Meet the Zionist Ubermenschen

Of course, you won't have seen this in the rags:

"Yesterday, Israeli Channel 13 aired video recordings by rabbi educators at the state-sponsored military prep-academy Bnei David in the West Bank settlement of Eli. The rabbis hail Hitler's Nazi racist ideology as '100% correct', only criticizing it for not being applied to the right people - that is, the Jews should be the master-race, and non-Jews the 'untermenschen'.

"The statements are jaw-droppers. The full coverage with subtitles can be seen in a video prepared by journalist David Sheen.

"These educators send young men to the army, and have been advocating these ideas for years. They have close ties to lawmakers, specifically to Rabbi Rafi Peretz, now head of the Union of Right Wing Parties, the notorious merger with the Kahanist party Jewish Power, who is now the leading candidate for Minister of Education. The academy is also tied to a Yeshiva, to which many students come after their military service.

Slavery Should Return

"It starts out with Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel, who bemoans that slavery has been abolished:

Abolishing legal slavery has created deficiencies. No one is responsible for that property. With God's help it will return. The goyim (non-Jews) will want to be our slaves. Being a slave of the Jews is the best. They must be slaves, they want to be slaves. Instead of just wandering the streets, being foolish and harming each other, now he's a slave, now his life is beginning to come into order.

"The 'goyim' in this context is to be understood as Palestinians.

"He says it's because they have 'genetic problems', and posits that they want to be under occupation:

There are around us people with genetic problems. Ask any average Arab where he wants to be. He wants to be under occupation. Why? Because they have genetic problems, they don't know how to run a country, they don't know how to do anything - look at the state of them.

Yes, we are racists

"'Of course there is racism', Kashtiel continues:

Are we unaware that there are different races? Is it a secret? Is it untrue? What can you do? It's true. Yes, we are racists, we believe in racism.

"Kashtiel suggests that because Jews are a superior race, they can 'help' the inferior ones:

Correct, there are races in the world, nations have genetic characteristics, so we [the Jews] must consider how to help them. Racial differences are real, and that's precisely a reason to offer help.

"A student asks the rabbi: 'Who put you to decide who is who?' Kashtiel:

I can see that my accomplishments are much more impressive than his.

The Holocaust is humanism and pluralism

"Another rabbi, Giora Radler, says that the Holocaust is not what you think, it's not about killing Jews. It is humanism and pluralism that is killing us for real:

The Holocaust for real is not about the killing of Jews - that's not the Holocaust. All of these excuses claiming that it was based on ideology or that it was systematic, this is ridiculous. Because it was based on ideology, to a certain extent, makes it more moral than if people murdered people for no reason. Humanism, all the secular culture about us believing in the human, that's the Holocaust. The Holocaust, for real, is being pluralist, believing in 'I believe in the human'. That's what's called a Holocaust. The Lord (blessed be his name) is already shouting for many years that the [Jewish] exile is over, but people don't listen to him, and that is their disease, a disease which needs to be cured by the Holocaust.

"In other words, the Holocaust was there to teach Jews a lesson - drop pluralism, isolate yourself in the Jewish State and let go of the diaspora 'illness'.

"These remarks were made in a lesson titled 'relating to the Holocaust'.

The Nazi logic was right

"Radler:

The Nazi logic was right unto themselves. Hitler says that a certain group in society is the seed of all calamity for all humanity, that because of it all of mankind will go to oblivion, that they harm humanity, and therefore must be exterminated.

"Radler asks a student: 'Does this ideology sound illogical to you? Very bad?'

"Student answers: 'It doesn't sound moral.'

"Radler: 'Was Moses as bad as Hitler?'

"Student: 'No.'

"Radler:

Why not? There is one thing in the world that is truly evil and that is to be a hypocrite. Does it make a difference to you if they killed you now with a knife the way they did to Agag [the Amalekite king whom the prophet Samuel 'hacked in pieces'] or if they kill you in a gas chamber?

"Student: 'Not'.

"Radler:

[Hitler] is the most righteous person. Of course he is right in every word he utters. In his ideology he is right. There is a male world which fights, which deals with honor and the brotherhood of soldiers. And there is the soft, ethical feminine world [which speaks of] 'turning the other cheek'. And we [Nazis] believe that the Jews carry on this heritage, trying, in our words, to spoil the whole of humanity, and that's why they are the real enemy.' Now, he [Hitler] is 100% correct, aside from the fact that he was on the wrong side.

"So here, Radler was emulating Hitler, mouthing Nazi arguments approvingly. The only fault of the Nazis, per Radler, was that they didn't know who the real master race was, and who the real 'untermenschen' were. The Nazis couldn't be right, because only Jews could be the superior ones. But if Jews now apply this race theory and ideology currently - that is, essentially upon Palestinians, then they would really be '100% correct' - maybe even '101%, because they got it even more right than Hitler." (From Israeli rabbi educators at military prep-academy are caught on video congratulating Hitler, Jonathan Ofir, mondoweiss.net, 30/4/19)

The Zionist Occupation of the American Mind

I've quoted Norman Finkelstein's groundbreaking work The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000) several times before in this blog, but his words bear repeating as a preface to that which follows:

"'The Holocaust' is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests. Indeed, The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a 'victim' state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable dividends accrue from this specious victimhood - in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified." (p 3)

Later in his book, Finkelstein demolishes the dogma that The Holocaust "marks a categorically unique historical event." (pp 41-6)

He then asserts that "the claims of Holocaust uniqueness have come to constitute a form of 'intellectual terrorism' (Chaumont)," adding, "Those practicing the normal comparative procedures of scholarly inquiry must first enter a thousand and one caveats to ward off the accusation of 'trivializing The Holocaust'." (p 47)

I can think of no better example of this kind of intellectual terrorism than the following mea maxima culpa recounted in former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer's book, Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President (2018). Smell the fear, feel the terror:

"I've had many roles as a communication director or press secretary in my career, and I have helped countless candidates, party officials, and elected officials undergo media training. Media training [is] basically teaching people how to prepare for an interview, especially on camera... And there are some basic rules. If you're preparing for an in-studio interview, you look at the interviewer, not the camera; if your interview is in a remote studio, you look directly at the camera. Don't move your hands too much. Don't repeat a question. Don't validate a premise with which you disagree. And the number one rule I gave every Republican was don't ever, ever... compare anything or anyone to Hitler or the Holocaust. Ever.

"I can't tell you how many times I've repeated these rules to everyone from candidates to state party chairmen. But on April 11, 2017, I violated my number one rule, setting off another controversy from the White House podium.

"Earlier, I had been part of a small, impromptu briefing in the dining room off the Oval Office where Secretary Mattis had explained to the president the degree of the current atrocities committed by Syria's leader, Bashar al-Assad. He noted that not even Adolf Hitler had dared to use chemical weapons on the battlefield (note the word 'battlefield'). I left the meeting wanting to make sure that the horror of Assad's actions was fully communicated. I wanted everyone to understand just how evil Assad is and why the president had acted so swiftly.

"When I went into the briefing room to begin the daily briefing, echoes of Mattis's words were still with me... I opened up the briefing for questions. Eleven of the first fifteen questions focused on Syria. The video showing the pain and suffering of the Syrian people that had gone viral was clearly on the minds of the reporters. I was doing well, talking about the president's reaction and concern. But then came the sixteenth question. 'The alliance between Russia and Syria is a strong one; it goes back decades. President Putin has supplied personnel. He's supplied military equipment to the Assad government. What makes you think that at this point he's going to pull back in his support for President Assad and for the Syrian government right now?'

"I thought to myself, 'I got this.' I had been in a groove expressing the president's concern and Assad's horrific actions. But instead of staying on the messages that had been working just fine, I tried to turn it up a notch: 'I think a couple of things. You look - we didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons. So, you have to, if you're Russia, ask yourself is this a country that you and a regime you want to align yourself with? You have previously signed on to international agreements rightfully acknowledging that the use of chemical weapons should be out of bounds by every country. To not stand up to not only Assad, but your own word, should be troubling. Russia put their name on the line. So, it's not a question of how long that alliance has lasted, but at what point do they recognize that they are now getting on the wrong side of history in a really bad way really quickly. And again, look at the countries that are standing with them: Iran, Syria, North Korea. This is not a team you want to be on. And I think that Russia has to recognize that while they may have had an alliance with them, that the lines that have been crossed are one that no country should ever want to see another country cross.

"That was it - like the previous eleven questions on the subject, I thought I had sufficiently described the outrage we had toward both Assad and Russia. The questions in the briefing room are asked at the speed of light. I would answer one question while anticipating the next one. In my mind, I thought I had answered the question, but clearly what had come out of my mouth was not the full explanation that I had envisioned saying. I kept going, oblivious to the damage I had done.

"The next question was about the president's tax returns. Then came a question about the Easter Egg Roll. My corny response about it being 'egg-cellent' evoked laughter from the briefing room. That was followed by a question on the White House visitor logs. After that, more questions focused on Syria and North Korea, and a question was asked about taxes and infrastructure. At this point, I thought, I was doing great. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary because of the pace and intensity of the briefings.

"Then I called on ABC News's Cecilia Vega. 'Sean, thanks, I just want to give you an opportunity to clarify something you said that seems to be gaining some traction right now.' What now? Then she started reading from her phone. 'Hitler didn't even sink to the level of using chemical weapons.' What did you mean by that?' What? Frantically, I'm thinking, 'What did I do?' I responded, 'I think you come to sarin gas, there was no - he was not using the gas on his own people the same way Assad is doing, I mean, there was clearly - I understand your point, thank you.' She said, 'I'm just getting - ' but I cut her off and stepped in deeper and deeper. 'Thank you, I appreciate that,' I said. 'There was not - he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that. But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent - into the middle of towns. It was brought - so the use of it - I appreciate the clarification there. That was not the intent.' What had I done. Holocaust centers? And I didn't realize until later that I had inadvertently omitted Mattis's important phrase 'on the battlefield.' Hitler, of course, had used chemical weapons to murder Jews and other victims during the Holocaust.

"I read the body language of not only the reporters but also my own staffers along the side of the room. I was beginning to realize I had misspoken badly... In the heat of the moment, I still hadn't realized what I had said wrong. I was so fully focused on condemning Assad that I failed to see how badly I had stumbled by omitting that phrase, 'on the battlefield.' By this point, I was feeling flustered, still not fully understanding what had just happened. My remarks were not quite right, I had the alarming sense that I was digging myself into a deeper hole with each word. This may have been the lowest moment I had in the White House. I alone had fumbled; no one else had made me do it. The irony is that this was a question that I had been waiting for, that I had been prepared to answer. And I had been given two chances to clarify the record.

"After the briefing, I went to my staff. I knew it was bad, but I still asked, how deep am I? Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Natalie Strom, and Raj Shah give me a look that said, 'Deeper than the Titanic.' Then I noticed the calendar on my computer. It read, 'First day of Passover.'

"Reince came into my office. 'Remember the first thing you taught me in media training?' he asked. 'Yes,' I said sheepishly. Never compare anyone to Hitler. I made a mistake, a big one, and I needed to say so.

"I went to the Oval Office to see the president. 'Mr President, I need you to know that I just stepped in it really badly, and I screwed up.' 'I saw it. But I know what you meant, Sean. It's going to be okay.' 'Thank you, sir, but I think I've embarrassed you and the administration and insulted the Jewish people. I need to make it right.' 'Look, Sean, you screwed up, but I know what you meant. You clearly didn't mean... ' He trailed off. When he spoke again, his tone was gentle. At a moment when I felt my worst, he tried to reassure me and was gracious, caring, and forgiving. Finally, he said, 'Do what you think is right.' I felt like I had a fever that was going to get worse before it broke. And despite the president's support, I was again wondering if this was my last day at the White House.

"I asked Natalie, who is Jewish, how the story was playing. Natalie is as loyal as they come, but she had to confess it was getting much worse. Many people echoed the president, telling me they knew what I meant,' but millions of other people did not and were deeply offended. In this moment, I knew I had three choices: one, do nothing and hope that it blew over; two, look for a friendly interviewer or reporter and try to put my spin on the story; or three, find the most challenging interviewer I could, own the mistake, and ask for forgiveness. I chose number three.

"I asked my team to check which news shows I could get on ASAP. They came back with several options, including appearing on CNN with Wolf Blitzer... I knew from the outset that it wouldn't be an easy interview. Wolf always asks tough questions. And he is the son of two Holocaust survivors. 'I was absolutely trying to make a point about the heinous acts that Assad had made against his own people last week, using chemical weapons and gas,' I told Wolf. 'Frankly, I mistakenly used an inappropriate and insensitive reference to the Holocaust, for which, frankly, there is no comparison. And for that I apologize.'... Wolf kept boring down on me. Wasn't I aware that in addition to the Jews, others had been victims of Hitler's poison-gas chambers? Of course, I told him. 'Have you spoken to President Trump about your blunder today?' Wolf asked. 'Obviously, it was my blunder,' I said. To think that I had offended people - especially those whose families had been victims of the Holocaust - twisted my stomach in a way I had never felt before and hope to never feel again. I had created this mess. I had embarrassed myself, my team, and the president.

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, other Democrats, and even a Republican congressman from Colorado were soon calling for my resignation.

"That evening, I was as down as I ever was. Some people can shrug off bad moments, but I have a hard time forgiving myself when I make a mistake, especially when I hurt others. It grates on me. Fortunately, Rebecca and the kids were waiting for me at home, and that made all the difference." (pp 195-200)

Liberal Zionism Exposed... in the New York Times

I've read many opinion pieces which tackle the toxic ideology of political Zionism head on, but never in any mainstream press outlet. Israeli writer Omri Boehm's Liberal Zionism in the Age of Trump, which appeared in the New York Times of December 20, is the first, to my knowledge, of its kind.

It comes, of course, in the wake of Donald Trump's election and the emergence into the public arena of fellow travellers such as right-wing extremist Stephen Bannon (now Trump's chief strategist), and the fuehrer of the neo-Nazi alt-right, Richard Spencer, who espouses white supremacism in the way that Zionists (while, of course, avoiding the term) espouse Jewish supremacism, and who has, in fact, referred to his white supremacist ideology as "white Zionism."

Boehm exposes the contradiction that lies at the heart of American liberal Zionism - the pretence that liberal Zionists can advocate ethnic inclusion in the US but support ethnic exclusion in Israel by denying the Palestinian right of return and insisting that "Israel has the right to ensure that Jews constitute the ethnic majority in their country." (Boehm's italics) IOW, American Jews (and Australian Jews for that matter) can not, logically, be both liberals and Zionists.

Boehm also points out that "The idea that Israel is the Jews' own ethnic state implies that Jews living outside of it... enjoy a mere diasporic existence," "inhabit a country that is not genuinely their own," and that, "given this logic, it is natural for Zionist and anti-Semitic politicians to find common ideas and interests." He concludes his piece with the following (unprecedented for the mainstream press) observation: 

"Nothing demonstrates this alliance better than the appointment of David Friedman to be the United States ambassador to Israel. Friedman, an ardent supporter of Israel's occupation project, has argued that J Street's liberal Zionist supporters, who are critical of the occupation, are 'worse than Kapos' - the Jews who collaborated with their Nazi concentration camp guards. In fact, however, it is Friedman's own politics - and the politics of the government he supports - that's continuous with anti-Semitic principles and collaborates with anti-Semitic politics.

"The 'original sin' of such alliances may be traced back to 1941*, in a letter to high Nazi officials, drafted in 1941 by Avraham Stern, known as Yair, a leading early Zionist fighter and member in the 1930s of the paramilitary group Irgun, and later the founder of another such group, Lehi. In the letter, Stern proposes to collaborate with 'Herr Hitler' on 'solving the Jewish question' by achieving a 'Jewish free Europe.' The solution can be achieved, Stern continues, only through the 'settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine.' To that end, he suggests collaboration with the German's 'war efforts,' and establishment of a Jewish state on a 'national and totalitarian basis,' which will be 'bound by treaty with the German Reich.'

"It has been convenient to ignore the existence of this letter, just as it has been convenient to mitigate the conceptual conditions making it possible. But such tendencies must be rejected. They reinforce the same logic by which the letter itself was written: the sanctification of Zionism to the point of tolerating anti-Semitism. That's the logic that liberal American Jews currently have to fight, but it will prove difficult to uproot. Stern is memorialized in street names in every major Israeli town, and it is not unreasonable to assume that Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister's son, whose father celebrated Stern as a mythical model of Zionist struggle, is called by Stern's nom de guerre."

[*Actually, political Zionism's 'alliance' with anti-Semitism goes back to Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl, who wrote in his diary that "The anti-Semite will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies."]

Introducing Rabbi Joachim Prinz

An interesting comment on the relationship between Zionism and anti-Semitism by Stephen Shenfield from the comment thread following Roland Nikles' An apologia for Ken Livingstone (What would Buber say?) at mondoweiss.net:

"Zionism... was steeped in anti-Semitism from the start. Zionists agreed with anti-Semites that the Jews were a foreign and unassimilable element in their host societies and that it was therefore natural, inevitable, and humanly understandable that they should be rejected and persecuted. They shared the anti-Semites' negative perceptions of Jews as they actually existed. That also meant that they hated themselves. Where they differed from the more thoroughgoing anti-Semites was their believe that at least some Jews could be rehabilitated and normalized through Zionist efforts. Hitler in particular did not believe this was possible; for him the only final solution of the Jewish question was extermination.

"However, Hitler cannot be equated with Nazism as such. In the 1930s there were Nazis, including SS officers, who thought Zionism could solve the Jewish question. A key figure in the attempt at a Zionist-Nazi rapprochement was Rabbi Joachim Prinz. I got hold of his book Wir Juden (We Jews), published in Berlin in 1934, i.e. under Nazi rule. The author himself apparently blocked publication of an English translation after his emigration to the US in 1937 - and no wonder. The book is a skillful synthesis of Nazi and Zionist ideas, with the 'German Revolution' presented as a model for Jews to emulate. It shows that the German Zionists did not collaborate with the Nazis for purely practical purposes - they also saw the two movements as ideologically complementary. Of all the tendencies of Jewish thought Zionism is and always was the closest to anti-Semitism. The hypocrisy of Zionists accusing other people of anti-Semitism on the flimsiest grounds is astounding."

Here's more on Rabbi Prinz by Israel Shahak:

"Dr Joachim Prinz, a Zionist rabbi who subsequently emigrated to the USA, where he rose to be vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a leading light in the World Zionist Organization (as well as a great friend of Golda Meir), published in 1934 a special book, Wir Juden (We Jews), to celebrate Hitler's so-called German Revolution and the defeat of liberalism: 'The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image. Its meaning for us must be set forth here: the fortunes of liberalism are lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish assimilation is sunk.'

"The victory of Nazism rules out assimilation and mixed marriages as an option for Jews. 'We are not unhappy about this,' said Dr Prinz. In the fact that Jews are being forced to identify themselves as Jews, he sees 'the fulfilment of our desires'. And further: 'We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only be honoured and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish flatterers and crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest. For only he who honours his own breed and his own blood can have an attitude of honour towards the national will of other nations.'

"The whole book is full of similar crude flatteries of Nazi ideology, glee at the defeat of liberalism and particularly of the ideas of the French Revolution, and great expectations that, in the congenial myth of the Aryan race, Zionism and the myth of the Jewish race will also thrive." (Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, 1994, pp 71-72)

Compare the above with the following account of Prinz from the promotional website of the 2013 documentary, Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent:

"In Berlin in the 1930s, the civil rights of Jews were systematically stripped away. A young rabbi refused to be silent. His name was Joachim Prinz and he set out to restore the self-esteem of the German Jews. Knowing the Nazis were monitoring his every word, and despite repeated arrests, Prinz continued to preach about the value of Judaism. He saved many lives by encouraging Jews to emigrate from Germany. Expelled from Germany in 1937, Prinz arrived in the United States, the land where democracy had supposedly triumphed over bigotry and hatred. Here, he witnessed racism against African Americans and realized the American ideal was not a reality. As rabbi of Temple B'nai Abraham in Newark, NJ and later as President of the American Jewish Congress, Prinz became a leader of the civil rights movement. Prinz worked to organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, declaring, 'bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.' Moments later, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech. Throughout his career, Prinz spoke out for justice, unconcerned with the popularity of his positions. He identified with the prophets, writing in a 1975 letter, 'Remember the Biblical adage, 'For the sake of Zion, I shall not be silent'." (Prinz's Story, prinzdocumentary.org)

Returning to earth:

"Said Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Jewish Congress in a resolution he introduced at the closing session of the group's biennial national convention in Miami Beach on May 18, 1958: 'We call upon the United States to take the lead in solving the Arab Refugee problem by pressing for the resettlement of the bulk of the refugees in the sparsely populated land of their Arab kinsmen'." (The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time, Moshe Menuhin, 1969, p 142)

Slip, Slop, Slap Journalism

Read this:

"Otto Skorzeny was a diehard Nazi: an expert in special operations nicknamed 'Hitler's commando' who rescued Mussolini from Italian partisans, ensured the murder of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews and departed to eternal damnation with a posse of elderly Nazis making the fascist salute over his grave. This week, it was revealed that Skorzeny had also been a Mossad hitman, contracted after the war to kill another ex-Nazi who was helping Egypt develop a strategic missile program." (To catch the devil from the shadows, you need to recruit his disciples, Ben Macintyre, The Times/The Australian, 2/4/16)

Now watch as Macintyre goes on to slip, slop, slap a few coats of whitewash on Mossad: 

"Mossad, probably the world's least sentimental secret service, was merely demonstrating a reality of the seamier side of intelligence work: to catch the devil, you sometimes had to recruit his disciples."

"... this uncomfortable accommodation with evil..."

"The balance between utility and morality, between extracting value and maintaining ethical values..."

Bloody hilarious...

OK, Ben, OK, enough already, I get it!

Mossad's the most ethical intelligence agency in the world, and the IDF is the world's most moral army, and Israel's the only democracy in the Middle East, if not the world, and Israel's a bastion of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism, and...

Zionism & German Anti-Semitism Before Hitler

Re my last post, you'll recall the Stern Gang's assertion that it is "well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government... towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans."

There is, of course, a wealth of evidence which testifies to that goodwill - see, for example, my 28/1/13 post Ben Elton's 'Two Brothers': A Quibble.

However, as the following account of a remarkably prophetic book indicates, it seems that a modus vivendi had been reached between German Zionism and German anti-Semitism long before the Nazis came to power in 1933:

"City without Jews, subtitled A Novel for the Day after Tomorrow, was published in 1922 by the pulp-fiction Viennese publishing house Gloriette... Its author, Hugo Bettauer, was a Jewish convert to Christianity... In Bettauer's novel, as in real life in 1922, Vienna is in the throes of rampant inflation and crisis. The people elect a would-be political savior, Dr Karl Schwertfeger, from the Christian Social Party. This figure was an obvious reference to Dr Karl Lueger, the anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910. Lueger forcibly modernized the city and protected the interests of the poor and the Christian middle classes while railing against the Jews... The number of Jews cited in Bettauer's novel, 500,000, corresponded to the number living in Germany at the time; in Austria, the Jewish population numbered only around 200,000. And in the first half of the novel, all of those half-million Jews are expelled from the city.

"The narrative starts with a crowd scene in which all of Vienna seems to have taken to the streets: 'the bourgeois and the workers, fine ladies and common women, adolescents and old men, young girls, small children, invalids in wheel chairs.' It is a warm day in June, and everyone is milling around, sweating in the sun and shouting about politics. There are repeated cries of 'Jews out!' and 'Long live Dr Karl Schwertfeger, long live Austria's liberator!' Slowly, a black government vehicle makes its way through the crowd. Schwertfeger gets out of the car. Like Lueger and later Hitler, he is a man who has remained single and lives to serve the nation. He ascends the staircase of the Austrian parliament and enters the chamber where he will speak in defense of the long-planned 'Law on the Expulsion of Non-Aryans from Austria.'

"The proposed law gives all Jews six months to get their finances in order and quit the country... 'Descendents of Jews,' defined as children of mixed marriages, are likewise required to emigrate, as are Jewish converts to Christianity. After a bit of debate, the rule is waived for 'descendants'...

"The savior Schwertfeger has but a single argument for the necessity of his law. He describes Gentile Austrians as members of a 'naive, true-hearted, good,' but rather slow-developing mountain people, who are 'no match' for Jews. This is the reason he sounds the alarm: 'The Jews among us cannot tolerate such tranquil evolution... Who is driving the automobiles? Who is splurging in nightclubs? Who is filling the coffee houses and the expensive restaurants? Who is draping his wife with jewels and pearls? The Jew!' Schwertfeger also has an answer for how the Jews could have gotten so much further ahead in Austria than the Gentiles: 'With their uncanny sharpness of mind, their cosmopolitan sensibility divorced from tradition, their catlike flexibility, their instantaneous intellectual grasp of things, and all the skills they have honed in millennia of subjugation, they have overwhelmed us. They have become our masters and have seized control of our entire economic, intellectual, and cultural life.' Schwertfeger's speech earns him thunderous applause.

"When he is finished, the only Zionist deputy of parliament, the engineer, Minkus Wassertrilling, gets his turn to speak. He welcomes the law because, as he says, 'half of those expelled will gather under the Zionist banner' and leave for Israel. After Wassertrilling's speech, as a precautionary measure, some thugs arrive to remove certain deputies from the parliament building, and the law is approved unanimously. The remaining formalities are quickly dispensed with, and people celebrate until deep in the night." (Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Envy, Race Hatred, & the Prehistory of the Holocaust, Gotz Aly, 2014, 142-44)

The Enemy of My Enemy...

Murdoch's Australian is a relentless peddler of Zionism, Arabophobia and Islamophobia, particularly, but not always, on its opinion pages. The trifecta was there in full in its regular Cut & Paste column on October 7, headed All it takes Fairfax is a little moral equivalence to turn Hitler into a crusading Christian. The final item in this 'Hitler-hated-Christianity-but-loved-Islam' miscellany, predictably invoked that iconic figure of Zionist demonology, the Mufti of Jerusalem (1897-1974):

"Meeting of German chancellor Adolf Hitler and grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series D, Vol XIII, London, 1964, pp 881 ff:

"The Grand Mufti - wished to seize the opportunity to convey to the Fuhrer - admired by the entire Arab world, his thanks of the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arabs and especially the Palestinian cause - The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists. Therefore they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate... not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion. The Arabs could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance... they had had close relations with all Muslim nations, of which they could make use in... the common cause."

As the above German document shows, Haj Amin's links with the Nazis can best be understood not as a reflection of any real meeting of minds, but simply as an application of the ancient principle: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Now you wouldn't, of course, read about it in The Australian, but another enemy of the British in Palestine, the Zionist terrorist Stern Gang, with infinitely less justification than Haj Amin (after all, the Mufti's ancestral homeland was being handed to the militants of Jewish State in the Levant - JSIL - by the Britz), also flirted with the Nazis - and not just on the same basis, but with real ideological feeling:

"The rise of Nazism in Germany, where Hitler had come to power in January 1933 and proceeded to enact anti-Jewish laws, was successfully used by the Zionists to pressure the British into opening the doors of Palestine for more Jewish immigration. In the best Herzlian tradition, the leadership of the Stern Gang, of whom future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was a prominent member, proposed an alliance between Nazi Germany and the future Jewish state, and collaboration for the establishment in the Middle East of a 'New Order' in return for help with the evacuation of Jewish masses from Europe and their settling in Palestine. The leadership of the Stern Gang, which considered itself the 'real' Irgun Zvai Leumi, or 'National Military Organization' (NMO), proposed:

The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities 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 folkish-national Hebraium 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 interests of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.

Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side." (From Might Over Right: How the Zionists Took Over Palestine, Adel Safty, 2009, pp 89-90)

Slaughtering Them in Gaza, Smearing Them in Sydney

"The country's most acclaimed writer, Amos Oz, tried to sound the alarm before Mohamed's murder. He said even the term price-tag was 'a sweet name for a monster that needs to be called what it is: Hebrew neo-Nazi groups.' 'Our neo-Nazi groups enjoy the support of numerous nationalist or even racist legislators, as well as rabbis who give them what is in my view pseudo-religious justification,' he wrote." (Savagery up-ends Israelis' conviction, John Lyons, The Australian, 12/7/14)

Oz's comments about Israel's burgeoning neo-Nazi movement sprang to mind while I was reading a description of last Sunday's protest in Sydney against Israel's latest round of massacres in Gaza. Masquerading as reportage, it was one of those pieces that typically reveal more about the author than the subject under scrutiny. It may best summed up as a hatchet job - a Zionist hatchet job.

The author, Julie Nathan, is described in a footnote as "the research officer for the Executive Council of Australian Jewry" (ECAJ), leading one to reflect yet again that there is research, and (if I may put it this way to describe the Zionist variety) reZearch.

The title, Antisemitism flying high at Sydney rally, references the many flags flown at the rally. Despite the fact that they were, as you'd expect, overwhelmingly Palestinian, all Nathan can see is "dozens of the black jihadist Shehada flags and Hezbollah flags."  (jwire.com.au, 14/7/14)

In fact, there were at most 3 to 4 black flags in a crowd of thousands, and only the odd Hezbollah flag, generally worn as a cape. The explanation for Nathan's myopia here, of course, lies squarely with her Zionism. After all, didn't the early Zionists famously 'see' Palestine as a land without a people for a people without a land?

"Antisemitism," she writes, "was also flying high. It was open, unashamed and palpable. The images through posters and flags were not just anti-Israel, but antisemitic to its core."

To the extent that one is a Zionist, of course, no such gathering can ever be "just anti-Israel."  In the deluded Zionist mind, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism go hand in hand, and with Israel now being spun as the collective Jew (seriously!), speaking ill of Israel, even as it 'mows the grass' in Gaza, cannot but be anti-Semitic to Israel-firsters such as Nathan.

Now I won't bore you here with commentary on the full range of alleged anti-Semitic nasties descried by her. Since she takes particular exception to the following poster, let it suffice:

"A particularly odious poster was of a Star of David with a swastika embedded within it and the words Holy Cost' playing on the word 'Holocaust'. The implication was a mocking of the Holocaust against the Jews, while accusing the Jews of committing a holocaust against the Palestinians." (Note that when it comes to those children of a lesser God, the Palestinians, they get a lower case 'h'.)

For Zionist zealots like Nathan, there is only one possible interpretation: the individual who created this particular poster was simply an anti-Semite, nothing more, nothing less, no context needed.

The problem for Nathan, however, is that there is a context. Whatever it was prior to the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Star of David is now the official symbol of an apartheid state. It's the focal point of that state's flag. It's up there on every one of its war machines. It's flaunted by the Israeli neo-Nazis deplored by Amos Oz. Is it any wonder that the victims of Israeli apartheid should consider it fair game?

Then there's the Holocaust. Legions of Zionist propagandists have been shamelessly playing the Holocaust card as a cover for Israeli war crimes for over 50 years now, many even claiming (falsely) that the ethnocratic 'Jewish' state of Israel was born of the Holocaust. Should it come as any surprise then that one man (among thousands) might be sufficiently fired up at the fact that his people, maybe even his relatives, are being butchered in Gaza to incorporate a reference, even a mocking one, to the Holocaust in his poster?

Only a Zionist, who has spent a lifetime muddying the difference between Jews and Zionists, would have the chutzpah to complain when a non-Jew fails, in her judgment, to differentiate between them.

The Undisturbed Sleep of Michael Gawenda

"Sandomierz is a beautiful little town in south-eastern Poland... Once, before the war, many of its inhabitants were Jews. As we walked along the streets that were once Jewish streets, this group of American and Australian Jews, there were no signs, nothing at all, to suggest that the Jews of Sandomierz had a history going back hundreds of years... The past sat in my heart like a stone. On the once Jewish streets of Sandomierz... lived Poles. I wondered whether they knew what had happened to the people who once lived here and if they did know, did the ghosts of the dead Jews ever come to disturb their sleep?"

So begins the soulful essay by former editor of The Age Michael Gawenda, in the January 18 edition of Fairfax's GoodWeekend magazine.

While it's perfectly natural for Gawenda to ruminate thus on his Polish-Jewish parents' homeland and the terrible fate of Poland's Jews under the Nazis, nagging questions arise.

Is it possible for a Jew, any Jew, who lives in an era when the lives of Jews are seemingly dominated by the fact of a powerful Jewish state, one moreover, which loudly proclaims that all Jews constitute one people and that it, Israel, represents them, to carry on as though Israel and its manifold crimes are in no way his or her concern?

Is it possible for a Jew to be alive to the fate of his father's forbears in Europe but dead to the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs who were driven out of Palestine by the founders of the Jewish state, and whose homes are now inhabited by the descendents of Eastern European, including Polish, Jews?

Apparently, for Gawenda, it is.

Mind you, as the son of a Bundist father, Gawenda is by no means overtly Zionist. And yet, in his memoir, American Notebook: A Personal and Political Journey (2007), he can blithely invoke the Nazi genocide to marginalise and dismiss the 63 years of Palestinian suffering done in his name as a Jew as well as the next Zionist apologist:

"Is it really necessary to say that there is no comparison in reality, no analogous situation between the Nazi treatment of the Jews and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians? It seems that it is. The attempted genocide by the Nazis of European Jewry was almost successful. Whole communities were wiped out. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were executed by the Nazi killing squads that followed the German army into the Soviet Union. Of Poland's estimated 3 million Jews, 200,000 survived. At least a million people were killed in Auschwitz, among them hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children who were gassed shortly after their arrival. The characterisation of Israel as a Nazi state by some of its critics is based either on ignorance or on something much more malevolent." (p 157)

Gawenda here provides a perfect example of the following phenomenon so well described by Israeli activist and scholar Uri Davis:

"It is to Hisham Sharabi that I owe the insight that though the Israeli ethnic cleansing of 1948-49 and the Israeli occupation of 1967 are no less cruel than, for instance, the mass ethnic cleansing that had taken place in India and Pakistan at about the same time, or the French occupation of Algeria, the tragedy of the Palestinian Arab people is that their persecutor and occupier is identified in Western narrative not as a 'Zionist', nor as an 'Israeli', but as a 'Jew'. This, Sharabi pointed out further, unfortunately means that so long as the Israeli occupation does not mass transport the Palestinian people into death camps, annihilate them in gas chambers and dispose of their bodies in crematoria with columns of smoke curling out of the chimneys, the cruelty of the Israeli occupation and the truly horrific suffering of the Palestinian people remain invisible to enlightened public opinion." (Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within, 2003, p 18)

It seems that, safely inoculated by Holocaust memory, the ghosts of dead and dispossessed Palestinians will never disturb Gawenda's sleep.

Cassandra Wilkinson & Herstory

The Australian's holy war against the demonic forces of the pro-Palestinian BDS movement in Australia took a most unusual turn today with an opinion(ated) piece by columnist Cassandra Wilkinson, Boycott continues centuries-old hatred.

Described at the Australian as a "strategy consultant," an adviser to ex-NSW Labor politicians, Michael Costa and Christina Keneally, and a "regular SkyNews commentator on political issues," Wilkinson has never before, so far as I'm aware, broken into print on the subject of Palestine/Israel. Nor, it appears, has she ever been rambammed. And as for Exodus - that'd be the second book of the Bible, right?

Still, there exists at least one sign that the lady's for turning. Here she is, for example, discoursing on "20th century security":

"The history of 20th century security shows that when the West turns a blind eye to trouble around the world, things get worst [sic]. When the French and British ran out of Suez, the Middle East got less safe..." (Sky News, The Nation with Helen Dalley, Kerry Chikarovski, Cassandra Wilkinson & Ed Husic, scottryan.com.au, 8/11/12)

Wowee, break out the pith helmets and the puttees NOW!

Apparently, back in '56, the Britz and the Frogz should've told Eisenhower to go get stuffed, shocked and awed Cairo, pursued Nasser all the way to his spiderhole in the sticks, put him on trial for stealing the Suez Canal, pronounced him guilty and strung him up. The fact that they didn't means the Middle East's been all down hill since then.

A recent (23/5) twitter exchange yields another insight. Make of it what you will:

Glenn Barling: great article this morning in the australian.
Cassandra Wilkinson: thanks - small gesture of solidarity from a Bondi girl to her neighbours.

And so to Wilkinson's column:

She's deeply troubled about something she calls "the bonds of convenience growing between elements of the Left and anti-Semitism."

Her beloved UNSW, in particular, is a real worry:

"The student activists who tried to prevent the University of NSW from allowing Mr Brenner [!] to open on campus, claimed the BDS campaign was initiated in 2005. Such sloppy referencing and fact-checking wouldn't pass muster on their exams, I hope. As it happens, I studied history at UNSW - something the protesters could profit from before they graduate. A basic grasp of history shows us the boycotting of businesses is a longstanding tactic in the campaign of hate against the Jewish people."

Let me get this straight, Wilkinson's study of history at UNSW taught her that boycotts of Jewish businesses have always been, are now, and will always be nakedly anti-Semitic. Right...

Maybe, if that's what is being dished out as history at UNSW, our 'offending' student activists would do well to ignore her advice.

It's painfully obvious here that however much 'history' Wilkinson actually studied at UNSW she still does not have the wherewithal to distinguish between Jews as Jews and Jews as Zionists.

Never mind, she still has the wherewithal (UMURDOCH?) to con her readers into thinking of the Israeli corporation which owns the Max Brenner brand as just a sweet little man standing behind a counter against a backdrop of yummy chocolate allsorts.

The only alternative explanation is that she really does believe that to be the case. Hell, maybe she's the kind of person - poor thing! - who walks into, say, a Dick Smith outlet expecting to see the guy in person.

That Ms Wilkinson has a 'way' with history becomes appallingly apparent at the start of her next paragraph:

"Boycotts of Jewish merchants were practised in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire and later across eastern Europe..."

Let's focus, shall we, just on the Ottoman Empire? Unless she's prepared to cite a source or two for the assertion that boycotting Jewish shops was a feature of life under the Ottomans, I think we can safely dismiss it as garbage.

For my part, however, having read the fascinating study Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (2011) by Michelle U. Campos, Assistant Professor of the Modern Middle East at the University of Florida, the only reference to a boycott I could find was a joint Muslim/Christian/Jewish Ottoman citizen boycott of Austro-Hungarian products following the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. Just one quote should suffice: "Importantly, Muslims were not the only participants in the imperial boycott, and in many locations Christians and Jews were also active as organizers, mobilisers, and participants. When the mass demonstrations spread inland to Jerusalem, they were led by the Mufti Taher al-Husayni, but he was joined by Jewish, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian representatives who were elected to serve alongside him on a boycott committee." (p 104)

On the general status of Ottoman Jews, Campos writes as follows:

"For the Ottoman state... population diversity was a product of, and a powerful testament to, successful empire building. The eponymous founder of the dynasty, Osman, had consolidated his power in Asia Minor in the late 13th century through alliance with local Turkic tribes and Christian principalities. As the empire spread throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa, later sultans continued to integrate their diverse subjects into the state... After the conquest of Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium, Sultan 'Fatih' Mehmet ('the Conqueror') retained the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church and strategically moved Jews into the city to replace the fleeing Byzantines. Decades later, in 1492, when the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella expelled Jews and Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, Sultan Beyazit II famously welcomed the exiles to Ottoman shores.

"The point of this recounting is not to argue that the Ottoman Empire was a multicultural paradise, for it surely was not. As an Islamic empire it maintained an 'institutionalized difference' between Muslims and non-Muslim subjects which was accentuated - or indeed erupted - in times of crisis. Non-Muslim populations were organized, counted, taxed, legislated, and otherwise 'marked' according to their confessional or ethno-confessional communities. At the same time, however, non-Muslim communities were allowed a tremendous degree of self-governance and autonomy in the realms of communal institutions and religious law, and comparatively speaking, the status of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire was far better than that of non-Christians in Europe." (pp 8-9)

To say that Wilkinson's grasp of history is shaky is to indulge in understatement:

"In 1922, the Fifth Palestine Arab Congress called for a boycott of all Jewish businesses."

An Arab Congress meeting in Nablus in 1922 resolved to boycott the elections for a proposed gerrymandered Legislative Council. This had nothing whatever to do with 'Jewish businesses'.

"In 1943, the Arab League banned the purchase of 'products of Jewish industry'."

The Arab League was not founded until 1945.

"Note I have passed over here the not insignificant events of 1933-45 lest I fall foul of politicians such as Greens MP David Shoebridge..."*

When it comes to the subject of boycotts, I certainly won't be passing over the Nazi era. The fact is that when American Jews called for a boycott of German goods in 1933, the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) opposed the idea: "It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers." (Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, Lenni Brenner, 1983, p 59)

Now let me draw Wilkinson's attention to the Zionist anti-Arab boycott: "But this [Zionist] craze for the possession of [Palestinian] land did not prevent the [British] Government from attempting to protect [Palestinian Arab] cultivators against displacement through the sale of land over their heads. It was no secret that no Arab could be employed on land purchased by the Jewish National Fund. In fact clause 23 of the lease agreement [Jewish] settlers are required to sign, makes it incumbent on the lessee 'to execute all works connected with cultivation of the holding, only with Jewish labour." (Palestine Through the Fog of Propaganda, M.F. Abcarius, 1946, p 131)

Ah, but why bother with the real facts or the actual dynamics of the colonial struggle still underway in Palestine, when you're just a cog in the machinery of the Australian's holy war against defenders of Palestinian rights? Just get on with it and smear to your heart's content:

"In reality [the BDS] is the most recent name for a centuries-old economic persecution of Jews for having the temerity to become educated and entrepreneurial despite their exclusion from many occupations, geographies and institutions."

Wilkinson's grasp on the present is equally shaky.

She is shocked that NSW Labor MLC Shaoquett Moselmane** "disgraced the house by accusing Israel of running torture camps..."

Moselmane was, of course, referring to the notorious Khiam Prison in Israeli-occupied south Lebanon (1982-2000), and his disgraceful accusation just happens to be supported by Human Rights Watch. (See Torture in Khiam Prison: Responsibility & Accountability, 27/10/99.)

Wilkinson is also shocked by Moselmane's claim that "Israel is driven by a 'craving to take over other people's lands'," seemingly oblivious to Israel's 65 years of territorial expansion, aka wiping Palestine (and chunks of Syria and Lebanon) off the map. She then has the gall to accuse him of being "particularly guileless in his views"!

Finally, Wilkinson spruiks the thoroughly bogus London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism*** as though it's the only thing capable of preventing the seemingly "trivial or childish" BDS protest at UNSW from morphing into something - Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean? - more "potent."

"The Left," she cries, must "stand with those who educate women, stand with those who let gays serve openly in the military, stand with those who allow free speech and political activism. Stand, in short, with the Jewish people and their state of Israel."

It's hard to believe she's even read the declaration, which calls on its signatories to legislate against hate crime, essentially Zio-speak for criticism of the Zionist project and its manifold crimes against the Palestinian and other Arab peoples.

Doesn't it say somewhere in the Old Testament that 'It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt'?

[*Yet another indication of Wilkinson's shoddy journalism. This 'Correction' appeared in The Australian on 24/5: "Cassandra Wilkinson's opinion article in The Australian yesterday... incorrectly attributed a quote, which accused supporters of Israel of 'using the Holocaust for political purposes', to NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge. In fact, the statement was made by fellow Greens MLC John Kaye. The Australian apologises to Mr Shoebridge for the error."; **See my 3/4/13 post Doing the Donkey in the NSW Knesset 10; ***See my 17/5/13 post The Tel Aviv Declaration on Combating Criticism of Israel.]

Who Am I to Demur?

Chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and NSW Human Rights Award judging panelist, Vic Alhadeff (said panel having just been chosen by no less a luminary than NSW Premier Baruch O'Farrell*) had an opinion piece in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.

Now in case you missed it, here are the opening lines:

"I'm a Seinfeld aficionado. I've watched every episode a ridiculous number of times, yet still find the humour brilliant. But then there's 'The Soup Nazi' - an episode about a surly delicatessen owner who refuses to serve customers who flout his excessive rules of decorum. It's witty and well scripted, but it commits a cardinal offence: it trivialises the meaning of what a Nazi is, and in doing so degrades the language associated with those who devised, planned and perpetrated the most grotesque genocide in history." (Don't call me a Nazi-Nazi: trivialising a word sends the wrong message about a genocidal regime, 17/5/13)

Got the idea?

Of course, Alhadeff has no such problem with the trivialisation of the word 'anti-Semitic', which once meant simply 'hatred of Jews as Jews', but is now routinely deployed by Zionist propagandists to blunt and deflect perfectly justified criticism of apartheid Israel and its ruling Zionist ideology. Nor, for that matter, did he have any problem, as far as we know, with the BDS movement being smeared as quasi-Nazi during the BDS 'debate' in the NSW Legislative Council in September 2011, despite being present in the visitors gallery throughout. (See my Witches Brew series from 17/9/11 to 17/12/11.)

Be that as it may, I was later reminded of Alhadeff's opinion piece when reading a review by Jordan Mainzer of the new Israeli film The Gatekeepers, which features the reflections of 6 former heads of Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet.

In his review, Mainzer quoted Avraham Shalom, head of the Shin Bet from 1981-1986, saying that "the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a 'brutal force, similar to the Germans in World War II'." (Is occupation sustainable? Thoughts on Dror Moreh's 'The Gatekeepers', huffingtonpost.com, 25/3/13)

My first reaction was: Sort of leaves Seinfeld's 'Soup Nazi' in the shade, doesn't it?

But then, on further reflection, I began to have doubts. After all, I thought, what would a former head of Shin Bet know about the Israeli occupation of Palestine? I mean, if the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor, in his/her infinite wisdom, thinks that Alhadeff on Nazis is good enough for its readership, and if Baruch O'Farrell, in his infinite wisdom, thinks Alhadeff's the right man to size up contenders for a prestigious human rights award, who am I to demur?

[*See my 9/5/13 post Barry to Baruch in 60 Seconds.]

Foretelling the Nakba

Today is Nakba Day, which marks the 65th anniversary of the expulsion of around 85% of Palestine's indigenous Arab population from those parts of the territory overrun by Zionist forces in 1948.

Those expelled, augmented by further mass expulsions in 1967, make up the Palestinian refugee problem which is still with us today. Needless to say, this is because Israel refuses to repatriate these refugees simply in order to maintain a Jewish supremacist state in historic Palestine.

I've often wondered if anyone in Palestine in the years/months immediately prior to the Zionist campaign of ethnic cleansing which began in December 1947 could see, or at least sense, what was coming.

Two unblinkered observers of Palestine's Jewish community at the time, both British, certainly came close.

The following disturbing portrait of the community comes from the novelist, playwright and travel writer Robin Maugham (1916-1981), a nephew of Somerset Maugham, and appears in his 1947 book Approach to Palestine:

"It seemed to me, as I travelled round Palestine that too much time had been spent arguing the rights and wrongs of the business and far too little time in examining dispassionately the facts. Noble perorations to the converted cannot transfer populations or transmute Jews into Arabs. There are probably over 700,000 Jews in Palestine today. They are there - in the wide streets they have built and in the lovely orange groves they have planted on land that was desert. They vary in type from the old, religious gentle Zionist (who settled there before the Balfour Declaration) to the 16 year old, atheist, Russian-trained gangster who joins in a raid within 3 days of his secret landing. There are infinite variations in type and in attitude. All generalisation is bound to be inaccurate. But I found that the Jews I met could be divided into precisely the same categories as the Germans I knew in Berlin before the war.

"I found merchants and doctors who only wanted to get on with their jobs and to be left in peace. These were the moderates. Some approved of illegal immigration. All condemned terrorism. But moderates all over the world are generally the quiet, docile people. The tragedy of moderates is that they are ineffective. I asked these Jews, the friendly shopkeeper and the talkative barman, the old German specialist and the Australian tailor, I asked them why they did nothing to stop terrorism and illegal immigration. 'But what can we do to stop it?' they replied. 'How can we control the Jewish Agency? We're only little people of no importance. There's nothing we can do.' It was the same answer I used to hear in Germany, in Italy, and in Austria.

"Many of the Jews in Palestine went there to escape an evil. They decided to build a new country. For the sake of their friends still in Europe and for the sake of their children they suffered great hardship. Slowly, painfully, the desert was made fertile, the avenues were constructed. And now the evil they sought to escape has come upon them.

"Striding along the roads between the rich groves and over the blue hills of the Holy Land come bands of brown-skinned vigorous boys, flushed and bright-eyed, chanting their patriotic songs. The satchels clamped on the back of lean, healthy bodies clad only in shorts, the defiant gaze, even (surprisingly enough) the curly blonde hair - all is the same as in Hitler's Germany. Buses full of school children bellowing their slogans rush through the streets of Tel Aviv. And the parents cannot control them.

"'I would not even know if my son belonged to the Irgun Zwei a shopkeeper said with tears in his eyes. 'He would not tell me. He tells me nothing.' The old man was leaning across the counter talking to me. As he spoke, three boys of about fourteen walked into the shop, barged violently against me and ran out. I met Jews who were friendly, Jews who were nervous, men and women who openly supported the terrorists, people who said (with a backward glance to make sure that they were not overheard) that they loathed the Jewish Agency and longed to leave Palestine. The adults varied. But every single Jewish child I saw looked at me with unconcealed hatred. And every single one could speak no language except Hebrew. Fascism has come to Palestine. And the Jewish young man is potentially more dangerous than the storm trooper. He is more intelligent." (pp 85-87)

Another equally disturbing snapshot of the community comes from an article in the May 1948 edition of The Nineteenth Century Magazine, Palestine Note-Book. It was written by Bevil John Rudd (1927-2009), an officer in the Coldstream Guards:

"When I took part in the search for arms in the Jordan Valley settlements, I was very impressed with the grim determination and unity that the settlers displayed in the face of guns and bayonets. The communal pattern of their lives became clearer. It was pathetic to see photographs of their children among the parents' precious belongings, up to the age of about five, and then none at all until they were nearly grown up. From six years old they seemed to have been sent away to the child-rearing settlements. There is no such thing as family life. On the roads I have often seen bands of young children slogging along on a settlement route march. I have never seen, in the open, a mother and father with their child, not even with their baby in a pram. The babies live in a communal nursery. Parents were miserable as they told how they were only allowed to see their babies when they have come in after twelve hot hours work in the fields.

"The crudest living arrangement of all seemed to be in the tents, which housed a training company of Hagana. There were six grizly men and one girl sleeping in each tent. None of these ferocious youths had any belongings except blankets. They were a hard, pitiless band.

"In an Upper Galilee settlement, there is a Stock farm for human beings. Fine figures of Jewish youths are imported and breeding is accelerated. This blatant method of race production revolted us.

"After all these observations my mind turned against this regime of gaunt, narrow-minded people, pent up with bitterness and cunning. People who suppress a child's wish to own a rattle or a bicycle. However primitive the Arab may be, I thought his individualism worth more than the Jewish modernity and lack of liberty. On the other hand, if the Jewish community plans a struggle - the survival of the fittest - in the Middle East, then mass-produced, tough, settlement stock is the breed they want. Otherwise I do not understand what all this is leading to. Surely some form of master race, so similar, it seems, to the Nazis."

Now lest any Zionist thought police out there mount their high horses to condemn Maugham and Rudd's Zionist-Nazi analogising as mere expressions of rank anti-Semitism, let them first ponder deeply the following diary entry for 17/3/45 by Lord Balfour's niece, Blanche Dugdale:

"Went to the Dorchester and had tea with Chaim [Weizmann] and Vera... [Chaim] painted a dark picture of psychology of rising generation in the Yishuv, said Ben-Gurion is much to blame and is perhaps frightened now of the devils he has failed to discourage." (Baffy: The Diaries of Blanche Dugdale 1936-1947, 1973, p 219)

And this for 25/3/45:

"After tea I walked with [Chaim] in Hyde Park, he poured out things that made him uneasy about the youth in the Yishuv. He said Ben-Gurion was largely responsible and had much on his conscience." (ibid, p 220)

Ben Elton's 'Two Brothers': A Quibble

I've just finished reading Ben Elton's latest novel Two Brothers. Like all of his novels it's a great read and I highly recommend it.

One thing, however, jarred a little, and it's that I wish to focus on here.

But first a modicum of scene-setting. Two Brothers is set in the Germany of the Weimar Republic (1919-33) and its Nazi successor (1933-45). The three main characters are Paulus and Otto Stengel, the twin brothers of the title, and the irresistably beautiful Dagmar, with whom both boys are in love. All three are German Jews (although there's a qualification here I won't be going into as it's not relevant to the subject of this post).

The discordant note comes in a chapter called Beached Dolphin, Berlin, 1935, midway through the novel. Bit by bit, the Nazis have been ramping up the pressure on Germany's Jews. Our teenage protagonists had earlier been subjected to segregation in school and now find themselves banned from using public swimming pools. This particular measure has hit the spirited and athletic Dagmar, the beached dolphin of the chapter, hard, and the conversation unsurprisingly turns to the subject of emigration:

"'They say we'll spread lies about them so they're not going to let us go,' Dagmar explained miserably.

'Well, maybe it'll work out for the best in the end, eh?' Otto said, still lying on his back while bench-pressing Dagmar's dressing-table chair, 'because you can come with me to Palestine.'

'Palestine?' Dagmar asked in some surprise, having never heard Otto even mention the place before.

'Oh yes,' Paulus said with heavy sarcasm, 'haven't you heard? Otto's a Zionist now. Fuck, Otto, you don't even know where Palestine is!'

'Yes I do!' Otto protested. 'It's the next one down after Turkey - sort of. Isn't it?'

'It's in the Middle East and it's already full of Arabs,' Paulus said.

Otto's recent announcement that he had decided to become a Zionist had both amused and frustrated his brother. Lots of Jews in Berlin had begun talking about trying to get to Palestine. The Nazis themselves even raised the idea as a possible way of dealing with their 'problem'.

'It's our homeland,' Otto continued defiantly, 'that's all I need to know about it. Next year in Jerusalem!'

Even Dagmar giggled at this. In the past there could have been no less political individual than Otto Stengel. And no less a religious or spiritual one either for that matter. Otto was an archetypal teenage boy. His interests were sports, machines, food, music and Dagmar... Now, having picked up a few illegal pamphlets in Jewish coffee shops, Otto had suddenly begun using the language of Zionist politics.

'Homeland!' Paulus protested. 'Homeland? Two thousand years ago, Otts! Believe it or not, mate, things have moved on. Palestine is now the homeland of - who? Oh, let me see. Oh yes, I remember: the Palestinians. Get it? The Palestinians live in Palestine. There's a clue in the names. And I don't think they will take very kindly to a fifteen-year-old German Jew boy turning up and saying he owns the place.'

'We'll take it back,' Otto said darkly. 'We have no choice.'

'Great!' Paulus snapped. 'And when you do maybe you can ban all the Arabs from using the parks and swimming pools.'" (pp 255-256)

The problem here is that while Elton reads the Zionist project in Palestine correctly, with Otto picking up "a few illegal Zionist pamphlets" he unwittingly conveys the false impression that German Zionists were putting up some kind of resistance to the Nazis at the time. The simple fact of the matter is that Otto wouldn't have needed to pick up "illegal Zionist pamphlets" when all he had to do was purchase a copy of the perfectly legal weekly organ of the Zionist Federation of Germany (ZVfD), the Judische Rundschau. And if he'd done so, he would have seen just how accommodating of Nazi racism the Zionists were.

As Lenni Brenner has written in his must-read 1983 classic, Zionism in The Age of the Dictators:

"Not even the Nuremberg Laws of 15 September 1935 challenged the basic German Zionist belief in an ultimate modus vivendi with the Nazis... The goal of the ZVfD became 'national autonomy'. They wanted Hitler to give Jews the right to an economic existence, protection from attacks on their honour, and training to prepare them for migration. The ZVfD became absorbed in trying to utilise the segregated Jewish institutions to develop a Jewish national spirit. The tighter the Nazis turned the screw on the Jews, the more convinced they became that a deal with the Nazis was possible. After all, they reasoned, the more the Nazis excluded the Jews from every aspect of German life, the more they would have need of Zionism to help them get rid of the Jews. By 15 January 1936 the Palestine Post had to make the startling report that: 'A bold demand that the German Zionist Federation be given recognition by the government as the only instrument for the exclusive control of German Jewish life was made by the executive of that body in a proclamation today.'

"German Zionist hopes for an arrangement faded only in the face of the ever-mounting intimidation and terror. Even then there was no sign of of any attempts at anti-Nazi activity on the part of the ZVfD leaders. Throughout the entire pre-war period there was only a tiny Zionist involvement in the anti-Nazi underground. Although the [Zionist] HeChalutz and Hashomer youth movements talked socialism, the Nazis were not concerned. Yechiel Greenberg of Hashomer admitted in 1938 that 'our socialism was considered merely a philosophy for export'. But almost from the beginning of the dictatorship the underground Communist Party of Germany (KPD), always looking for new recruits, sent some of their Jewish cadre into the youth movements and, according to Arnold Paucker - now the editor of London's Leo Baeck Institute Year Book - some Zionist youth became involved with the resistance at least to the extent of some illegal postering in the early years of the regime. How much of this was due to the influence of the Communist infiltrators, and how much was spontaneous is impossible to estimate. However, the Zionist bureaucracy vigorously attacked the KPD. As in Italy, so in Germany: the Zionist leadership sought the support of the regime for Zionism and resisted Communism; in neither country could it be thought of as part of the anti-Fascist resistance." (pp 53-54)

Three Seriously Twisted Men

The first, of course, needs no introduction:

"Only when this Jewish bacillus infecting the life of peoples has been removed can one hope to establish a co-operation amongst the nations which shall be built up on a lasting understanding." (Adolf Hitler's speech in Wilhelmshaven, 1/4/39)

But unfortunately, historical illiteracy being what it is, the other two are less well known.

Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) is the 2nd in Israel's founding trinity (preceded by Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) and succeeded by David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)). British Labor MP Richard Crossman (1907-1974) was just another of Zionism's useful fools:

"The years at Geneva [1901-1904] were the period when Weizmann's philosophy (as distinct from his policies and programme) reached its full development. Nothing essential was added to it either when he settled in Britain or by his visits to Palestine. From now on he was a 'concrete' revolutionary, set apart from the other Zionist politicians by his conscious dislike of what he contemptuously dismissed as 'abstract internationalism' - under which he condemned not only Eastern Marxism but Western Liberalism as well. Both outlooks he regarded as vitiated by a refusal to face the basic fact on which Zionism is founded - the essential unassimilable Jewishness of the Jew and the hostility which this must arouse so long as the Jew lives in a foreign community.

"Antisemitism, he used to say to me, is a bacillus which every Gentile carries with him, wherever he goes and however often he denies it. Like other bacilli, it may remain quiescent and harmless for years. But, once the right conditions are created, the bacilli multiply and the epidemic breaks out. The condition for an outbreak of overt antisemitism in any nation is that the number of Jews should rise beyond the safety level of that particular nation. Hence the only radical cure for antisemitism is the creation of the Jewish State. At our first meeting, which lasted most of the way through the night, Weizmann outlined this theory to me and asked me whether I was antisemitic. When I said, 'Of course', I felt that our friendship had begun. For, if a Gentile denied his latent antisemitism, Weizmann concluded that he must either be lying or, even worse, deceiving himself. In his view the only honest attitude for a Gentile to adopt was to admit his unconscious prejudice against Jews and to ensure that it did not influence his behaviour by consciously making allowances for it." (A Nation Reborn, Richard Crossman, 1960, pp 21-22)

Yitzhak Shamir, His Gang & Their Nazi Flirtation

This is how Murdoch's Australian spins the newly deceased leader of Israel's infamous Stern Gang. Its sheltered readers could surely do no other than conclude: What a mensch!

"Yitzhak Shamir was a fighter for the Jews long before Israel's creation, an underground leader who led militias against the Arabs and the British. He made no apologies and no compromises - not as an underground fighter, an intelligence agent who hunted Nazis, and as one of Israel's longest-serving prime ministers who refused to bargain for land." (Israel mourns 'brave warrior' Shamir, AP, 2/7/12)

And this is how Fairfax handles him. Dare I say a marked improvement on the above, but grossly deficient nonetheless. Not only is there no mention of the Stern Gang, but take a look at the headline: 

"The man the British Foreign Office once described as 'among the most fanatical terrorist leaders', who went on to become a senior Mossad spy and Israel's second-longest serving prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir has died aged 96. The lifelong hawk and advocate of the aggressive expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, Mr Shamir served as Israel's prime minister from 1983-84, and from 1986-92. He was also foreign minister from 1980-83." (Death of Shamir: Israeli statesman, militant and spy, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 2/7/12)

These two pieces tell us in microcosm all we really need to know about these two alleged sources of quality journalism. The first, an unabashed apologist for Israeli terrorism and war crimes; the second, a model of self-censorship.

Given their sanitised versions of Yitzhak Shamir's career, you'd never know, for example, that our valiant warrior/militant/statesman was one of the leaders of an outfit (Stern Gang? What Stern Gang?) that once sought an alliance with the Nazis. But you will read, at least in The Australian's account, that he's described as "an intelligence agent who hunted Nazis."

Now when smearing indigenous Palestinian resistance to the Zionist takeover of their homeland, it's a favourite ploy of Zionist propagandists to cite the collaboration of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, with Adolf Hitler. Predictably, however, these same elements are mum on the subject of the Stern Gang's overtures to Mussolini and Hitler during the Second World War (as they are on Zionism's cosy accommodation with the Nazis in general).

Needless to say, given the hold over Western mainstream media opinion and reportage on Palestine by Israel lobbyists, it would be an exercise in futility to expect this particular inconvenient truth to surface in the wash of misleading information currently circulating in the form of reports and obituaries on Shamir's death.*

To remedy this unforgivable dereliction of duty, I've decided to post the final chapter of Lenni Brenner's groundbreaking 1983 study Zionism in the Age of the Dictators in its entirety:

"Until Begin's election victory in 1977, most pro-Zionist historians dismissed Revisionism as the fanatic fringe of Zionism; certainly the more extreme 'Stern Gang', as their enemies called Avraham Stern's Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, were looked upon as of more interest to the psychiatrist than the political scientist. However, opinion toward Begin had to change when he came to power, and when he eventually appointed Yitzhak Shamir as his Foreign Minister it was quietly received, although Shamir had been operations commander of the Stern Gang.

"On the night of 31 August/1 September 1939 the entire command of the Irgun, including Stern, was arrested by the British CID. When he was released, in June 1940, Stern found an entirely new political constellation. Jabotinsky had called off all military operations against the British for the duration of the war. Stern himself was willing to ally himself with the British so long as London would recognise the sovereignty of a Jewish state on both sides of the River Jordan. Until then, the anti-British struggle would have to continue. Jabotinsky knew that nothing would make Britain give the Jews a state in 1940, and he saw the creation of another Jewish Legion with the British Army to be the main task. The two orientations were incompatible and by September 1940 the Irgun was hopelessly split: the majority of both the command and the ranks followed Stern out of the Revisionist movement.

"At birth the new group was at its greatest strength for, as Stern's policies became clearer, the ranks started drifting back into the Irgun or joined the British Army. Stern or 'Yair', as he now called himself, (after Eleazer ben Yair, the commander at Masada during the revolt against Rome) began to define his full objectives. His 18 principles included a Jewish state with its borders as defined in Genesis 15: 18 'from the brook of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates', a 'population exchange', a euphemism for the expulsion of the Arabs and, finally, the building of a Third Temple of Jerusalem. The Stern Group was at this time a bare majority of the military wing of Revisionism but by no means representative of the middle class Jews of Palestine who had backed Jabotinsky. Still less was the fanatic call for a new temple attractive to ordinary Zionists.

"The war and its implications were on everyone's mind and the Stern Gang began to explain their unique position in a series of underground radio broadcasts: 'There is a difference between a persecutor and an enemy. Persecutors have risen against Israel in all generations and in all periods of our diaspora, starting with Haman and ending with Hitler... The source of all our woes is our remaining in exile, and the absence of a homeland and statehood. Therefore, our enemy is the foreigner, the ruler of our land who blocks the return of the people to it. The enemy are the British who conquered the land with our help and who remain here by our leave, and who have betrayed us and placed our brethren in Europe in the hands of the persecutor.'

"Stern turned away from any kind of struggle against Hitler and even began to fantasise about sending a guerilla group to India to help the nationalists there against Britain. He attacked the Revisionists for encouraging Palestinian Jews to join the British Army, where they would be treated as colonial troops, 'even to the point of not being allowed to use the washrooms reserved for European soldiers'. 

"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. They came into contact with an Italian agent in Jerusalem, a Jew who had worked for the British police, and in September 1940 they drew up an agreement whereby Mussolini would recognize a Jewish state in return for Sternist co-ordination with the Italian Army when the country was to be invaded. How seriously either Stern or the Italian agent took these discussions has been debated. Stern feared that the agreement might be part of a British provocation. As a precaution, Stern sent Naftali Lubentschik to Beirut, which was still controlled by Vichy, to negotiate directly with the Axis. Nothing is known of his dealings with either Vichy or the Italians, but in January 1941 Lubentschik met two Germans - 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 Stern proposal for an alliance between his movement and the Third Reich was discovered in the files of the German Embassy in Turkey. The Ankara document called itself a 'Proposal of the National Military Organisation (Irgun Zvi Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany.' (The Ankara document is dated 11 January 1941. At that point the Sternists still thought of themselves as the 'real' Irgun, and it was only later that they adopted the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel - Lohamei Herut Yisrael - appellation.) 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 and its authorities 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 considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side.

 'This offer by the NMO... would be connected to the military training and organizing of Jewish manpower in Europe, under the leadership and command of the NMO. These military units would take part in the fight to conquer Palestine, should such a front be decided upon.

 'The indirect participation of the Israeli freedom movement in the New Order in Europe, already in the preparatory stage, would be linked with a positive-radical solution of the European Jewish problem in conformity with the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Jewish people. This would extraordinarily strengthen the moral basis of the New Order in the eyes of all humanity.' 

"The Sternists again emphasised: 'The NMO is closely related to the totalitarian movements of Europe in its ideology and structure.'

"Lubentschik told von Hentig that if the Nazis were politically unwilling to set up an immediate Zionist state in Palestine, the Sternists would be willing to work temporarily along the lines of the Madagascar Plan. The idea of Jewish colonies on the island had been one of the more exotic notions of the European anti-Semites before the war, and with France's defeat in 1940 the Germans revived the idea as part of their vision of a German empire in Africa. Stern and his movement had debated the Nazi Madagascar scheme and concluded that it should be supported, just as Herzl had initially backed the British offer, in 1903, of a temporary Jewish colony in the Kenya Highlands.

"There was no German follow-up on these incredible propositions, but the Sternists did not lose hope. In December 1941, after the British had taken Lebanon, 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.

"The Stern plan was always unreal. One of the fundamentals of the German-Italian alliance was that the eastern Mediterranean littoral was to be included in the Italian sphere of influence. Furthermore, on 21 November 1941 Hitler met the Mufti and told him that although Germany could not then openly call for the independence of any of the Arab possessions of the British or French - out of a desire not to antagonise Vichy, which still ran North Africa - when the Germans overran the Caucasus, they would swiftly move down to Palestine and destroy the Zionist settlement.

"There is rather more substance to Stern's own self-perception as a totalitarian. By the late 1930s Stern became one of the ring-leaders of the Revisionist malcontents who saw Jabotinsky as a liberal with moral reservations about Irgun terror against the Arabs. Stern felt that the only salvation for the Jews was to produce their own Zionist form of totalitarianism and make a clean break with Britain which, in any case, had abondoned Zionism with the 1939 White Paper. He had seen the WZO make its own accommodation with Nazism by means of the Ha'avara; he had seen Jabotinsky entangle himself with Italy; and he personally had been intimately involved in the Revisionists' dealings with Polish anti-Semites. However, Stern believed that all of these were only half measures.

"Stern was one of the Revisionists who felt that the Zionists, and the Jews, had betrayed Mussolini and not the reverse. Zionism had to show the Axis that they were serious, by coming into direct military conflict with Britain, so that the totalitarians could see a potential military advantage in allying themselves with Zionism. To win, Stern argued, they had to ally themselves with the fascists and Nazis alike: one could not deal with a Petliura or a Mussolini and then draw back from a Hitler.

"Did Yitzhak Yzertinsky - rabbi Shamir - to use his underground nom de guerre, now 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 Counte Folke Bernadotte, the UN's 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 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 265-69)

[*Just look at this rubbish from yesterday's obit. in the Herald: "But from his days as a militant in the extreme right-wing Lehi movement before Israel's birth in 1948 Shamir always believed the Jewish state should stretch from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River." Now re-read paragraphs 2 & 3 of Brenner's chapter above.]

Smear & Loathing

"The spectacle of protesters breaking the law in an attempt to harm a legal Jewish business was all the more abhorrent because it invited obvious historical parallels to the anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish businesses in 1930s Nazi Germany." (Anti-Israel bullies' hard centre bites in chocolate shop campaign, Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 20/8/11)

An obvious historical parallel? Maybe, but not in the way Cameron 'thinks'.

The Nazis wanted Germany free of Jews (Judenrein). The Zionists want Palestine/Israel free of Arabs (Arabrein). Both the Nazi and the Zionist regimes practised/are practising ethnic cleansing to bring this about. That's the parallel. Now here's the difference:

The Nazis boycotted/attacked Jewish stores in the 30s to squeeze Jews out of Germany. BDS boycotts (but does not attack) Israeli businesses which play a part in squeezing the Palestinians - through the ongoing occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands and the laying of siege to Palestinian communities - out of Palestine. Both 30s Nazis and today's Zionists were/are in the business of making life so difficult for their respective 'rejects' that they'd 'voluntarily' leave their homes and homelands for other parts.

The Nazis began by squeezing German Jews and ended by simply rounding up those who hadn't already left Germany and eliminating them. The Zionists began by massacring and expelling Palestinians in 1948 but are now in the process of squeezing the remainder out because the earlier ethnic cleansing wouldn't look too spruce on television today. Of course, the massacres and expulsions of 1948 remain an option, especially under cover of war.

Where Cameron gets it wrong is by equating BDS campaigners - those who resist the Israeli squeezing of Palestinians - with the Nazis, those who squeezed German Jews. But this getting it wrong is not just a reflection of Cameron's undoubted ignorance of history, both German and Palestinian, it is deliberate, part of a well-organised Zionist propaganda campaign to counter the BDS campaign by smearing its supporters.

Welcome to the latest Zionist smear/ talking point. Note those who deploy it, its permutations and where it is deployed:

"Inevitably, the overwhelming majority of the six million Israeli Jews view BDS as motivated by the same prejudices that influenced Nazi anti-Semitism..." Philip Mendes, Nick Dyrenfurth & Suzanne Rutland, Zionist academics (Israel boycott harms Arabs, too, The Australian, 8/4/11)

"I've seen pictures of Jewish shops being attacked before, of course, but they were in black and white, in another country at another ghastly time. But this is Australia. Today." Andrew Bolt, Murdoch calumnist (Something is rotten in the land I love, Daily Telegraph, 6/7/11)

"Then there are the historical parallels. In the mid-1930s, Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists used to go on rampages outside Jewish-owned shops in London's East End - some were boycotted, others smashed up... Mosley targeted Jewish traders because they were Jews. The BDS protesters targeted the Max Brenner chocolate shop because its parent company does business in the Jewish state of Israel." Gerard Henderson, Fairfax calumnist (Jews know acceptance still has its exceptions, SMH, 12/7/11)

"We remember the precedence of the 1930s; my father came from Germany, and (at) any sign of this kind of behaviour we have to draw a line in the sand." Michael Danby, MP for Melbourne Ports and co-leader of Labor's pitbull faction (Prominent Australians fight anti-Semitism with hot chocolate, Leo Shanahan, The Australian, 28/7/11)

"[Paul] Howes [AWU secretary] said the far-left protesters were 'mimicking the behaviour of the Nazi thugs' and it was necessary to 'nip this in the bud'." (ibid)

"As the daughter of refugees whose lives were critically affected by both fascism and communism, I'm grateful for what Australia has to offer... It is a truism, but we can't afford to ignore the lessons of history." Jana Wendt, journalist (ibid)

"Barbarians are once again on the march. A motley coalition of far-left socialists and far-right jihadists is shutting down Zionist businesses through violent protest. Apparently, boycotting Jews has become the new cause celebre among Melbourne's radical fringe. So when I learned that the Max Brenner chocolate shop in the CBD's Queen Victoria Centre was on the target list, I felt obliged to do something. Maybe I'm just naturally feisty, but I wasn't about to let these latter-day vandals do their worst without me trying to do my best. So I downloaded a photo of a stormtrooper standing in front of a shop bearing a sign 'don't buy from Jews'. I affixed a caption that read 'Boycotting Jewish Businesses: Berlin 1933 - Melbourne 2011'. I then trotted down to the nearest Officeworks and blew it up to placard size... After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words." Ted Lapkin, Zionist propagandist, ex-AIJAC (The community can't sit idly by, The Australian Jewish News, 29/7/11)

"I don't think in 21st-century Australia there is a place for the attempted boycott of a Jewish business... I thought we had learned that from history." Kevin Rudd, foreign minister (Israeli boycotts: ACCC called in, John Ferguson, The Australian, 8/8/11)

"[Michael] O'Brien [Victorian minister for consumer affairs] told The Australian it was unacceptable to single out any businesses but that it was especially concerning given the 20th-century history behind attacks on Jewish businesses." (ibid)

"It's a claim which has outraged many who see the campaign against the 24-store Max Brenner chocolate chain in this country as an ugly echo of the anti-Semitism of 1930s Germany when Jewish businesses were targeted." Cameron Stewart, churnalist (Targeted chocolatier 'a man of peace', The Australian, 13/8/11)

"We all recall what happened to the Jewish people in Germany prior to World War II with the first attacks on Jewish businesses. Jewish businesses were targeted, big 'Js' were written on the windows, and stormtroopers stood in front of the shops stopping anyone from entering to conduct business. This then escalated to physical attacks on the shops with windows smashed and so on." Fred Nile, Christian Democrat leader and God-botherer extraordinaire, addressing the NSW Upper House on BDS (jwire.com, 8/9/11)

"What are we going to see next? Will these people be daubing windows and breaking windows again?" Mike Kelly Labor MP for Eden-Monaro, co-leader of pitbull faction, addressing parliament (Government won't support PA at UN, The Australian Jewish News, 9/9/11)

"Liberal backbencher Josh Frydenberg has has renewed calls for the Greens to publicly condemn an international BDS campaign targeting the state of Israel. Speaking in parliament yesterday, the MP, who is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, said the Israeli blockade was a 'dangerous development that must be countered at every turn." (Israel boycott 'driven by hatred', Lauren Wilson & Joe Kelly, The Australian, 13/9/11)

"'(The Senate) should not tolerate the boycotting of businesses because the ownership is Jewish', leader of the opposition in the Senate Eric Abetz said. 'We know enough about world history never to go down that track'." (Israeli boycott a low point for senators, SMH, 13/9/11)

"Members may not be aware that Australia has the honour of being home to the highest percentage of Holocaust survivors in a Jewish community outside israel. So it is understandable that there is a strong concern about BDS in Australia, especially in the Jewish community. They know first hand what can follow once businesses are singled out simply because they are owned by Jewish people. They know firsthand what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s when businesses were identified as being Jewish. I am certain that those involved in the BDS protests would say such comparisons are unreasonable and hyperbole. But I disagree. The experience of history, repeatedly, is that this is where it starts. States do not slide into systemic racism overnight. Instead, liberties are traded off one at a time. I never thought I would see the day when a Jewish business was targeted in Australia, and that is what is occurring with the BDS." (NSW Labor MLC Walt Secord, Hansard, 15/9/11)

I haven't captured them all, but you've surely got the idea by now. Will add more such references as they crop up.