Why Today’s Israel Reminds Me of Nazi Germany – Uri Avnery
As people will be aware, the Zionist movement is
in the forefront of the attack on free speech in this country and elsewhere. It
provides the Right in the Labour Party with the ideal moral justification for an attack on free
speech – ‘anti-Semitism’. So much so that
plenty of Jewish people are now being suspended and expelled! Zionism is the
cutting edge of the attack on democratic rights in the West.
The latest Jewish member to be suspended is
Professor Moshe Machover. Moshe was expelled
peremptorily three years ago on the false charge that he was a member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain.
So fierce was the backlash to that particular expulsion that the
witchhunters were forced to backtrack and reinstate
Moshe.
As I told Moshe when I heard the news, he has since been living
on borrowed time. The Zionists have been eager to see the back of him and his Open Letter in
Weekly Worker daring Starmer and the Zionists to do their worse, after he had appeared
on a platform with Chris Williamson and myself, was probably a red rag to a
bull (or a snake).
I however can’t be expelled (unless they readmit
me in order that they can repeat the exercise!). So I can say virtually
anything about Herr Sturmer and his anti-Semitic
friend, David Evans.
Uri
Avnery considered himself a Zionist to his dying days but unlike 99% of
Zionists when he talked about peace with the Palestinians he meant it. Uri fought in Israel’s War of
Independence (or Nakba) and was severely wounded. He was also a former member of the Irgun
terror group, which is why it was all the more remarkable that he courted
arrest several times to meet the PLO,
which then was the representative of the Palestinians including memorably
Yasser Arafat in a Beirut under siege.
There are indeed many comparisons between the
Nazi state before 1939 and the Israeli state and many survivors of the
holocaust, including those who were survivors of the concentration camps, such
as Ze’ev
Sternhell and Hajo
Meyer saw those comparisons.
The key comparison is that for the Nazis the
Jews were not part of the national collective, hence why in 1935 the Nuremberg
Laws removed Jewish citizenship.
Henceforth they became subjects.
In Israel citizenship was begrudgingly given in
the early 1950’s to the Palestinians but it was a degraded form of citizenship. For the first 18 years of the state they
lived under military rule. Since then
they have lived, not even as second class citizens but as tolerated guests, the
majority of their lands stolen from them and hemmed
into the 2% that they are allowed by Jewish settlements.
The Jewish
Nation State Law passed in 2018 makes what was always implicit explicit. In
its original, explicitly racist form it legalised the formation of Jewish only
settlements, hundreds of which already exist.
Making Israel’s racism explicit caused an uproar
among liberal Zionists because in Israel Zionism has perfected the art of not
making its racist intentions explicit, bar the Israeli Law
of Return. Instead para state organisations, such as the Jewish
National Fund and Jewish
Agency undertake the dirty work of discrimination. Regulations, policies
and practices do the rest.
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| The broken window of a Jewish shop in Kristallnacht |
For example there has been a longstanding policy
of Judaising the Galilee, Jerusalem and Negev. This is no different to the Nazi
policy of ‘deJewification’. Except that no laws were necessary. The Koenig Memorandum
and the Prawer Plan
ensured that policies would enact what the Knesset desired but did not legislate for.
Indeed it would be possible to say that being a
settler colonial state, which Germany of course was not, has meant that racism
in Israel is far higher than in Nazi Germany.
It may surprise people but even in the Nazi Party itself, the majority
of members were not vehement anti-Semites. It was among the hard core of ‘old
fighters’, those who had seen action in the Freikorps, the
counter-revolutionary squads employed by the Social Democrats against the
German Revolution, that genocidal anti-Semitism flourished.
There is a large section of Zionism which would
not blanche at the extermination of the Palestinians. Religious Zionists in particular have
often expressed
genocidal sentiments as have their rabbis such as Dov Lior, who is the
settlers’ Chief Rabbi. Dov Lior famously
said
that a Jewish fingernail was worth more than a thousand non-Jewish lives. Rabbi
Yaacov Perrin, giving the funeral oration for Baruch Goldstein, who had
murdered 29 unarmed worshippers in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron and wounded another
hundred, increased
this to a million lives.
Nonetheless it is not extermination but
expulsion/transfer which is what the Palestinians face in the medium to
long-term. Comparisons between Nazi Germany post 1939 and Israel are
far-fetched to say the least. With the
onset of war Nazi Germany turned from expulsion to extermination. It first
began with the wholesale murder of the disabled, in particular the Jewish
disabled, from 1939-1941 until Catholic Bishop Galen spoke
out against it (although a wild ‘euthenasia’ persisted in the concentration
camps).
However even the most absurd comparisons, such
as describing the Palestinian experience as a ‘holocaust’ are not anti-Semitic.
Hyperbole is not racism. It is a measure of the fact that the Palestinian
struggle is an anti-racist one that the Nazis are seen as the ultimate evil.
However the Zionists are in no position to
deprecate comparisons between Zionism and Nazism given their appalling record
before and during the holocaust. Ben
Gurion made clear his attitude to the endangered Jews in Germany being sent to Britain in a speech
to the Israeli Labor Party’s central Committee on 9th December 1938,
just a month after Kristalnacht.
The reaction of the world to this state
sponsored pogrom was one of revulsion. The British Government acceded to the
request of the Board of Deputies (which had not yet been captured by the
Zionists) to admit ten thousand children. The Zionists were outraged and the
reaction of David Ben Gurion, the Chairman of the Jewish Agency (which was the
Zionists’ government-in-waiting) and later first Prime Minister of Israel was
telling.
‘If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.’[i]
This was the attitude of the Zionists throughout
the war as they consciously sought to block all avenues of escape for Jewish
refugees unless the destination was Palestine.
Their warped thinking being that if Jewish Palestine could not provide a
solution to the refugee question, then what was the point of this ‘national
museum’ as Ben Gurion also called it.
It was called ‘cruel
Zionism’. Although Zionism was to be immensely cruel to the Palestinians
we should never forget that it was cruel to the Jews first.
Read and enjoy!
Tony Greenstein
Israeli activist and author Uri Avnery draws on
his personal experience of Hitler’s Germany on the eve of the Nazi party’s
victory, and during the early years of Nazism, to show that similar processes
of creeping Nazism are underway in Israel today
Why
Today’s Israel Reminds Me of Nazi Germany – Uri Avnery
“Please don’t write about Ya’ir Golan!” a friend begged me, “Anything a leftist like you writes will only harm him!”
So, I abstained for some weeks. But I can’t keep
quiet any longer.
General Ya’ir Golan, the deputy chief of staff
of the Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. Wearing his
uniform, he read a prepared, well-considered text that triggered an uproar
which has not yet died down.
Dozens of articles have been published in its
wake, some condemning him, some lauding him. It seems that nobody could stay
indifferent.
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| Uri Avnery protesting in Jerusalem |
Traces
of Nazism
The main sentence was this:
If
there is something that frightens me about the memories of the Holocaust, it is
the knowledge of the awful processes which happened in Europe in general, and
in Germany in particular, 70, 80, 90 years ago, and finding traces of them here
in our midst, today, in 2016.
All hell broke loose. What! Traces of Nazism in
Israel? A resemblance between what the Nazis did to us with what we are doing
to the Palestinians?
Ninety years ago was 1926, one of the last years
of the German republic. Eighty years ago was 1936, three years after the Nazis
came to power. Seventy years ago was 1946, on the morrow of Hitler’s suicide
and the end of the Nazi Reich.
I feel compelled to write about the general’s
speech after all, because I was there.
As a child I was an eyewitness to the last years
of the Weimar Republic (so called because its constitution was shaped in
Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller). As a politically alert boy I
witnessed the Nazi Machtergreifung (“taking power”) and the first half a
year of Nazi rule.
I know what Golan was speaking about. Though we
belong to two different generations, we share the same background. Both our
families come from small towns in Western Germany. His father and I must have
had a lot in common.
There is a strict moral commandment in Israel:
nothing can be compared to the holocaust. The holocaust is unique. It happened
to us, the Jews, because we are unique. (Religious Jews would add: “Because God
has chosen us.”)
I have broken this commandment. Just before
Golan was born, I published (in Hebrew) a book called The Swastika, in
which I recounted my childhood memories and tried to draw conclusions from
them. It was on the eve of the Eichmann trial, and I was shocked by the lack of
knowledge about the Nazi era among young Israelis then.
My book did not deal with the holocaust, which
took place when I was already living in Palestine, but with a question which
troubled me throughout the years, and even today: how could it happen that
Germany, perhaps the most cultured nation on earth at the time, the homeland of
Goethe, Beethoven and Kant, could democratically elect a raving psychopath like
Adolf Hitler as its leader?
The last chapter of the book was entitled “It
Can Happen Here!” The title was drawn from a book by the American novelist
Sinclair Lewis, called ironically “It Can’t Happen Here”, in which he described
a Nazi take-over of the United States.
In this chapter I discussed the possibility of a
Jewish Nazi-like party coming to power in Israel. My conclusion was that a Nazi
party can come to power in any country on earth, if the conditions are right.
Yes, in Israel, too.
The book was largely ignored by the Israeli
public, which at the time was overwhelmed by the storm of emotions evoked by
the terrible disclosures of the Eichmann trial.
The truthful general
Now comes General Golan, an esteemed
professional soldier, and says the same thing.
And not as an improvised remark, but on an
official occasion, wearing his general’s uniform, reading from a prepared,
well-thought-out text.
The storm broke out, and has not passed yet.
Israelis have a self-protective habit: when
confronted with inconvenient truths, they evade its essence and deal with a
secondary, unimportant aspect. Of all the dozens and dozens of reactions in the
written press, on TV and on political platforms, almost none confronted the
general’s painful contention.
… Golan has sacrificed his further advancement in
order to utter his warning and giving it the widest possible resonance.
No, the furious debate that broke out concerns
the questions: Is a senior army officer allowed to voice an opinion about
matters that concern the civilian establishment? And do so in army uniform? On
an official occasion?
Should an army officer keep quiet about his
political convictions? Or voice them only in closed sessions – “in relevant forums”, as a furious
Binyamin Netanyahu phrased it?
General Golan enjoys a very high degree of
respect in the army. As deputy chief of staff he was until now almost certainly
a candidate for chief of staff, when the incumbent leaves the office after the
customary four years.
The fulfilment of this dream shared by every
General Staff officer is now very remote. In practice, Golan has sacrificed his
further advancement in order to utter his warning and giving it the widest
possible resonance.
One can only respect such courage. I have never
met General Golan, I believe, and I don’t know his political views. But I
admire his act.
(Somehow I recall an article published by the
British magazine Punch before World War I, when a group of junior army
officers issued a statement opposing the government’s policy in Ireland. The
magazine said that while it disapproves of the opinion expressed by the
mutinous officers, it took pride in the fact that such youthful officers were
ready to sacrifice their careers for their convictions.)
The Nazi march to power started in 1929, when a
terrible worldwide economic crisis hit Germany. A tiny, ridiculous far-right
party suddenly became a political force to be reckoned with. From there it took
them four years to become the largest party in the country and to take over
power (though it still needed a coalition).
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Israeli settlers shout slogans as they march in the streets. |
I was there when it happened, a boy in a family
in which politics became the main topic at the dinner table. I saw how the
republic broke down, gradually, slowly, step by step. I saw our family friends
hoisting the swastika flag. I saw my high-school teacher raising his arm when
entering the class and saying “Heil Hitler” for the first time (and then
reassuring me in private that nothing had changed.)
I was the only Jew in the entire high school.
When the hundreds of boys – all taller than me – raised their arms to sing the
Nazi anthem, and I did not, they threatened to break my bones if it happened
again. A few days later we left Germany for good.
Corrosive
victories
General Golan was accused of comparing Israel to
Nazi Germany. Nothing of the sort. A careful reading of his text shows that he
compared developments in Israel to the events that led to the disintegration of
the Weimar Republic. And that is a valid comparison.
Things happening in Israel, especially since the
last election, bear a frightening similarity to those events. True, the process
is quite different. German fascism arose from the humiliation of surrender in
World War I, the occupation of the Ruhr by France and Belgium from 1923 to
1925, the terrible economic crisis of 1929, the misery of millions of
unemployed. Israel is victorious in its frequent military actions, we live
comfortable lives. The dangers threatening us are of a quite different nature.
They stem from our victories, not from our defeats.
Indeed, the differences between Israel today and
Germany then are far greater than the similarities. But those similarities do
exist, and the general was right to point them out.
Racism and
discrimination
The
discrimination against the Palestinians in practically all spheres of life can
be compared to the treatment of the Jews in the first phase of Nazi Germany. (The oppression of the Palestinians in the
occupied territories resembles more the treatment of the Czechs in the
“protectorate” after the Munich betrayal.)
The political riffraff peopling the present
Netanyahu government could easily have found their place in the first Nazi
government.
The rain of racist bills in the Knesset, those
already adopted and those in the works, strongly resembles the laws adopted by
the Reichstag in the early days of the Nazi regime. Some rabbis call for a
boycott of Arab shops. Like then. The call “Death
to the Arabs” (Judah verrecke?) is regularly heard at soccer
matches. A member of parliament has called for the separation between Jewish
and Arab newborns in hospital. A chief rabbi has declared that goyim (non-Jews)
were created by God to serve the Jews. Our ministers of education and culture
are busy subduing the schools, theatre and arts to the extreme rightist line,
something known in German as Gleichschaltung. The Supreme Court, the
pride of Israel, is being relentlessly attacked by the minister of justice. The
Gaza Strip is a huge ghetto.
Of course, no one in their right mind would even
remotely compare Netanyahu to the Fuehrer, but there are political parties here
which do emit a strong fascist smell. The political riffraff peopling the
present Netanyahu government could easily have found their place in the first
Nazi government.
One of the main slogans of our present
government is to replace the “old elite”, considered too liberal, with a new
one. One of the main Nazi slogans was to replace das System.
By the way, when the Nazis came to power, almost
all senior officers of the German army were staunch anti-Nazis. They were even
considering a putsch against Hitler . Their political leader was summarily
executed a year later, when Hitler liquidated his opponents in his own party.
We are told that General Golan is now protected by a personal bodyguard,
something that has never happened to a general in the annals of Israel.
The general did not mention the occupation and
the settlements, which are under army rule. But he did mention the episode
which occurred shortly before he gave this speech, and which is still shaking
Israel now: in occupied Hebron, under army rule, a soldier saw a seriously
wounded Palestinian lying helplessly on the ground, approached him and killed
him with a shot to the head. The victim had tried to attack some soldiers with
a knife, but did not constitute a threat to anyone any more. This was a clear
contravention of army standing orders, and the soldier has been hauled before a
court martial.
A cry went up around the country: the soldier is
a hero! He should be decorated! Netanyahu called his father to assure him of
his support. Avigdor Lieberman entered the crowded courtroom in order to
express his solidarity with the soldier. A few days later Netanyahu appointed
Lieberman as minister of defence, the second most important office in Israel.
Before that, General Golan received robust
support both from the minister of defense, Moshe Ya’alon, and the chief of
staff, Gadi Eisenkot. Probably this was the immediate reason for the kicking
out of Ya’alon and the appointment of Lieberman in his place. It resembled a
putsch.
It seems that Golan is not only a courageous
officer, but a prophet, too. The inclusion of Lieberman’s party in the
government coalition confirms Golan’s blackest fears. This is another fatal
blow to the Israeli democracy.
Am I condemned to witness the same process for
the second time in my life?
[i] Yoav Gelber, ‘Zionist policy and the Fate of European Jewry, Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XIII, p. 199 Labour Party Archives, Bet Berl Tsofit., 22/38, see also Segev, p.28. Teveth, p.855, Piterberg, p.99.
Yair Golan, Uri Avnery, Nazi,
