AntiSemitism
ThoughtStorms Wiki
Unlike this article, I'm not at all surprised or confused by the increasingly apparent alliance between the FarRight and pro-Israel factions.
I think my model / world-view is correct. And it fits perfectly with what we see today.
There's always been basically a right-wing vs left-wing take on the concepts around the holocaust. Which is basically a conflict between the notion of the Jews qua historical individual lineage vs a notion of the Jews qua instantiation of a more general victimized identity.
The right think that the holocaust was driven by a sui generis hatred of the Jews as specific lineage. That the holocaust is uniquely special to them. And the degree of horror involved in it is something that makes Antisemitism uniquely evil. Antisemitism is a kind of eternal metaphysical category, which can only happen to Jews.
The left think the holocaust is just one particularly virulent and horrific instantiation of a situation of cruel oppression, scapegoating and murder of one ethnicity by another. That it was the Jews who were victims this time was a historical and political contingency rather than something essential about that particular lineage.
When the right say "Never Again" they mean, no enmity against Jews qua Jews should ever be tolerated.
When the left say "Never Again" we mean, no ethnic groups should ever be subject to such calculated genocidal extermination. The "next time" to be avoided may be European Christians murder of Jews. Or slaughter between two completely different ethnicities or categories of persons.
This is why I don't find the alliance between pro-Israel groups and the far right strange or surprising.
Historical European Antisemitism (and its apotheosis in Nazism) hated Jews as the ultimate other. The rootless cosmopolitans / people of nowhere. The disruptive outsiders who challenged the accepted norms (of Christianity, of citizenship) that we are all expected to follow.
But with the creation of Israel, Zionist Jews signalled that they were willing to buy into that game of nationhood. To become a PeopleOfSomewhere. A force for stability. To embrace notions of a people connected to a land.
And Zionists didn't simply buy into it, they became one of its most enthusiastic champions in the modern world. And it's not hard to understand why. Or even sympathize. When you attribute your suffering to having no defensible place to call your own, of course you want to establish such a home.
But nothing signals support for connection of people and land as strongly as an "ethno-state". With different rules for different religions and ancestry.
It's allegedly "offensive" to make parallels between Israel and Nazism, and I understand why people can be upset. (So I apologize for making such parallels) But it's pretty bloody self-evident that Zionism is the embrace of many of the ideals of nationalism and people being rooted to a place, which, again, fascism is the simply the most extreme example of.
This is so self-evident that you have to have a very "right-wing" or Jewish essentialist take not see this.
Given this framework, it's absolutely obvious why FarRightPopulism is so steadfastly behind Israel. It is an icon of exactly what they want. Not people from one ethnicity moving about and mixing freely with and influencing others. But people going to where they "properly belong" and staying there. Even eagerly embracing that as an ideal.
Of course far-right Christians who see themselves ethnically different from Jews love to see the Jews "over there" rather than having aspirations to be "over here" and live among "us".
Backlinks (3 items)