The dialectics of nationalism
Earlier I wrote about why so many many zionist Jews consider any support for Palestinian rights as a call for genocide against all Jews around the world. They have fully conflated the existence of a Jewish State with the survival of the Jewish People worldwide. The two are one and the same to them — it is a fundamental part of Jewish nationalist mythology.
To those in the grips of this kind of nationalistic thinking, Israel’s right to massacre without limit in Gaza is righteous and moral because Jews are fighting for Jewish survival. To them it is no different than Jews fighting the Nazis.
I keep seeing Israelis and nationalist Jews posting on this topic — about how anyone who criticizes Israel and supports Palestinians is a Nazi, an antisemite, a terrorist backer.1 At the same time, I keep reading about the constant ethnic cleansing chatter coming from the highest levels of Israel’s government — talk that’s been backed by one of the most brutal bombing campaigns in modern warfare and amounts to them announcing loudly to the whole world that Israel has genocidal intent towards the Palestinians in Gaza.2 Then there’s the constant evidence of very personal brutality and torture being committed by Israeli security forces — including the latest report about Gazan civilians rounded up in groups then beaten, burned with lighters, subjected to electric shock, kept in stress positions...3
This dual track of high moralism and massacres made me think of something.
I really do hope that in the future kids in school will learn about the Holocaust and German nationalism together with Jewish nationalism and zionism and Israel's ethnic cleansing campaigns. The two are the ultimate dialectical event, bound together for all time. It’s depressing. But it is what it is. You can’t ignore it.
—Yasha
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