Zeev Sternhell : Opinion In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism
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.
Commenti
Posta un commento