The Bond Between Nazis & Zionism

In an age when "you are not supposed to observe that Islamism... arose in a spirit of harmony with the fascists of Europe in the 1930s and 40s"; when "you are not supposed to point out that Nazi inspirations have taken root among present-day Islamists"; and when "you are not supposed to mention that, by inducing a variety of journalists and intellectuals to maintain a respectful silence on these awkward matters, the Islamist preachers and ideologues have imposed on the rest of us their own categories of analysis," one brave soul, name of Paul Berman, is at last saying these very things. And, in an age when you are not supposed to... etc, etc... one brave newspaper, name of The Australian, has provided a forum for him to do so (as well as to spruik his latest book, The Flight of the Intellectuals) in an op-ed piece outrageously titled The bond between Nazis and Islam (13/7/10).

Apparently, reviewers in the US have been less than kind to Berman's polemic, eliciting this little whinge from him: "The piece in Foreign Affairs insists that, to the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler was merely a 'convenient ally', and it is 'ludicrous' to imagine a deeper alliance. Those in the National Interest and the New Yorker add that 'unlikely alliances' with Nazis were common among anti-colonialists. The articles point to some of Gandhi's comrades, to a faction of the IRA, and even to a dim-witted Zionist militant in 1940, who believed for a moment that Hitler could be an ally against the British."

A dim-witted Zionist militant who only momentarily entertained the mere thought of an alliance with Adolf before recovering and muttering to himself, 'Good God, I don't know what came over me'? So insubstantial and inconsequential as to be hardly worth mentioning, right?

Incredibly, that's Berman's spin on this sentence from Pankaj Mishra's scathing review of his book in The New Yorker: "The expedient notion that my enemy's enemy is my friend even motivated the Jewish militant leader Avraham Stern to try, in 1940, to enlist Nazi support against the British rulers of Palestine." (Islamismism: How should Western intellectuals respond to Muslim scholars? 7/6/10)

Just what is Berman trying to cover up here?

Lenni Brenner's indispensible study, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983), retrieves Avraham Stern from Berman's attempt to write him out of history and underscores the (very real) bond between Nazis and Zionism:

"Stern's single-minded belief, that the only solution to the Jewish catastrophe in Europe was the end of British domination of Palestine, had a logical conclusion. They could not defeat Britain with their own puny forces, so they looked to her enemies for salvation... [I]n January 1941 [Sternist] Naftali Lubentschik met two Germans [in Beirut] - Rudolf Rosen and Otto von Hentig, the philo-Zionist, who was then head of the Oriental Department of the German Foreign office. After the war a copy of the Sternist proposal for an alliance between [Stern's] movement and the Third Reich was discovered in the files of the German Embassy in Turkey... In it the Stern group told the Nazis: 'The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries. The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government... towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that: 1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a New Order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO. 2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed volkish-national Hebrium would be possible and 3. The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East. Proceeding from these three considerations, the NMO in Palestine... offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side...' There was no German follow-up on these incredible propositions, but the Sternists did not lose hope. In December 1941... Stern sent Nathan Yalin-Mor to try to contact the Nazis in neutral Turkey, but he was arrested en route. There were no further attempts to contact the Nazis.... Did Yitzhak Yzertinsky - rabbi Shamir - to use his underground nom de guerre, now [1983] the Foreign Minister of Israel, know of his movement's proposed confederation with Adolf Hitler? In recent years the wartime activities of the Stern Gang have been thoroughly researched by one of the youths who joined it in the post-war period, when it was no longer pro-Nazi. Baruch Nadel is absolutely certain that Yzertinsky-Shamir was fully aware of Stern's plan: 'They all knew about it'. When Shamir was appointed Foreign Minister, international opinion focused on the fact that Begin had selected the organiser of two famous assassinations: the killing of Lord Moyne, the British Minister Resident for the Middle East, on 6 November 1944; and the slaying of Count Folke Bernadotte, the UNs special Mediator on Palestine, on 17 September 1948. Concern for his terrorist past was allowed to obscure the more grotesque notion that a would-be ally of Adolf Hitler could rise to the leadership of the Zionist state. When Begin appointed Shamir, and honoured Stern by having postage stamps issued which bore his portrait, he did it with the full knowledge of their past. There can be no better proof than this that the heritage of Zionist collusion with the Fascists and the Nazis, and the philosophies underlying it, carries through to contemporary Israel." (pp 266-269)

Hilariously, when it comes to recognising the bond between Nazis & Zionism, it's Berman who's in full flight.

Reinforcing Stereotypes

"You don't get news stories by trying to change perceptions, you get them by reinforcing stereotypes..." (From a leaked email from Malcolm Turnbull's office: Dig dirt, Turnbull office urges, Matthew Franklin, The Australian, 27/10/09)

Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian has just returned from the wilds of Eurabia. He's talked to all the right people there, and come away ever so reluctantly shocked - shocked! - to find that the Muslim - Muslim! - hordes have all but taken over and that, unless we get it right, we are next in line:

"Uncontrolled Muslim immigration into Europe has been a public policy failure, if not an outright disaster. This is the view of most Europeans, as measured by opinion polls, and of a large number of European officials and politicians. Having just spent a month in Europe, talking to dozens of officials, politicians and immigrants, it is a view I reluctantly [!!!] share. This is given sharp relief by the illegal immigration crisis Australia is experiencing to its north." (Europe looks Down Under for answers on immigration, 24/10/09)

Just cop a load of this:

"The spike now in boat arrivals involves Sri Lankans, but this is primarily a route that would be used by Muslim illegal immigrants. There is nothing wrong with Muslim immigration. It goes without saying that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants are good Australians and perfectly law-abiding citizens. However, it is simply denying reality to pretend that the cultural distinctiveness and assertiveness of Islam, and of the propensity for a small but distinctively substantial minority to be attracted to extremism, does not pose problems." (ibid)

What steaming pile of Islamophobic poo is this? Leaving aside the patent idiocy of the first sentence, in which he's actually said that the Muslim hordes will be embarking in Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka! for God's sake - for an invasion of Australia, there's the hoary old 'I'm-not-a-racist-but...' construction: there's nothing wrong with Muslim immigration, but... (some carry the 'Muslim' virus of extremism). Note too the dog-whistling of illegal immigrants, and the impossible logic of a small but substantial minority.

As if this weren't bad enough, 5 days later the bugger deposited another load of same: "A few weeks ago in London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told me that 75% of the terrorist plots aimed at Britain originated in the... tribal areas of Pakistan. Some 800,000 Pakistanis live in Britain. The vast majority, it goes without saying, are law-abiding citizens. But... " (Uncontrolled Muslim influx a terror threat, 29/10/09)

"It is extremely difficult to talk honestly about Muslim immigration. All generalisations about it are subject to countless exceptions. Muslims are very different from each other. Most are reasonably successful. But a much bigger minority end up with social, political, extremist or other problems resulting from a lack of integration than is the case with any other cohort of immigrants in Western societies." (ibid)

There it is again: most Muslims are reasonably [He just had to add a qualifier, didn't he?] successful, but... Plus more of that impossible logic: Most Muslims are... but a much bigger minority are... And all of it typically, merely asserted.

There's nothing wrong with Muslim immigration, but.../Muslims are law-abiding citizens, but.../Muslims are successful, but...: this is Islamophobia posing as reasoned comment.

Sheridan cites his authority as US "journalist" Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West, and claims that it is "[t]he most enlightening book you could possibly read on [Muslim immigration]." You are, of course, expected to believe that Sheridan, prior to reading Caldwell, had an open mind on the subject, but you'd be wrong. Sheridan only bothers to reference that which caters to his prejudices and obsessions. Take the Islamophobic obsession with 'Muslim' demographics, for example. Here's Sheridan: "The demographic figures [Caldwell] cites are familiar but still shocking. Native Europeans won't have babies at anything like replacement level while the fertility of Muslim immigrants does not decline through time, as is the case with other immigrants. Religion is the strongest predictor of fertility in Europe." (ibid) And here he is back in February: "In 1950, there were about 240,000 Gazans. Now there are about 1.5 million. By 2040 there will be 3 million. Eventually, they believe, they will swamp Israel with sheer numbers." (There may be the will but not necessarily the way, The Australian, 8/2/09)

In a recent Guardian Weekly essay, The new intolerance, on the current crop of anti-Muslim immigrant jeremiads (by Niall Ferguson, Bruce Bawer, Mark Steyn and Christopher Caldwell), Indian writer Pankaj Mishra has made the following salutory comments: "Surveys and opinion polls repeatedly reveal the average European Muslim to be poor, socially conservative, unhappy about discrimination, but generally content, hopeful about their children - who attend non-religious schools - and eager, like their non-Muslim peers, to get on with their lives. Initially high, birthrates among Muslim communities across Europe are falling as more men and women become literate. Exposure to secular modernity has also weaned many of the immigrants away from traditional faith: only 5% of Muslims in France regularly attend mosques, and elsewhere, too, non-observant 'cultural Muslims' predominate." (4/9/09)

"Ordinary Muslims in Europe, who suffer from the demoralisation caused by living as perennial objects of suspicion and contempt, are far from thinking of themselves as a politically powerful or cohesive community, not to speak of conquerors of Europe. So what explains the rash of bestsellers with histrionic titles - While Europe Slept, America Alone, The Last Days of Europe? None of their mostly neocon American authors was previously known for their knowledge of Muslim societies. Certainly, the idea of a monolithic 'Islam' in Europe appears especially pitiable when you regard the varying national origins, linguistic and legal backgrounds, and cultural and religious practices of European Muslims. Unemployment and discrimination make young Muslims in Europe vulnerable to globalised forms of political Islam, many of whose militant versions vend political aphrodisiacs of a restored Islamic community to powerless individuals. But it is a tiny minority [Note Sheridan's distinctively substantial minority] that is attracted to or is ready to condone terrorist violence. Not surprisingly, most of these Muslims live in Britain, the European country most tainted by the calamitous 'war on terror' that David Miliband, as well as Barack Obama, now concedes was possible to see as a war on Muslims." (ibid)

"... Eurabia-mongers from America seem as determined as tabloid hacks to strike terror among white Europeans about their local newsagent or curry-house owner. 'If the spread of Pakistani cuisine', Caldwell writes, 'is the single greatest improvement in British public life over the past half-century, it is also worth noting that bombs used for the failed London transport attacks of 21 July, 2005, were made from a mix of hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour'. [I can't believe I'm reading this!] Most south Asian cuisine consumed on British high streets hails from India or Bangladesh rather than Pakistan. Caldwell, however, won't let facts get in the way of the many eagerly consumed chapattis rising up his white British reader's gorge. Remarkably, Caldwell, who is a senior editor with the neoconservative Weekly Standard, also does not appear to know that Edmund Burke, from whom he derives his book title, had a rather exaggerated reverence for 'Muhammadan law'."

"In actuality, the everyday choices of most Muslims in Europe are dictated more by their experience of globalised economies and cultures than their readings in the Qur'an or sharia. Along with thei Hindu or Sikh peers, many Muslims in Europe suffer from the usual pathologies of traditional rural communities transitioning to urban secular cultures: the encounter with social and economic individualism inevitably provokes a crisis of control in nuclear families, as well as such ills as forced marriage, the poor treatment of women and militant sectarianism. However, in practice, millions of Muslims, many of them with bitter experiences of authoritarian states, coexist frictionlessly and gratefully with regimes committed to democracy, freedom of religion and equality before the law."

But back to Sheridan. I will conclude with the inimitatable Mike Carlton's recent skewering of the bugger. The subject of Carlton's Sydney Morning Herald column was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama: "A recent emission from The Australian 's foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, crystallised this idiocy. After a few tortured paragraphs wondering whether Obama wanted to be The Fonz or Richie Cunningham from Happy Days - a metaphor so creaky you could see the kapok stuffing bursting from the seams - he offered up this startling sentence: 'At some point, Obama is going to have to do something seriously unpleasant to someone'. Shameless, unrepentant, nothing learnt and nothing forgotten, there is the neo-con world view in a nutshell: the US gains respect only when the cruise missiles and F/A 18s are thundering from the decks of a carrier battle group to wreak death and destruction on the villains du jour. That George Bush tried this endlessly and failed so disastrously troubles them not a jot." (All hail the shameless neo-cons, 17/10/09)