These right wing factions that jump on any kind of bandwagon that involves blaming "others" should not even be seen as political movements; they are simply bands of thugs who are forever looking for someone to beat up. They don't really care who the victim is, they just desperately need an excuse to unleash violence, which they clearly delight in. It's a spectrum, from the bunch of unruly kids, the neighbourhood gang of uncontrollable teenagers, the organised crime gang, the mob with untouchable king pin, to the psychotic national president with a whole military at his disposal.
I did compose a response to your criticisms, but it disappeared into the ether - probably due to my finger touching some button or other - before I posted it. I’m too tired to rewrite it, so will hopefully sort out several misunderstandings that have arisen when I next meet you!
It is a supreme irony that the Israeli Zionists make common cause with the antisemitic members of far right political parties against Palestinians and their supporters. Such unholy alliances date back to WW2, when Avraham Stern, leader of the Lehi paramilitary breakaway group from the Irgun, wrote to Hitler offering his gang’s support in the fight against the British forces. Hitler didn’t respond, having by then moved on to the “final solution”. But it isn’t perhaps so strange, as both the Nazis and the Zionists shared the same core belief, namely the myth of a special Jewish identity that set them apart from non-Jewish people. This led to the Nazis regarding people of Jewish faith as Untermenschen, thus not entitled to be treated as human; whereas the Zionists regarded the indigenous Arabs of Palestine as occupiers of the mythical Jewish homeland and nowadays as subhumans with no rights or claim to their former lands. Two sides of the same base coin.
Incidentally the Hungarian leader Horty did not participate in the wholesale slaughter of the Jews, whilst leader of an unoccupied country, even though allied to Germany. Indeed he made an offer to the British and American governments of free passage of the 300,000 or so Jews living in wartime Hungary to territories controlled by the Allies. The British were appalled by this prospect and succeeded in delaying a decision as to how to respond until such time as Germany occupied Hungary in mid 1944 and took matters out of Horty’s hands. By then the Vichy government was likewise committed to assisting the Nazis in exterminating the Jews, Britain and USA having successfully blocked the escape of more than a few of the Jews trapped in France.
Maybe it’s the phrasing, but I feel there’s a lot wrong with this observation, Steve: ‘But it isn’t perhaps so strange, as both the Nazis and the Zionists shared the same core belief, namely the myth of a special Jewish identity that set them apart from non-Jewish people. This led to the Nazis regarding people of Jewish faith as Untermenschen, thus not entitled to be treated as human; whereas the Zionists regarded the indigenous Arabs of Palestine as occupiers of the mythical Jewish homeland and nowadays as subhumans with no rights or claim to their former lands. Two sides of the same base coin.’ You seem to be implying that because Zionists believed in ‘the myth of a special Jewish identity’, that ‘this led’ to the Nazi genocide. This has just a hint of ‘they asked for it.’ Yet 1) Millions of Jews killed by the Nazis did not believe in a ‘special Jewish identity’ - German Jews for example, fatally believed that they were fully-assimilated Germans and had no interest in Palestine or Zionism 2)Zionism was still something of a marginal political force in Europe until the war, regardless of what was taking place in Palestine. In addition, there were many different shades of Zionism and it is glib and misleading to equate the belief in a Jewish national home with a program of mass racial extermination 3) As a settler-colonial project for ‘a people without land in a land without people’, Zionism did not regard Palestinians as untermenschen but as intruders in ‘Jewish’ land. No doubt many Israelis have come to see Palestinians as subhuman, but that doesn’t mean that Zionism=Nazism imho. The State of Israel can be criticised for many crimes without making that comparison. I also feel that your characterisation of Horthy/Hungary as some kind of innocent bystander is historically misleading, but that is too long to go into now
These right wing factions that jump on any kind of bandwagon that involves blaming "others" should not even be seen as political movements; they are simply bands of thugs who are forever looking for someone to beat up. They don't really care who the victim is, they just desperately need an excuse to unleash violence, which they clearly delight in. It's a spectrum, from the bunch of unruly kids, the neighbourhood gang of uncontrollable teenagers, the organised crime gang, the mob with untouchable king pin, to the psychotic national president with a whole military at his disposal.
I did compose a response to your criticisms, but it disappeared into the ether - probably due to my finger touching some button or other - before I posted it. I’m too tired to rewrite it, so will hopefully sort out several misunderstandings that have arisen when I next meet you!
It is a supreme irony that the Israeli Zionists make common cause with the antisemitic members of far right political parties against Palestinians and their supporters. Such unholy alliances date back to WW2, when Avraham Stern, leader of the Lehi paramilitary breakaway group from the Irgun, wrote to Hitler offering his gang’s support in the fight against the British forces. Hitler didn’t respond, having by then moved on to the “final solution”. But it isn’t perhaps so strange, as both the Nazis and the Zionists shared the same core belief, namely the myth of a special Jewish identity that set them apart from non-Jewish people. This led to the Nazis regarding people of Jewish faith as Untermenschen, thus not entitled to be treated as human; whereas the Zionists regarded the indigenous Arabs of Palestine as occupiers of the mythical Jewish homeland and nowadays as subhumans with no rights or claim to their former lands. Two sides of the same base coin.
Incidentally the Hungarian leader Horty did not participate in the wholesale slaughter of the Jews, whilst leader of an unoccupied country, even though allied to Germany. Indeed he made an offer to the British and American governments of free passage of the 300,000 or so Jews living in wartime Hungary to territories controlled by the Allies. The British were appalled by this prospect and succeeded in delaying a decision as to how to respond until such time as Germany occupied Hungary in mid 1944 and took matters out of Horty’s hands. By then the Vichy government was likewise committed to assisting the Nazis in exterminating the Jews, Britain and USA having successfully blocked the escape of more than a few of the Jews trapped in France.
Maybe it’s the phrasing, but I feel there’s a lot wrong with this observation, Steve: ‘But it isn’t perhaps so strange, as both the Nazis and the Zionists shared the same core belief, namely the myth of a special Jewish identity that set them apart from non-Jewish people. This led to the Nazis regarding people of Jewish faith as Untermenschen, thus not entitled to be treated as human; whereas the Zionists regarded the indigenous Arabs of Palestine as occupiers of the mythical Jewish homeland and nowadays as subhumans with no rights or claim to their former lands. Two sides of the same base coin.’ You seem to be implying that because Zionists believed in ‘the myth of a special Jewish identity’, that ‘this led’ to the Nazi genocide. This has just a hint of ‘they asked for it.’ Yet 1) Millions of Jews killed by the Nazis did not believe in a ‘special Jewish identity’ - German Jews for example, fatally believed that they were fully-assimilated Germans and had no interest in Palestine or Zionism 2)Zionism was still something of a marginal political force in Europe until the war, regardless of what was taking place in Palestine. In addition, there were many different shades of Zionism and it is glib and misleading to equate the belief in a Jewish national home with a program of mass racial extermination 3) As a settler-colonial project for ‘a people without land in a land without people’, Zionism did not regard Palestinians as untermenschen but as intruders in ‘Jewish’ land. No doubt many Israelis have come to see Palestinians as subhuman, but that doesn’t mean that Zionism=Nazism imho. The State of Israel can be criticised for many crimes without making that comparison. I also feel that your characterisation of Horthy/Hungary as some kind of innocent bystander is historically misleading, but that is too long to go into now