M.Blackmore asked: > > > The similarities between zionism and nazism are indeed striking. > > No wonder -- their roots are the same, as are many of their practices > > and goals. ... > OK, I'll bite. What are the roots that are the same?
Zionism, like nazism, is rooted in the völkish-mystical nationalism of the late 19th-century Germany/Austria, with the core concepts of "blood and soil", ethnic supremacy and reckless militarist expansionism. Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of modern Zionism, studied in Vienna and was member of a nationalist fraternity that inspired his writings. Herzl, who wished he was born a Prussian nobleman, wanted to form the "Judenstaat" as the Prussia of the Middle East (Israel's nickname to this day), with German as national language. Herzl told the great duke of Baden that "Zionism is a part of German culture" and offered the idea of a Jewish Palestine as a German protectorate. As the Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein wrote: ( http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=116&aid=158&pg=1 ) << Historians generally divide nationalism into two basic types: liberal nationalism with roots in the French Revolution and ethnic nationalism with roots in German romanticism. Liberal nationalism has as its main pillar the citizen: the state is constituted by its citizens and between citizens is complete legal equality. Romanticism's main pillar is the ethnic nation: each state belongs to a particular ethnic nation, and the latter consequently occupies a privileged position in the state. Zionism originated as a reaction to the perceived failures of liberal nationalism. Zionists believed that the liberal idea of citizenship neither could nor should work. Authentic communities, they held, were not formed by legal, juridical bonds--i.e., constitutions--but by organic, mystical ties that precede and transcend the political. Thus, Jews should not seek an artificial sense of belonging in a liberal state based on citizenship--a quest that, in any case, was destined to fail, as the Dreyfus affair supposedly showed--but rather a real sense of belonging in an ethnic community that had its "own" state. Historians generally agree on the "Germanic" origins of Zionism. The great theoretician of nationalism, Hans Kohn, for example, pointed to the "German sources" that influenced Theodor Herzl, the founding father of modern Zionism. A recent expression of this view can be found in a study of early Zionist politics by the mainstream Israeli historian Anita Shapira. "Ironically," she writes, "it was the Romantic-exclusivist brand of nationalism (whose prescriptions meant that the Jews could never be an integral part of the [German] organic nation) that contained certain ideas able to function as a basis for an elaborated notion of a Jewish nation and national movement." The Zionist idea "adopt[ed] and transplant[ed] concepts deriving from German or Pan-Slavic sources of volkisch nationalism." >> Here's a pertinent book review from The Times: << The Times (London), February 11, 1984: Edward Mortimer: Contradiction, Collusion and Controversy Review of the book "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators" by Lenni Brenner (Croom Helm, £9.95) Who told a Berlin audience in March 1912 that "each country can absorb only a limited number of Jews, if she doesn't want disorders in her stomach. Germany already has too many Jews"? No, not Adolf Hitler but Chaim Weizmann, later president of the World Zionist Organization and later still the first president of the state of Israel. And where might you find the following assertion, originally composed in 1917 but republished as late as 1936: "The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligation, knows no order nor discipline"? Not in Der Stürmer but in the organ of the Zionist youth organization, Hashomer Hatzair. As the above quoted statement reveals, Zionism itself encouraged and exploited self-hatred in the Diaspora. It started from the assumption that anti-Semitism was inevitable and even in a sense justified so long as Jews were outside the land of Israel. It is true that only an extreme lunatic fringe of Zionism went so far as to offer to join the war on Germany's side in 1941, in the hope of establishing "the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich". Unfortunately this was the group which the present Prime Minister of Israel chose to join. That fact gives an extra edge of topicality to what would in any case be a highly controversial study of the Zionist record in the heyday of European fascism by Lenni Brenner, and American Trotskyist writer who happens also to be Jewish. It is short (250 pages), crisp and carefully documented. Mr Brenner is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes, including Hitler's; he is careful also to put on record the opposition to such policies within the Zionist movement. In retrospect these activities have been defended as a distasteful but necessary expedient to save Jewish lives. But Brenner shows that most of the time this aim was secondary. The Zionist leaders wanted to help young, skilled and able-bodied Jews to emigrate to Palestine. They were never in the forefront of the struggle against fascism in Europe. That in no way absolves the wartime Allies for their callous refusal to make any serious effort to save European Jewry. As Brenner says, "Britain must be condemned for abandoning the Jews of Europe"; but, "it is not for the Zionists to do it." >> Further reading: ================ - Anti-Semitism by political Zionism: http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/zanda.cfm - Zionist Anti-Semitism: http://www.aldeilis.net/zion/zionrac12.html - Zionism and Anti-Semitism: A Strange Alliance Through History http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0798/9807048.html - The Brutal Zionist Role in the Holocaust: http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/holocaust/index.cfm - Uri Avnery on the Prussia of the Middle East: http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article161.html http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article203.html ----- > For me the question has been - why the Germans (and Japanese) and why > not somebody else? Because they dominated their respective world region, like Iraq dominated Arabia, so they "had to go" as competitors for power. > The United States pogrom and land theft from the > locals comes to mind, and the continuation of slavery into the modern > era in other forms - why didn't that get industrialised into death > machines (then, one wonders if it might do so now). Who needs concentration camps if you have smallpox-infested blankets ? The bugs spread by themselves, and later you can say it was an accident. Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
