Political Zionism from the time of Theodor Herzl, down on, has always sought to create alliances with reactionaries and anti-Semites. What was behind all of these attempts by Herzl and other Zionists at forging alliance with anti-Semites was their acceptance of certain shared assumptions. For both Zionists and anti-Semites, the Jews constituted a separate nation. Attempts to resolve the so-called Jewish question through emancipation and assimilation were doomed to failure since Jews and Gentiles had antagonistic interests, making it forever impossible for Jews and Gentiles to live together amicably as equals. Jews could never hope to be accepted as “real” Frenchmen, Britons or Germans. Herzl and other Zionists attempted to appeal to anti-Semites on the basis of these shared assumptions, and by offering anti-Semites the prospect of a Europe that would be free of Jews.
And this attempt by Zionists at forging alliances with anti-Semites did not end with Herzl but continued on for decades, indeed to the present day. Thus, when the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, many Zionists professed satisfaction with this development. Thus, the conservative historian Norman Cantor, in discussing the attitudes of Revisionist Zionists in his book The American Century ( https://www.amazon.com/American-Century-Varieties-Culture-Modern/dp/006017451X ) noted that: > > > > “The right-wing Zionists of the interwar era went so far from ghetto and > shtetl culture as to develop an affinity for fascism. This group was led > by the Polish intellectual Ze’ev Jabotinsky and became well known as the > Revisionists. Menachem Begin came out of the Revisionist movement in > Poland. He was a leader of the paramilitary Revisionist auxiliary, Betar, > modeled consciously on the German storm troopers and Mussolini’s > Blackshirts. (Revisionists are now called the Herut Party, the main > component of the Likud coalition).” > > > > “Jabotinsky and Begin welcomed the Nazis, who, they thought, would drive > the Jews out of Europe to Palestine. They also admired the Nazi’s militant > and terrorist tactics. The future belonged, they concluded, to fascist > parties and terrorist groups, and they formed their own. This was useful > during the worst days of British rule, in 1943–47. The Irgun Zvi Leumi > (Begin) and Stern Gang (Yitzhak Shamir), underground terrorist > organizations, grew out of the Revisionist movement and its Betar military > organization.” > > Back in Germany, many of the more “enlightened” Nazis were willing to take a benign view of Zionism, and were willing to cut deals with Zionist organizations. For many years many of the top Nazis were willing to entertain the notion that the creation of a Jewish state, possibly in Palestine, possibly elsewhere (i.e. Madagascar), offered a viable solution to the “Jewish problem.” And during WW II, Shamir’s group — the so-called “Stern Gang” attempted to negotiate an alliance with Nazi Germany, with the hope that they could receive German support in their effort at driving the British out of Palestine. And even today we see attempts by some Zionist organizations at creating alliances with anti-Semites. Hence, the efforts of many mainstream Zionist organizations at cultivating support from the Christian right in the US and the efforts by the Israeli government under Netanyahu to cultivate friendly relations with far-right governments in countries like Hungary as well as with many other far-right political parties throughout Europe, many of which are openly anti-Semitic. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#32884): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/32884 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109001592/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
