“Israel Shamir, your arguments have passed their sell-by
date.”
The Obscure Charm of Zionism
A Dialogue between Israel Shamir and Saam Amerat
“Israel Shamir, your arguments have passed their sell-by
date.”
This was the punch line of a letter I received from a
previously unknown reader from Britain, Saam Amerat. He wrote:
“There was a time when racist
organisations were anti-Zionist. At that time anti-Zionists like yourself were
able to talk about working with them. Even though it meant working against
anti-Nazis.
But that time is now over.
The Zionists have joined the Nazis,
and the Nazis have become Zionists.
Now we see Nazis walking hand in hand
down the streets of London with Zionists, they wave Israeli flags with one hand
and give Nazi salutes with the other.
So your arguments have passed their
sell-by date.
And you haven't kept up.”
Shamir: Indeed, Saam is
right, up to a point. The political setup is changing; the new fad is the
pro-Zionist swing of the European far-right. Once, they were against Jews, ergo,
they were against the Zionist enterprise as well. Now they have discovered the
obscure charm of Zionism. The more successful far-right parties of Europe have
embraced Israel, have opened their gates to Jews and now are mainly carrying out
an anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant agenda. Anti-Zionism is just too expensive –
anti-Zionist right-wing parties are usually described as “neo-Nazi
anti-Semites”, they find themselves out in the cold, without access to media,
totally de-legitimised. But it enough for them to support Israel to become
perfectly legitimate.
Gianfranco Fini (a leader of the Italian National Alliance)
discovered this solution a long time ago. Fascist or not,
but after his visit to Israel and a photo-op with
Sharon in the Holocaust museum he became kosher, he made it to the top.
In the UK, the BNP became more Israel-friendly. The BNP has a
few Jews and Zionists at the top. Anti-zionists Martin Webster, a former leader
of National Front, and Robert Edwards, a leader of the socialist wing of the
nationalist movement, have much less money, media coverage and public support.
In Sweden, the far right has been divided into pro-Zionist
and anti-Zionist. Now, a few years after the split, pro-Zionist Sweden Democrats
are on the verge of entering the parliament, as Jewish-owned media have ceased
boycotting them. The anti-Zionist National Democrats are tiny and boycotted.
In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen exercised a steady anti-Zionist
influence, despite having some Jews in top spots. But now the old man is on his
way out, and his daughter (and probable successor) Marine is likely to change
its agenda into anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant. The Jews work at it. A supporter
of Marine Le Pen, Pierre Cassen, had organized a free wine-with-pork sausages
street party at Muslim prayer time on Friday in the heavily Muslim area of
Paris, La goutte d'or (it was stopped in the end, by the government) – and he
was immediately
invited for a conference by the Bnei Brith (or
B'nai B'rith), the Zionist-Masonic organization and founder of ADL.
It is even worse in the Netherlands and Denmark, where the
far right is strictly Zionist.
Saam Amerat:
I wrote the response to you while I was reading "Winnie
the Pooh on Immigration and Race".
It wasn't the first time you had mentioned that. I think the Zionists noticed
that the immigrants to the west were Pro-Palestinian and not pro-Zionism, as
planned so the Zionists changed their position.
This question has also passed its sell-by date, as you put
it. There was time when only the far-right, a.k.a Nazis, were against the
generous helping of immigrants. Now, nobody in Europe wants immigrants.
Immigration restriction is out of the far-right-agenda and into every party’s,
left or right, because that is what people want.
Immigration into Europe was not encouraged because humanists
or Trotskyites, Antifa, militant feminists, gays, left-wing lunatic fringe
insisted on it. Their dreams of importing a lot of immigrants, establishing gay
marriages, having the church banned have had their heyday because the rich and
powerful capitalists and bankers wanted disempowering working people,
undermining solidarity, destroying the welfare state by overloading it. Rich
Jews – and they are an important and influential part of the rich folk – had an
extra angle, as they felt more comfortable and less seen in heterogeneous
society. They also had animus against the Christian faith.
Now there is a production downturn, Europe has no jobs for
immigrants, workers are out of work, the welfare state is on the verge of
collapse, and even the Jews are not keen on immigration any more, because the
immigrants are not all that pro-Jewish.
As for my position, I always thought that mass immigration
was a tool of the rich in their warfare against society; I saw that the
right-wing has a powerful argument objecting to mass immigration, and I advised
the left to accept it as a part of leftist paradigm. Indeed, the communist
societies, the USSR and Cuba, did not allow mass immigration because they cared
about their workers. But now this discussion is over: the Labour Party in
Britain is strongly against the continuation of mass immigration, and the same
is true in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Saam Amerat:
My take on history is Nazis-Zionists alliance wasn't really a recent change. The
Nazis and the Zionists have always been allies, it is just something they tried
to hide from their supporters and enemies in the past.
This alliance should not come as any
surprise, they both share the same ideology and have the same objectives.
'The Myth of the Twentieth Century' reads like it has been plagiarised from
Theodor Herzl.
If you take Zionism, replace Israel with
the Fatherland, replace Jews with the Arian race, replace amalekites with Jews,
replace the Palestinians with the Slavs you have Nazism.
Theodor Herzl was an atheist, so Zionism
for him was the creation of a myth to uplift the Jewish people, just as Nazism
is the myth that Alfred Rosenberg created in his book to uplift the German
people.
Nazism and Antisemitism in general have
the same objectives as Zionism because antisemites want the Jews out of Europe,
the Zionists also want the Jews out of Europe.
So people shouldn't be surprised that
Zionist American bankers helped the Nazis take power. I don't believe what
happened to Jews after he took power was their mistake. I believe it was their
aim. They needed Jews to leave their homelands and move to Palestine, and Hitler
was needed to scare them in to doing that.
And Local Zionists as well as Israel
itself have been caught red-handed attacking Jews all over the world, to scare
them in to leaving their homelands and moving to Israel.
This is because life being as hard as
possible for Jews outside of Palestine makes life seem as nice as possible
within it.
Jews being attacked by Nazis is the aim
of Zionists, because Zionists want them to move to Palestine.
Neo-Nazis and other antisemites have also
realised that Zionism can cleanse their nations of Jews. It took their combined
brain cell a good few decades to work that out, because they aren't known for
their intellect.
When the Neo-Nazis finally worked this
out, and became openly Zionist some people in the Palestinian rights camp became
scared, others became sad.
I didn't really feel anything, because I always knew they are on the same side.
What was hidden, had just become open. No loss, no gain.
But all of this is irrelevant now,
because the Nazi have given up on asking for our help against Jews, while the
Zionists who accuse everyone who opposes them of being with the Nazis are now
with the Nazis.
I don't just believe that is exactly how things should be, I believe things have
always been like that, it is just they tried to stop people seeing that until
now.
Shamir: In the 1930s, the Zionists indeed tried to convince Nazis that
they have the same goal, to take Jews out of Europe. Many Nazis accepted this
argument, and there was much collaboration between them. However, Adolf Hitler
did not believe it. He thought that the Jews want to establish a territorial
base for their operations, while continuing to live and operate in Europe.
History has proven that his view was more realistic: indeed,
Jews live very well in the US and in Britain, and they do not intend to move to
Israel, but they do support Israel as a part and parcel of their plans. Israel
keeps Jewry alive, but still the most important Jewish activity takes place out
of Israel. Goldman Sachs did not emigrate to Israel, neither did Zuckerman nor
Foxman nor Lieberman. They prefer to make money, fight the church and limit
civil freedoms in the US. So it is not reasonable to claim that “Neo-Nazis and
other antisemites have also realised that Zionism can cleanse their nations of
Jews”. Perhaps “they aren't known for their intellect” but they are not that
silly either.
The European far-right has no illusions that Zionists will
take the Jews out of Europe to Israel. It does not happen at all. They have made
peace with Jews because that was their only chance to get on within their
existing political system. Those who did not, like Horst Mahler, are in jail.
As for me, I was interested in the European nationalist right
because this movement was less obedient, less fearful of Jews, more outspoken
for Palestine. The leftist pro-Palestine movement had spent much of its time
discussing antisemitism. They cared about it more than they cared about
Palestine. They were infiltrated through and through. You live in England, so
you probably know Tony Greenstein, Roland Rance and others who pretend that they
fight for Palestine but in reality they act as
crypto-Zionist agents. The nationalist right was
not that infiltrated, it had a strong anti-Jewish tradition, and indeed they
broke many a taboo. But now it’s over. Their leaders made a deal with Satan:
they preferred to side with Zionists against Muslims.
Alas, the nationalist right was always very weak on morals.
This weakness was inherited from Nietzsche or even from Descartes via Mussolini
and Hitler. They love force, they love their nations, and they say: my nation,
right or wrong. Opportunist leaders were their undoing, as it was the case with
many Communist leaders.
Similar development takes place in Russia, too. Their
nationalist right was strongly anti-Jewish; not anymore. In love with force and
action, they actually liked Israeli hutzpah, panache of dealing with the Freedom
Flotilla.
Let us remember some hard facts. Jews and Arabs all over are
equally emotionally involved in the cause of Israel/Palestine, but Jews do
overspend Arabs by huge margin in Russia and elsewhere. Arabs and Muslims
probably have no less money than Jews, but they rather spend it on mosques - or
horses. The cause of Palestine is the most popular, the most renown, but even in
this field Arab financial involvement is tiny. Europe spends more, much more,
but European money goes - quite rightly - to help refugees, not to fight for
minds and hearts. The Jews send speakers to every university, to every
conference, they organise meetings, manage discourse in its totality: not only
about Palestine, but Palestine is a part of their paradigm. Embassies of
Ramallah government rather try and stop actions of solidarity and support for
Gaza because of their feud with Hamas.
Situation now is very dangerous, and its outcome depends on
our actions. But our actions are limited by our resources. The far-right
switching sides is a sign of it.
Saam Amerat:
Jews being attacked by Nazis is not our aim. We want them to live happily ever
after in their countries of birth, so Palestinian families aren't expelled or
exterminated to make room for them in Palestine.
Our hatred of Zionism has nothing in
common with the Nazis hatred of Jews.
We don't hate Zionists for perceived Jewish DNA the way the Nazis do, we hate
the Zionists for what they do. We oppose the Zionists for the same reason
Salahudin defeated the Crusaders and Qutuz defeated the Mongols.
We oppose the invaders for invading, enslaving and subjugating, not for their
DNA and not of their beliefs.
Shamir: Now, this is a very
Jewish claim that everybody hates Jews for what they are, be it their chosenness
by God or their DNA or whatever. There is no such thing in real life. This is a
part of Jewish religious belief that the Jews are so wonderful that everybody is
envious of them. Antisemitism is a myth, an invention like penis-envy, this
invention of Jewish Dr Freud. Nobody hates just for the fun of it.
Nazis – real German National Socialists, not the Hollywood
sort – did not hate Jews for what they are, but they were against the Jews for
what they thought they did. Nazis considered that Germany was colonised by Jews.
Yes, their mode of colonisation was different from the Crusaders or Mongols;
they would take over a house or a factory after a forced default of payments,
bankruptcy or by fraud, not after a hot battle. But was it all that different
otherwise, they argued, for indeed in1920s, some Jews accumulated much of German
wealth, while many native Germans went broke.
In British India, Macaulay advised to make colonisation a
truly lasting enterprise by undermining national pride and national education of
the Indians so they would forget their glorious past. Was it very different from
1920s, when some Jews – newspaper owners and masters of discourse - were active
in ridiculing and undermining German pride and German way of life, they asked.
Perhaps if Guy de Lusignan (defeated by Saladin) and Kitboga
(defeated by Qutuz) have had banks and courts and newspapers at their disposal,
they would never go near Qurn Hattin or Ain Jalut.
In short, their view was strikingly similar to yours, and I
do not intend to offend you. You want Jews to live happily elsewhere, so did
they. Nazis had plans to send Jews to Madagascar or to Uganda or to create a
Jewish state in Eastern Europe, so they would live there happily ever after. You
disagree with being “invaded, enslaved and subjugated” so they were.
This is or was the position of the nationalist right in
Europe. They considered the Rise of Jews, Jewish ownership of mass media, Jewish
influence in discourse, Jewish financial control as a sign of colonisation of
their land by Jews. They were Hamas; now, by making peace with Zionists, they
went the way of Mahmud Abbas: they surrendered to the supreme force.
Now, let me make it clear and unambiguous. Whatever one makes
of an argument of the attempted Jewish colonisation of Germany (or Poland, or
Russia, or the US), one may and should be revolted by
decolonisation-by-mass-murder. Whenever this occurred – for instance in Haiti
where the white slave owners were massacred by their slaves in decolonisation
drive; or in Western Ukraine where the Poles were slaughtered by Ukrainian Nazis
– the result was always disastrous, the land ruined for centuries and people
damned for ages.
I am all for decolonisation of Palestine, but not by mass
murder or by mass expulsion; rather by removing privileges and equalising
positions. This is the solution now in Palestine, and this could be a solution
to any colonisation of any sort.
Saam Amerat:
When it comes to solutions, I believe in our camps there are three:
Mine, Yours and everybody else's.
Everybody else including Norman Finkelstein want pre-67, also known as the two
states’ solution.
Both of us believe that is nothing but apartheid South African style. Its
supporters are for it, because apartheid South African style is much better than
what the Palestinians currently have.
But we know, Israel will never agree to Apartheid South African Style, because
the whites there treated the blacks as such because they believed the Blacks to
be lesser human beings. So the Zionists will never grant the Palestinians the
rights of lesser human beings because the Zionists will never accept the
Palestinians as Human beings.
Your solution is the one state solution, this is shared by people like Craig
Murray which is the pre-48 post-British rule. You are calling for one state for
everybody, in lands where the Arabs have already achieved a clear majority.
This will allow Palestinian refugees to return and Jewish settlers in post-67 to
stay.
It doesn't offer any solution to Jews who may want to return to lands in the
Arab world.
Israeli society is becoming more fascist, not less, and the Arab governments are
becoming more complacent, not less.
The right wing is growing due to high birth rates, while the left wing are
leaving for Europe.
So what incentive does Israel have to agree to such?
My solution is the pre-18 solution. The Middle East returning to what it was
before the British came and messed things up.
It will allow Palestinians to come back if they wish and Jews to go back if they
wish.
I think your drive is mainly towards creating a change in Israeli society, to
get it to take a step back from Armageddon. There was a time when that may have
been possible. But that time is now over. Explaining to Zionists that they are
headed towards Armageddon will no longer work because too many of them now
believe in Armageddon, with Armageddon as their ultimate objective.
I am talking about both the Jewish Zionists in Israel and the Christian Zionists
who fund them in America, both the religious nuts in west bank settlements and
right wing atheists in Tel Aviv.
They are all racing towards it, trying to be more right wing and more crazier
than each other. Competing in Craziness.
Shamir: my conclusion is very similar to yours. Read my
essay on Turkey, I say that Palestine will be
saved by its full integration in the area, by removal of post-colonial
framework. One State solution could be achieved if the US people were able to
remove the rule of Goldman Sachs – Lieberman – Foxman et al. Capitol Hill should
be de-colonised before Ramallah. Then, democracy and equality would come to
Palestine by default. But the Americans are subdued. They do not support
Palestinians because they do not understand how can they rebel against Jewish
rule? The US nationalists are not much to expect, either: they prefer to boast
about their white skin, though forsooth, the only white man in their congress
was Cynthia McKinney. That is why I agree – the solution will be achieved by
regional powers without help of Europe or the US.
Saam Amerat:
The solution now lies outside of Israel/Palestine. Not really with Iran or
Turkey, but with a united Iran and Turkey. A Middle Eastern EU. Our drive should
be to push the peoples of the Middle East to push for a change of governments,
bloodless coups, the removal of the dictators and kings and a replacement with a
single state.
If British Middle Eastern map was able to remove Zionism, it would have done so
already. So another map needs to be created to dump Zionism in the dustbin of
history. A united Middle Eastern Army will be able to reunite Palestine with
the rest of the Middle East because disunited Arab Armies failed. And a united
Middle Eastern economic potential, with the factories of Egypt, Turkey and Iran,
the oil wealth of the gulf and the green lands of Sudan may show Zionists that
working together is more profitable than stealing.
It is true the most rabid Zionists can be
found in America and Europe. And these people have no desire to leave for
Israel. They just want the sons for poorer men to do so. So they can fight for
the fatherland. They want to earn in their banks, while the sons of poorer men
work in kibutzes while fighting for the dream.
Yes Europe and America is where the
Zionists feed and take, and that is where they buy politicians to aid their
feeding and taking.
But Israel is where they build, and
Israel is where they want Jews to work and contribute. To create their dream. So
yes you are right Europe and America is where the Zionists suck blood, but
Israel is where they vomit it out in to the awaiting ever hungry mouths of the
settlers. Eating alone makes people, however selfish very constipated, Israel is
where they relieve themselves of their ill gotten wealth with the excuse that it
will fertilise Israel’s barren economy, but all that results from the shit they
send to Israel is a very bad smell.
When it comes to unity and a unified
state. I believe the wider the unity and the greater the area of the state the
better.
I agree with your article that autonomy
is needed to gain this unity.
I would like to add to it by stating that
the autonomy needs to be all in composing. Peoples need autonomy as well as
regions.
So Jewish ultra-orthodox can have their
Saturday shut downs in their own villages, and can set up schools where their
daughters don't have to sit next to Sephardis who they believe might pollute
their children with the TV they watch. Each religion, region and community
should have their own courts to deal with problems amongst they have amongst
themselves and these courts should have the widest possible mandate if that is
what those people who will be subjects to those courts want. Because it is no
one’s business but their own.
The grey comes with mixed marriages in
particular and mixed families in general. And to deal resolve conflicts in this
grey area needs larger brains than mine, but these problems are resolvable.
Maybe not to everybody’s happiness, but
they are resolvable to a greater degree of justice than what is currently
available.
Shamir: I love Iran, but I
just do not see Iran belonging to the area. Historically, Iran was not a part of
Byzantine or Ottoman Empire. Iran has its own grossraum, great space, spreading
to Central Asia, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan. I doubt one may cross the
civilisation borders.
Saam Amerat:
When it comes to Iran, I believe Iran must be included to avoid disputes over
territory and the treatment of minorities between it and its neighbours. The
European Union means Germany doesn't need to invade France or Poland for
territory it believes is its, because the Union means Germans already have
access to those lands.
The best way to secure the greatest
rights for Palestinians to return would be for Jews in Israel to have the
greatest rights to return to their lands of origin including Iran and the
Maghreb.
But yes Iran could be part of the same
province of the larger state, a province that covers Afghanistan(where about
half the population are Tajik, Iranian) and Central Asia, including Tajikistan
where people speak Tajik(Iranian). This unity is needed to avoid separatist
wars. Because not everyone is Iranian, Azerbaijanis and Turkmans speak a
language that really should be called Turkish, while Uzbeks speak a language
which can be understood in Turkey.
Edited by Ken Freeland