Israel: the end of all illusions
JVL Introduction
Chris Hedges is in no doubt that the new government in Israel represents a seismic change.
It is one thing to argue that the logic of a liberal “Jewish and democratic” Zionist state tends towards inequality, oppression, supremacy.
It is another to recognise that that moment of Zionism has run its course.
What has happened is not more of the same, but much worse. It is a step change, says Chris Hedges, on the way to a “despotic theocracy”.
He pulls no punches when he says that “Ben-Gvir and Smotrich represent the dregs of Israeli society, one that promotes ‘Jewish identity’ and ‘Jewish nationalism’ in a Zionist version of fascism’s call for blood and soil.
It is these Jewish fascists who are now calling the tune.
And we can expect the war against the Jewish “traitors within” to go hand in hand with increased violence and death meted out to Palestinians as a matter of daily routine…
This article was originally published by The Chris Hedges Report on Sun 11 Dec 2022. Read the original here.
Israel and the Rise of Jewish Fascism
The mask is being lifted from the face of Israel’s apartheid state, exposing a grinning death’s head that portends the obliteration of the few restraints against killing Palestinians.
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I cannot agree that ‘Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed coalition government of Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists and religious bigots represents a seismic change’. It may, just possibly, cause Israeli Jews to awake to what has been happening in the military dictatorship in the West Bank.
It may also destroy the illusion that you can have a democracy of sorts for Jews in Israel whilst maintaining a dictatorship in the Territories but as far as the Palestinians are concerned it will be a continuation of what has gone before.
As Chris accepts 140 Palestinians have been murdered this year alone. This was not under Netanyahu but under the anti-Netanyahu coalition, Meretz included. Chris says that what is happening amounts to the international crime of genocide. I agree but that was also under the outgoing government.
Smotrich and Gvir are the local culmination of Zionism and the Jewish ethno-nationalism that began with Israeli Labor governments. It was Benny Gantz who presided over the use of snipers against unarmed civilians in the Great Return march from Gaza, not Gvir, not Smotrich.
It was Mapai that made a Faustian pact with the religious Zionists, which kept Israeli Arabs under military rule until 1966 and which, in 1956 was responsible for the murder of 50 Palestinian workers and children in Kfar Qassem.
Of course the narrative then was of a Jewish democratic state but as Ahmed Tibi once remarked, Israel is democratic for Jews and Jewish for Arabs. Now the narrative has caught up with the reality.
It will now be harder for Israel’s apologists abroad to pretend that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy although they will no doubt do their best to defend the ‘world’s only Jewish state.’ Ethno-religious states are particularly vicious and dangerous as the Christian ethno-religious states of Europe – Slovakia, Romania, Croatia demonstrated under Nazi rule.
It was after all Yair Lapid, the moderate who proclaimed his desire for ‘maximum land with maximum Jews’. Demographic fears of too many Arabs was common to all Zionist parties. Why not then vote for parties who are open about their desire for a new Nakba. Gvir, Smotrich and Boaz are the bastard offspring of Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.
It’s time that Israeli Jews confronted the truth about their own past.
It is wrong to keep using the adjective ‘Jewish’ to describe the dross in the Israeli government. This invites anti-Semitism and is exactly what the fascists want.
They are Zionists, Jewish in name only, their appalling policies and actions have nothing to do with Judaism. From its very incepcion, Zionism had only one aim, which was to get rid of Palestinians by any method, including force and murder. Some well meaning Jews have been conned into believing that there was some sort of benign aspect to Zionism. If any of them still hold on to this myth, they should read Tony Greenstein’s latest book, which shows clearly, often from Zionist sources, that Zionism was evil in its intent from the very outset.
Excellent article. Two points: 1) an odd reference to “settlers”. As Palestine is already-settled by Palestinians, I’d rather these were referred to as (ethnic cleansing) colonial Zionists.
2) I think it is a mistake to talk politics without mentioning the influence of possibly scores of millions of US Christian Zionists / Evangelicals, (who include Pres Biden and Trump’s former VP, Mike Pence). Whatever support (US) Jewish Zionist can give, the Christian lobby doubles in influence on Government and billions of public dollars of aid given to Israel as well as private money. Perhaps more important is the political backing for Israel’s occupation of and belligerence towards Palestinians, and the vetoing of criticism from the UN and influence on Governments around the world to rein back any of their criticism.
This support is not altruistic. End-of-times theology states that Jesus will return when Jews “again inhabit” Zion which includes Palestinian “Zion”. What could be more desirable to fanatical Christians who see little good in the modern world? (Of course the Christians believe that Jews will then convert or perish, but I would be most surprised if any Jewish Zionists agreed with that – or even in the return of the Christian Saviour!)
Chris Hedges’s analysis is broadly correct. Ilan Pappe said much the same thing at the recent Scottish ‘Marxism’. The new coalition will presage an intensified assault of Palestinians within Israel and the OPT, attacks on Gaza and the diaspora, and international solidarity action. But it also further exposes the nature Zionism, the brutal realities of occupation and settler colonialism, and the dangers of a new ‘Nakba’ in the West Bank. Remember the ‘land transfer’ elements in Trump’s Deal of the Century? Not so fanciful now. Solidarity is more urgent than ever.
This is the death spiral. Make a lot of people very very angry and use media clout to portray that anger as savagery that requires an ever more inflammatory response. I pity people that are taken in by this.