Wednesday, July 23, 2014

"Send leftists to the gas chambers & please take them there in garbage trucks"

Let's end all of this talk about Israel being a democracy. That society has worked very diligently to earn the title fascist. A nation does not become a true democracy simply by holding elections (in which only certain people may vote). Democracy and fascism are psychological states -- ways of looking at the world. They are part of the soul.

What has happened to the Israeli soul? What kind of person has been shaped by the Israeli indoctrination program -- which is comparable to, and obviously modeled on, the Hitlerjugend movement? This report by Bekah Wolf demonstrates what modern Israel has devolved into...
Yossi* wants to make it very clear from the beginning of our discussion that I cannot use his real name. Rotem, his friend who is also translating, explains, “He is afraid. We’re all afraid. The fascists are searching for our Facebook profiles, for any information about us on the internet. They are hunting us.”

What first may seem like hyperbole is in fact exactly what pro-Palestinian, anti-occupation Jewish-Israeli activists have been describing for the last week: mobs of right-wing fascists chasing peaceful protesters and violently attacking them in the centers of West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
“The police were just cowards,” Rotem said. “They left us to face a group of fascists who wanted to kill us. They actually told us that.” The demonstrators there to support the people of Gaza tried to leave the area. Yossi explained what happened next. “We ran down the street and the fascists followed us. We ran into a cafe and about 20 of the fascists came inside after us. They completely destroyed the cafe.”
Yossi said, “this is nothing compared to the violence used against Palestinians every day.” Even during periods of relative calm, he says, “Palestinians are attacked every day. Every day.” What’s different, Rotem said, is that it is now being visited on other Jews, “in the heart of Tel Aviv.”

I asked what they saw as the cause of the surge of violence and fascist rhetoric in Israeli society. Yossi explained it this way: “The differen[ce] between the pilots bombing Gaza every day and the hooligans in the street is that the hooligans aren’t killing people.” In other words, the mentality required to massacre Gazans and that which leads to assaulting those who you don’t agree with are one in the same. Rotem lays the blame at the increasingly right-wing government and their direct incitement. “[Naftali] Bennett and others like him are encouraging this kind of violence. They are calling Palestinians animals and us traitors.” He believes it’s part of a coordinated campaign to incite violence. “It used to not be politically correct to talk like this. You used to only say these things behind closed doors. Now it’s out in the open.” The people on the streets attacking Palestinians and left-wing Israelis, he said, “are just the soldiers.” This is the result of “twenty years of denying democracy, of working against the Supreme Court, against minorities” he said.
Typical Israeli Twitter message:
Send leftists to the gas chambers & please take them there in garbage trucks
The Israel of America's imagination bears no relationship to the actual state. From a recent Haaretz piece (behind a paywall, but excerpted in a comment here):
The new State of Israel will no longer tolerate any opinion that is different, any alternative idea. Subversive ideas are out of the question; even asking questions that few people ask will be utterly prohibited. The people will speak in unison, like in a chorus, as uniform as the Red Army Choir. The media, too, will speak in one voice, declaimed right out of the statements dictated to it by government and army spokesmen.

None of this is a dream. The nightmare is already here.
We may criticize the army and the defense establishment, but only from one direction: Why didn’t they let the army win? Let it “do its job,” beat the hell out of them, bombard them, crush them even more, conquer even more, cut off the electricity, tighten the siege and ramp up the killing, pain and devastation as much as possible; to exalt the might of the troops, to praise the daring of the pilots. To bring the Arabs back to the Stone Age and Gaza to the Middle Ages. That is allowed. The most moral thing on earth — as much as possible; doubting it is forbidden. One may also cry victim without limit. Ignorance will be crowned as a national goal.
Yes, Israel holds what it is pleased to call elections. But fascism is not a system of governance; it's a mentality. As long as that mentality holds sway, even a nation which calls itself a democracy (and which stages a vote at regular periods) may fairly be identified as fascist.

I would argue that America has had dangerously fascistic periods: The McCarthy era gives us one example, as does the year-long run-up to the Iraq War. A number of people have argued that the Confederacy was the first experiment in fascism. Would it have been less fascist if it had survived long enough to hold an election?

Perhaps we should look even further back if we want to locate the origin of the fascist impulse. The murderous relocation of the Cherokee and other native tribes began during the Jackson administration. Jackson was elected democratically; he was both popular and populist. Does this fact make the "Trail of Tears" any less atrocious? The Indian Relocation Act becomes more vile -- not less -- when we note that it was created by elected representatives of the American people.

If Germany had held a perfectly fair election in (say) 1938, who would have won? You know damned well.

I'll say it again: Fascism is not a system of governance; it's a mentality.

10 comments:

iwarmonger0 said...

You do realize that most countries right now are fascist, including our own? Russia: fascist. China: Fascist. US-Very fascist. To single out Israel seems some what anti-Semitic when we are all guilty of being fascist. Israel is defending themselves from a people who want them dead. If anything I think the Israelis are going too nice on Gaza which should be razed to the ground if Israel ever wants this nonsense to stop. The reason the US hasn't won a war in decades is this adverse reaction to killing people, civilians included. Had we done this during WW2, Hitler would have won. Israel is fighting for their survival, and yes, if I was there, I would be cheering on a hillside too. Hamas has had ample time to stop the bloodshed and has chosen not too. Why should Israel get all the scorn, when it is the Palestinians prolonging this?

Anonymous said...

For all those who keep saying vs like imagine it was throwing rocks into NY or LA what to do but defend yourself I have a different scenarios for you. Imagine that you are with yr family in your home or your car then an armed gang came and kicked of you out and took all your belongings. The people who are around were cheering them and even giving them more arms. Will u just go on with your life as if nothing happened

amspirnational said...

I certainly agree, the US committed war crimes on the proportionate scale
that Israel is committing in Gaza
during the Iraq War. Of course since Israel owns Congress and was key in driving the Iraq War,(based on WMD lies) it isn't that much of a distinction.

Monster from the Id said...

The genocidal removal of the Native Americans is probably the best analogy, because the same motive was operative then in the USA as now in Israel: the lust for other people's land and resources.

Anonymous said...

interesting comment section today.. it seems the fanatics are out in strong force here as well.. james

Anonymous said...

1warmonger0, thanks for your candor. Would you care to share with us any of your Rachel Corrie jokes?

Gus said...

Israel proves again and again that they have no interest in peace. Can we stop pretending that the, admittedly vile, actions of Hamas justify the collective punishment of ALL Palestinians? That somehow the Palestinians actions are equivalent to those of Israel? No, of course not, because ignorant Americans will continue to support the "only Democracy in the middle east (cough, cough)", as if that statement were even true (it's not). Frankly, if 1700 rockets were fired into California from Mexico and did no damage, I would like to believe that Californians would want something done, but not a collective massacre of Mexicans who had nothing to do with firing the rockets. Of course, I'd likely be disappointed, as blood thirst seems to be the order of the day Israel and it's American lap dogs.

Anonymous said...

The turning point for me was the carnage on the beach where 4 little boys playing soccer were blown to Kingdom Come. War is ugly and children are frequently killed but we rarely have it caught on video. And what was the reaction? The journalist and his crew were called back to the States until a public uproar had him reinstated. The Israeli response? We do not target the civilian population [in other words, don't trust your lying eyes]. And from an Israeli spokesman: We don't target civilian targets. This was 'an operational error.' Really?

Netanyahu disgraced himself talking about Hamas' talent of featuring the 'telegenic dead.' I suppose that applies to all the dead children to date. Or, 'a man's got to do what a man's got to do.' If slaughter is what he's talking about, I guess that makes a grotesque sort of sense. Another term I found with a little reading was 'mowing the grass,' which presumably explains these periodic acts of mass murder--mowing down current strongholds, capabilities, collateral damage be damned [another term I love--collateral damage--one borrowed straight from the US).

Today we learn that the UN buildings, hospitals and the like are being targeted because we cannot leave any safe houses for people to run to. And that's the point. There is no place to run. This is a turkey shoot with all exits controlled by the Israeli military: air, sea, land.

Perhaps the most egregious argument I've read is rationalizing the carnage--that the Palestinians are not really civilians, they all share a common guilt/responsibility for Hamas. Not really civilians; not really human.

Not even those little boys playing soccer on the beach?

This is wrong, inhumane and frankly disgusting. If there's any common guilt it rests with the world at large, the US in particular--watching, defending the indefensible.

Peggysue

Anonymous said...

I could not have said it better

Anonymous said...

If you steal my house and hold me hostage, I will do whatever I can to kill you. And no, I do not care about your right of survival. I care about my right of survival.