This is from ISRAELI media. You can’t say that here!
In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism
They
don’t wish to physically harm Palestinians. They only wish to
deprive them of their basic human rights, such as self-rule in their
own state and freedom from oppression
19
January, 2018
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 promised to the Jewish people.
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.
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