Creeping Nazism in Israel ?

[humble3d]

Creeping Nazism in Israel ?

 

“Please don’t write about Ya’ir Golan!” a friend

begged me, “Anything a leftist like you writes will

only harm him!”

 

So, I abstained for some weeks. But I can’t keep quiet

any longer.

 

General Ya’ir Golan, the deputy chief of staff of the

Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Wearing his uniform, he read a prepared, well-

considered text that triggered an uproar which has not

yet died down.

 

Dozens of articles have been published in its wake,

some condemning him, some lauding him. It seems that

nobody could stay indifferent.

Traces of Nazism

 

The main sentence was his:

    If there is something that frightens me about the

memories of the Holocaust, it is the knowledge of the

awful processes which happened in Europe in general,

and in Germany in particular, 70, 80, 90 years ago,

and finding traces of them here in our midst, today,

in 2016.

 

All hell broke loose. What! Traces of Nazism in

Israel? A resemblance between what the Nazis did to us

with what we are doing to the Palestinians?

 

Ninety years ago was 1926, one of the last years of

the German republic. Eighty years ago was 1936, three

years after the Nazis came to power. Seventy years ago

was 1946, on the morrow of Hitler’s suicide and the

end of the Nazi Reich.

 

I feel compelled to write about the general’s speech

after all, because I was there.

 

As a child I was an eyewitness to the last years of

the Weimar Republic (so called because its

constitution was shaped in Weimar, the town of Goethe

and Schiller). As a politically alert boy I witnessed

the Nazi Machtergreifung (“taking power”) and the

first half a year of Nazi rule.

 

I know what Golan was speaking about. Though we belong

to two different generations, we share the same

background. Both our families come from small towns in

Western Germany. His father and I must have had a lot

in common.

 

There is a strict moral commandment in Israel: nothing

can be compared to the holocaust. The holocaust is

unique. It happened to us, the Jews, because we are

unique. (Religious Jews would add: “Because God has

chosen us.”)

 

I have broken this commandment. Just before Golan was

born, I published (in Hebrew) a book called The

Swastika, in which I recounted my childhood memories

and tried to draw conclusions from them. It was on the

eve of the Eichmann trial, and I was shocked by the

lack of knowledge about the Nazi era among young

Israelis then.

 

My book did not deal with the holocaust, which took

place when I was already living in Palestine, but with

a question which troubled me throughout the years, and

even today: how could it happen that Germany, perhaps

the most cultured nation on earth at the time, the

homeland of Goethe, Beethoven and Kant, could

democratically elect a raving psychopath like Adolf

Hitler as its leader?

 

The last chapter of the book was entitled “It Can

Happen Here!” The title was drawn from a book by the

American novelist Sinclair Lewis, called ironically

“It Can’t Happen Here”, in which he described a Nazi

take-over of the United States.

 

In this chapter I discussed the possibility of a

Jewish Nazi-like party coming to power in Israel. My

conclusion was that a Nazi party can come to power in

any country on earth, if the conditions are right.

Yes, in Israel, too.

 

The book was largely ignored by the Israeli public,

which at the time was overwhelmed by the storm of

emotions evoked by the terrible disclosures of the

Eichmann trial.

The truthful general

 

Now comes General Golan, an esteemed professional

soldier, and says the same thing.

 

And not as an improvised remark, but on an official

occasion, wearing his general’s uniform, reading from

a prepared, well-thought-out text.

 

The storm broke out, and has not passed yet.

 

Israelis have a self-protective habit: when confronted

with inconvenient truths, they evade its essence and

deal with a secondary, unimportant aspect. Of all the

dozens and dozens of reactions in the written press,

on TV and on political platforms, almost none

confronted the general’s painful contention.

 

… Golan has sacrificed his further advancement in

order to utter his warning and giving it the widest

possible resonance.

 

No, the furious debate that broke out concerns the

questions: Is a senior army officer allowed to voice

an opinion about matters that concern the civilian

establishment? And do so in army uniform? On an

official occasion?

 

Should an army officer keep quiet about his political

convictions? Or voice them only in closed sessions –

“in relevant forums”, as a furious Binyamin Netanyahu

phrased it?

 

General Golan enjoys a very high degree of respect in

the army. As deputy chief of staff he was until now

almost certainly a candidate for chief of staff, when

the incumbent leaves the office after the customary

four years.

 

The fulfilment of this dream shared by every General

Staff officer is now very remote. In practice, Golan

has sacrificed his further advancement in order to

utter his warning and giving it the widest possible

resonance.

 

One can only respect such courage. I have never met

General Golan, I believe, and I don’t know his

political views. But I admire his act.

 

(Somehow I recall an article published by the British

magazine Punch before World War I, when a group of

junior army officers issued a statement opposing the

government’s policy in Ireland. The magazine said that

while it disapproves of the opinion expressed by the

mutinous officers, it took pride in the fact that such

youthful officers were ready to sacrifice their

careers for their convictions.)

 

The Nazi march to power started in 1929, when a

terrible worldwide economic crisis hit Germany. A

tiny, ridiculous far-right party suddenly became a

political force to be reckoned with. From there it

took them four years to become the largest party in

the country and to take over power (though it still

needed a coalition).

 

I was there when it happened, a boy in a family in

which politics became the main topic at the dinner

table. I saw how the republic broke down, gradually,

slowly, step by step. I saw our family friends

hoisting the swastika flag. I saw my high-school

teacher raising his arm when entering the class and

saying “Heil Hitler” for the first time (and then

reassuring me in private that nothing had changed.)

 

I was the only Jew in the entire high school. When the

hundreds of boys – all taller than me – raised their

arms to sing the Nazi anthem, and I did not, they

threatened to break my bones if it happened again. A

few days later we left Germany for good.
Corrosive victories

 

General Golan was accused of comparing Israel to Nazi

Germany. Nothing of the sort. A careful reading of his

text shows that he compared developments in Israel to

the events that led to the disintegration of the

Weimar Republic. And that is a valid comparison.

 

Things happening in Israel, especially since the last

election, bear a frightening similarity to those

events. True, the process is quite different. German

fascism arose from the humiliation of surrender in

World War I, the occupation of the Ruhr by France and

Belgium from 1923 to 1925, the terrible economic

crisis of 1929, the misery of millions of unemployed.

Israel is victorious in its frequent military actions,

we live comfortable lives. The dangers threatening us

are of a quite different nature. They stem from our

victories, not from our defeats.

 

Indeed, the differences between Israel today and

Germany then are far greater than the similarities.

But those similarities do exist, and the general was

right to point them out.

Racism and discrimination

The discrimination against the Palestinians in

practically all spheres of life can be compared to the

treatment of the Jews in the first phase of Nazi

Germany. (The oppression of the Palestinians in the

occupied territories resembles more the treatment of

the Czechs in the “protectorate” after the Munich

betrayal.)

 

The political riffraff peopling the present Netanyahu

government could easily have found their place in the

first Nazi government.

 

The rain of racist bills in the Knesset, those already

adopted and those in the works, strongly resembles the

laws adopted by the Reichstag in the early days of the

Nazi regime. Some rabbis call for a boycott of Arab

shops. Like then. The call “Death to the Arabs” (Judah

verrecke?) is regularly heard at soccer matches. A

member of parliament has called for the separation

between Jewish and Arab newborns in hospital. A chief

rabbi has declared that goyim (non-Jews) were created

by God to serve the Jews. Our ministers of education

and culture are busy subduing the schools, theatre and

arts to the extreme rightist line, something known in

German as Gleichschaltung. The Supreme Court, the

pride of Israel, is being relentlessly attacked by the

minister of justice. The Gaza Strip is a huge ghetto.

 

Of course, no one in their right mind would even

remotely compare Netanyahu to the Fuehrer, but there

are political parties here which do emit a strong

fascist smell. The political riffraff peopling the

present Netanyahu government could easily have found

their place in the first Nazi government.

 

One of the main slogans of our present government is

to replace the “old elite”, considered too liberal,

with a new one. One of the main Nazi slogans was to

replace das System.

 

By the way, when the Nazis came to power, almost all

senior officers of the German army were staunch anti-

Nazis. They were even considering a putsch against

Hitler . Their political leader was summarily executed

a year later, when Hitler liquidated his opponents in

his own party. We are told that General Golan is now

protected by a personal bodyguard, something that has

never happened to a general in the annals of Israel.

 

The general did not mention the occupation and the

settlements, which are under army rule. But he did

mention the episode which occurred shortly before he

gave this speech, and which is still shaking Israel

now: in occupied Hebron, under army rule, a soldier

saw a seriously wounded Palestinian lying helplessly

on the ground, approached him and killed him with a

shot to the head. The victim had tried to attack some

soldiers with a knife, but did not constitute a threat

to anyone any more. This was a clear contravention of

army standing orders, and the soldier has been hauled

before a court martial.

 

A cry went up around the country: the soldier is a

hero! He should be decorated! Netanyahu called his

father to assure him of his support. Avigdor Lieberman

entered the crowded courtroom in order to express his

solidarity with the soldier. A few days later

Netanyahu appointed Lieberman as minister of defence,

the second most important office in Israel.

 

Before that, General Golan received robust support

both from the minister of defense, Moshe Ya’alon, and

the chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot. Probably this was

the immediate reason for the kicking out of Ya’alon

and the appointment of Lieberman in his place. It

resembled a putsch.

 

It seems that Golan is not only a courageous officer,

but a prophet, too. The inclusion of Lieberman’s party

in the government coalition confirms Golan’s blackest

fears. This is another fatal blow to the Israeli

democracy.

 

Am I condemned to witness the same process for the

second time in my life?

http://www.redressonline.com/2016/05/creeping-nazism-in-israel/

VIVA ISRAELI FREEDOM...

 

[Jordan]

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