing them a letter and now I know this will adjust it accordingly. Please retract your resignation“.

See also the excellent Mondoweiss article The Israeli government is exploiting the Pittsburgh murders to try to demonize Palestine solidarity

EXCLUSIVE - The letter that Corbyn intended to send to Jonathan Arkush at the Board of Deputies

The only way to stop the ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks is to stand up to them and not to throw your friends to the wolves

In the Jewish News last Monday Jonathan Arkush of the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for the removal of the whip from Chris Williamson MP.  Williamson’s crime was saying that it was a pleasure to share a stage with Jackie Walker and for calling for the reinstatement of Ken Livingstone.  Tonight we learn that Christine Shawcroft has been forced to quit as Chair of the Disputes Committee for supporting a suspended member, Alan Bull.

Jeremy Corbyn is in full retreat throwing his political friends to the wolves.  Instead of standing up against this McCarthyist witch-hunt by Israel’s supporters he is like a ship without sails at the mercy of a storm.  We have to be clear.  Appeasement doesn’t work it only encourages them. 

Christine Shawcroft is the latest victim of the anti-semitism purge

We now have demands that those who criticised the far-Right ‘Jewish’ demonstration outside Parliament should also be disciplined.  This is a demonstration that included the anti-Catholic DUP and Norman Tebbit.  The little darlings have apparently been subject to abuse.  This is a complete lie.  I was there and I was called a ‘traitor’ repeatedly.  I saw people shouted down and Zionists openly parading their racist contempt for the Palestinians.  Ben Southern-Thomas, a young JVL member “came away crying” after anti-Semitic abuse from Zionist demonstrators who told him he was “not a real Jew” and was just “pretending to be a Jew.”

Last night I had a dream that I had been given the task of drafting a letter from Jeremy in response to Jonathan Arkush of the Board of Deputies letter.

There are some forms of anti-semitism which are perfectly acceptable to Tory Arkush

Dear Jonathan,

Thank you for your letter of 26^th March. You wrote about an ‘institutional failure to properly address Jewish concerns’ giving the Chakrabarti Report as ‘the most glaring example.’  I could not agree more.

I have long wanted to implement Chakrabarti’s proposals regarding natural justice and due process. Unfortunately we have only just removed the last remaining obstacle to their implementation, namely Iain McNicol. Try as I might McNicol insisted on retaining the principle of Israeli military courts, namely that you were guilty unless proven otherwise.  Indeed Labour’s National Constitutional Committee has I understand much the same conviction rate as Israel’s military courts – 99.74%.

Even now we are still experiencing problems with Sam Matthews who is refusing to depart.

You speak of my failure to ‘tackle anti-Semitism’ and that I issue ‘empty statements’ whilst doing ‘nothing to address or understand it.’.  Let me assure you that I take all racism extremely seriously. That is a consequence of what you call my ‘far left worldview’.

That was why I refused to welcome the election of Donald Trump who, in the words of the Washington Post, had presided over a campaign in which anti-Semitism was not merely an undertone but the melody.  As Dana Milbank observed ‘Donald Trump and his surrogates have been playing footsie with American neo-Nazis for months.’  The final ad of Trump’s campaign featured three Jewish bankers – George Soros, Janet Yellen and Lloyd Blankfein alleging that they were part of a ‘global power structure’.

That is why I was so surprised to hear that you had extended such an effusive welcome to Trump. The Jewish Chronicle reported that ‘British Jews have responded angrily’ to your statement. I would be interested to know why you welcomed to power alt-Right politicians, such as Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, who are steeped in anti-Semitism.  Ha’aretz noted that Gorka, despite his links to a Hungarian neo-Nazi group was welcomed by the Jerusalem Post conference last year like a superstar.

What I don’t understand, and perhaps you would help me, is that we all agree that it is anti-Semitic to blame Jews for what Israel does, yet you say that criticism of Zionism, the ideology of Israel, is anti-Semitic.  Both can’t be true.  If you say that criticising Zionism and Israel is anti-Semitic you must also be saying that Jews and Israel/Zionism are synonymous.  Which is it?  You can’t have your matzot and eat them!  You write:

When Jews complain about an obviously anti-Semitic mural in Tower Hamlets, Corbyn of course supports the artist. Hizbollah commits terrorist atrocities against Jews, but Corbyn calls them his friends and attends pro-Hizbollah rallies in London. Exactly the same goes for Hamas. Raed Salah says Jews kill Christian children to drink their blood. Corbyn opposes his extradition and invites him for tea at the House of Commons. These are not the only cases.

The problem with all your letter, in which you say that I have ‘sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews’ is that you give a host of examples – none of which are true.

For example you say that Hizbollah commits terrorist atrocities against Jews. Hizbollah has got nothing to do with British Jews. Hizbollah didn’t even exist until Israel attacked Lebanon in 1982.  Its real crime is defending Lebanon against Israeli invasions and forcing Israel out. 

You demonise Hamas but it was Israel that created Hamas as a counter-weight to secular Palestinian nationalism. See The Washington Post Wall Street Journal and The Intercept. 

You mention that I took tea with Raed Salah, who you allege ‘says Jews kill Christian children to drink their blood.’  This too is untrue.  Raed in fact said ‘“Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the holy bread.” There was no reference here to Jews. Raed insists he was referring to the practices of the Inquisition not Jews! That was why he was acquitted by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court and it was only on appeal that he was convicted by the higher colonial District Court. Raed Salah was locked up by Theresa May on the basis of a poem that was changed by the Jerusalem Post so as to make him appear anti-Semitic. Mr Justice Ockleton of the Upper Tribunal freed him.  You are even more confused when you say I opposed his extradition.  There was no extradition! 

You say that ‘Again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews. At best, this derives from the far left's obsessive hatred of Zionism, Zionists and Israel.’  Why when you deny that this is about Israel do you deliberately conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism? 

This poster showing George Soros, saying "Let's not allow Soros to have the last laugh!" was part of Netanyahu's friend Viktor Orban''s campaign. Someone has written "dirty Jew" on his forehead

You say that ‘Rightly or wrongly, Jeremy Corbyn is now the figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture’.  This is mere hyperbole. I have always opposed racism. My reasons for supporting the Palestinians and opposing Zionism are the same as my reasons for opposing Apartheid in South Africa.  As you will of course know, Israel and South Africa were the best of friends. That is why people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu say that Israeli apartheid is worse than that in South Africa.

Let me assure you that it is because I am opposed to anti-Semitism that I was appalled when Netanyahu paid a friendly visit to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban last July just after he had initiated an anti-Semitic campaign against George Soros, the American Jewish philanthropist and a childhood survivor of the Hungarian Holocaust. Netanyahu supported Orban because he too hated Soros on account of his financing Israeli human rights organisations. According to the Jerusalem Post Netanyahu is now blaming Soros for helping the 40,000 Black African refugees he is trying to deport.  Maybe that too is anti-Semitic?

Orban is currently engaged in trying to rehabilitate the pro-Nazi leader of war-time Hungary Admiral Horthy who presided over the deportation of nearly ½ million Jews to Auschwitz yet Israel has nothing to say on this. 

Yair's cartoon showing Soros as the financial manipulator, complete with Lizard and a stereotypical anti-semitic cartoon of a Jew

The neo-Nazi Daily Stormer welcomes Yair Netanyahu's antisemitic cartoon

What I find strange is that Israel has such friendly relations with all the anti-Semitic regimes in Eastern Europe – from the Czech Republic to Poland. Indeed it is hard to think of a single neo-Nazi or far-Right movement in Europe that isn’t pro-Israel! Netanyahu’s own son Yair produced a genuinely anti-Semitic cartoon attacking George Soros, complete with a Lizard and a stereotypical image of a Jewish financier. Young Yair even received praise from David Duke, ex-KKK Grand wizard and Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi editor of the Daily Stormer.

What I find particularly difficult to understand and perhaps you could help me, is that when the fascists tried to march through the Jewish East End of London in the 1930’s, the Board of Deputies told Jews to ignore them, stay indoors and leave it to the Police.  The same happened with the National Front in the 1970’s.  Why is it that the Board is prepared to stage demonstrations over non-existent anti-Semitism but runs away from the real thing?

Just one last favour Jonathan. You rightly ask me to remove anyone who is anti-Semitic from the Labour Party. Can I ask that you return the favour?  Jonathan Hoffman is a delegate to the Board.  He has been filmed demonstrating alongside Paul Besser, former Intelligence Officer of Britain First as well as with the EDL.  I am sure you will agree with me that the best place to start fighting anti-Semitism is at home.

Kind Regards

 

Jeremy

When Holocaust survivor Professor Ze’ev Sternhell compares Israel to Nazi Germany It’s Time to Wake Up

It’s not anti-Semitic to compare Israel to Nazi Germany – it's what all anti-fascists should do

If there is one thing that the Zionist movement and Israel’s supporters hate it is comparisons between the ‘Jewish’ State of Israel and Nazi Germany.  ‘Anti-Semitism’ they cry like crows. It is the only Zionist response to criticism.  The fake Zionist IHRA definition of anti-Semitism that Theresa May has embraced, gives as one of 11 illustrative examples of ‘anti-Semitism’:

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.’

Shami Chakrabarti, in her Report on racism and anti-Semitism to the Labour Party also criticised the use of Holocaust comparisons. 

‘In day -to-day political debate , it is always incendiary to compare the actions of Jewish people or institutions anywhere in the world to those of Hitler or the Nazis or to the perpetration of the Holocaust. Indeed such remarks can only be intended to be incendiary rather  than persuasive.’

Shami Chakrabarti, whose Report was admirable in many ways, in particular its (so far ignored) recommendations on a fair and transparent disciplinary process in the Labour Party, was out of her depth when she dealt with Zionism and Israel.  It was not a subject she knew anything about and her opinions were shallow and superficial.

Even if it is ‘incendiary’ to compare demonstrations in Israel that chant ‘Death to the Arabs’ to similar ones in Nazi Germany or Poland, where the chant was ‘Death to the Jews’, is that any reason to be silent?  If Nazi Germany forbade Jews buying German ‘national’ land in much the same way as non-Jews are prevented from buying ‘Jewish national’ land in Israel, is the fear of being ‘incendiary’ a reason to be quiet? 

But in any case the comparison is not between Jews and Nazi Germany but between Zionists and Nazi Germany - a big difference.

The reason that it should be compulsory to make comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany is not in order to offend those whose relatives died in the Holocaust but to ensure that the ideas of Nazism and Hitlerism do not triumph once again.  It is today one of the few moral constraints on the actions of the Israeli state and Israelis themselves.

It is precisely because Israel derives its legitimacy from the Holocaust, which it claims as its moral and political foundation that we should remind its supporters of the growing similarity between the State of Israel and pre-war Nazi Germany.

Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer is a self-declared  White Zionist

The fact that ideologues of White Supremacy, like neo-Nazi Richard Spencer of the alt-Right, call themselves White Zionists only reinforces this comparison.  Those who pretend that the welcome by neo-Nazi and far-Right parties for Israel is a one way affair, that it is not reciprocated, are being deliberately disingenuous. 

Sebastian Gorka at the Zionist Organisation of America 2017 Annual Gala Dinner

Mort Klein, President of the Zionist Organisation of America, who welcomed Sebastian Gorka to the ZOA’s 2017 annual Gala dinner asked rhetorically: “Reagan had Nazis supporting him, so what?”  The Jewish Voice described how ‘Tonight Klein outdid himself with a superstar cast of participants including Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Senator Joe Lieberman...’

Gorka, who was a deputy assistant to Donald Trump was photographed at Trump’s inauguration wearing the Vitézi Rend, a medal issued by a Hungarian fascist group. This group collaborated with Nazi Germany during the war. Vitézi Rend was founded by Admiral Horthy, who ruled Hungary as Prince Regent, in 1920.  During the war Horthy formed an alliance with Nazi Germany and from May to July 1945  Horthy presided over the deportation of nearly ½ million Jews to Auschwitz.  Horthy was a self-confessed anti-Semite. 

But it wasn’t only far-Right Mort Klein, at whose dinner Alan Dershowitz, former Senator Lieberman and Steve Bannon attended, who welcomed Gorka. As Joseph Massad noted in The shocking alliance between Zionism and Anti-Semitism, Gorka was welcomed by the Jerusalem Post with warm applause and a prominent speaking slot at its annual conference in May 2017 in New York 

Other speakers at the same conference included Israel’s Education, Defence and Justice Ministers Naftali Bennet, Avigdor Liebermann and Ayelet Shaked.  As the Forward noted, ‘Despite his controversial ties to allies of the Nazis, White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka has scored invitations to speak at upcoming pro-Israeli events.  

Indeed the leader of the Israeli Labour Party, Isaac Herzog, a man who was always willing to condemn Jeremy Corbyn as ‘anti-Semitic’ was also a speaker at the conference.

An op-ed defending Gorka explained that “The real agenda is clear: Gorka has written forcefully about the need to defeat the jihadi threat to Western civilization,”

The alliance between Europe’s far Right anti-Semitic parties and the Zionist movement and Israel is founded, above all, on a common and shared hatred of Muslims.  Zionism feeds into anti-Islamic hatred in Europe and the fascists see Israel as the model kind of state that they would like to see back home.

In the fight against Islam and the Palestinians, the support of neo-Nazi Gorka is welcomed

Professor Ze’ev Sternhell

Ze’ev Sternhell is a childhood survivor of the Holocaust who was born in Przemyśl, Poland.  He was smuggled out of the ghetto into Lwow and survived the war, having been adopted by a Catholic family.  In 2008 Sternhell was injured by a bomb planted by settler terrorists.  Sternhell is also an expert in fascism, which is why his comparisons between Germany 1933-39 and Israel today cannot be understated.

What Sternhell compares Israel to is not the Nazi Germany of the Holocaust post-1941 but the pre-1939 era when the Nazi programme was one of expulsion and the removal of basic rights from the Jews of Germany.  From 1933 onwards there was a steady process of what might be called incremental discrimination against the Jews of Germany.  The first act was the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service which resulted in the dismissal of most Jewish civil servants.  The following six years saw the removal of citizenship from Jews and their economic pauperisation as Jews were prevented from owning businesses, Jewish children prevented from going to public schools and even, on November 29^th 1938 owning carrier pigeons!  See Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany.

A kosher certificate handed out by Lehava to employers who refuse to hire Arab workers

In Israel too there are growing campaigns for businesses to dismiss Arab workers, for Jews not to rent land or property to non-Jews as well as state authorised discrimination in terms of the segregation of education, jobs, housing etc.  This is accompanied in the social sphere by government sponsored campaigns against social and personal relations between Jews and Arabs in order to preserve the ethnic purity of the Jewish race in Israel, because in Israel being Jewish is a national and not just a religious category. 

In 2014 we had the sick scenes of hundreds of protestors from Lehava, a state funded organisation, demonstrating outside the marriage reception of a Jewish woman and an Arab man.  Lehava itself organises lynch mobs to attack Arabs suspected of dating Jewish men.  Under the aegis of now Deputy Foreign Minister Tsipi Hotoveli, the ‘charitable’ front of Lehava has received state funding for over a decade. Israel Funds Group That 'Saves Jewish Girls' From Marrying Arabs.

Racism in Israel however has never been a private matter.  The Jewish National Fund is a body established by the JNF Law 1953.  The JNF controls 93% of Israeli land with the Israeli Land Authority.  Its constitution prevents it from leasing or renting land to non-Jews and when this arrangement was upset by a Supreme Court ruling in Kadan in 2000 the Knesset simply passed the Receptions Committees Law which substituted indirect for direct discrimination.  It was otherwise known as the "High Court- Kaadan bypass law".

After the Kadan ruling the JNF argued that not only did 70% of Israeli Jews oppose allocating their land to non-Jews, but that 80% of Jews preferred Israel to be a Jewish state to a state of its own citizens

At the present time the Israeli government is piloting through the Knesset a Jewish Nation State Law which will enshrine in basic law, the equivalent of Israel’s Constitution, the fact that Arabs are not even second class citizens of Israel.  They are, at best tolerated tresspassers.

The process of discrimination in Israel isn’t confined to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories but increasingly to Israel’s Arab citizens too.  Thus we see that the Jewish state is progressively becoming the equivalent of the Aryan state in Germany before 1939.  This is the background to the comparisons by Professor Sternhell.  Those who decry such comparisons are saying that the present apartheid situation in Israel is an acceptable price to pay for the existence of a ‘Jewish’ state.

Tony Greenstein

Professor Sternhell

Zeev Sternhell Haaretz, 19.01.2018 02:00 

I frequently ask myself how a historian in 50 or 100 years will interpret our period. When, he will ask, did people in Israel start to realize that the state that was established in the War of Independence, on the ruins of European Jewry and at the cost of the blood of combatants some of whom were Holocaust survivors, had devolved into a true monstrosity for its non-Jewish inhabitants. When did some Israelis understand that their cruelty and ability to bully others, Palestinians or Africans, began eroding the moral legitimacy of their existence as a sovereign entity?

The answer, that historian might say, was embedded in the actions of Knesset members such as Miki Zohar and Bezalel Smotrich and the bills proposed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. The nation-state law, which looks like it was formulated by the worst of Europe’s ultra-nationalists, was only the beginning. Since the left did not protest against it in its Rothschild Boulevard demonstrations, it served as a first nail in the coffin of the old Israel, the one whose Declaration of Independence will remain as a museum showpiece. This archaeological relic will teach people what Israel could have become if its society hadn’t disintegrated from the moral devastation brought on by the occupation and apartheid in the territories.

The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here, the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people. The interviews Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht held with Smotrich and Zohar (December 3, 2016 and October 28, 2017) should be widely disseminated on all media outlets in Israel and throughout the Jewish world. In both of them we see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.

Like every ideology, the Nazi race theory developed over the years. At first it only deprived Jews of their civil and human rights. It’s possible that without World War II the “Jewish problem” would have ended only with the “voluntary” expulsion of Jews from Reich lands. After all, most of Austria and Germany’s Jews made it out in time. It’s possible that this is the future facing Palestinians.

Indeed, Smotrich and Zohar don’t wish to physically harm Palestinians, on condition that they don’t rise against their Jewish masters. They only wish to deprive them of their basic human rights, such as self-rule in their own state and freedom from oppression, or equal rights in case the territories are officially annexed to Israel. For these two representatives of the Knesset majority, the Palestinians are doomed to remain under occupation forever. It’s likely that the Likud’s Central Committee also thinks this way. The reasoning is simple: The Arabs aren’t Jews, so they cannot demand ownership over any part of the land that was

According to the concepts of Smotrich, Zohar and Shaked, a Jew from Brooklyn who has never set foot in this country is the legitimate owner of this land, while a Palestinian whose family has lived here for generations is a stranger, living here only by the grace of the Jews. “A Palestinian,” Zohar tells Hecht, “has no right to national self-determination since he doesn’t own the land in this country. Out of decency I want him here as a resident, since he was born here and lives here – I won’t tell him to leave. I’m sorry to say this but they have one major disadvantage – they weren’t born as Jews.”

From this one may assume that even if they all converted, grew side-curls and studied Torah, it would not help. This is the situation with regard to Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers and their children, who are Israeli for all intents and purposes. This is how it was with the Nazis. Later comes apartheid, which could apply under certain circumstances to Arabs who are citizens of Israel. Most Israelis don’t seem worried.