Israel and Netanyahu Are Trying To Make Racism Respectable

Netanyahu's speech was not shocking in it's content, as many of us have heard the same Zionist propaganda a hundred times. The shocking aspect was the 29 standing ovations with which a packed Congress responded to the speech. What is happening to American democracy, without which the World would have sunk into dictatorship and tyranny long ago?

Supporters of Israeli government policies (just like any other country we must be careful to distinguish between these people (many of them non Israelis) and Israelis in general) often state that the reason Israel receives so much criticism is antisemitism, and they then correctly state that there are other countries with worst human rights records. People who have been involved in the struggle against racism for a long time, will recall that the South African supporters of Apartheid used a very similar argument.

The developed world is supposed to be involved in a process called "progress", in which technology and society improve together. Israel like the white minority in South Africa pride themselves on following Western values, and so they must expect justified and vigorous criticism for abandoning the social aspect of progress by embracing racism.

A secondary and still important argument, is that logically, someone cannot justify their evil by comparing it to a greater unconnected evil.

As the famous Israeli author and peace activist Amos Oz pointed out sometime ago, it is hypocritical to excuse Palestinians their violent response to ethnic cleansing by Israelis, while not excusing Zionists the violence they used to establish their state after centuries of European Antisemitism culminating in the Holocaust.

Israel is now firmly established, with a military capability that overshadows any other in the Middle East (fifth largest army in the World, 400 nuclear war heads, third largest arms exporter). As Amos Oz points out in this collection of essays "The Slopes of Lebanon" (1987) when he parodies and summarizes right wing Zionist propaganda as follows:

" Our sufferings have granted us immunity papers, as it were . . . After what all those dirty goyim [non Jews] have done to us, none of them is entitled to preach morality to us. We, on the other hand, have carte blanche, because we were victims and have suffered so much. Once a victim, always a victim, and victimhood entitles its owners to a moral exemption."

Now there is a new racism emerging in Europe and the USA called "Islamophobia", which uses many of the arguments of the old antisemitism. Far right groups throughput Europe and the USA regularly appear at demonstrations with Israeli flags, because Israel has become the most acceptable face of racism. Far right well funded Zionist groups are even providing practical support to these groups. Then there is the growing popularity of so called Christian Zionism, with it's associated anti Muslim misinformation.

It is blackly ironic that Zionism is now giving support to the possibility of a new Holocaust. Clearly they can only be held responsible for a small slice of the responsibility, but still this must be exposed. Now should be the time to realize the deep madness of all this and change direction.

Already American politics through the Tea Party movement is moving towards racially segregated politics, while the far right throughout Europe have been having significant success at the polls. Given the deep enduring economic problems of America and Europe, the possibility of the far right gaining even more ground is high.

This could then be followed by the same system employed in Israel, in which only some of the people under the government's control are officially considered citizens. If the non-citizens resist, then they must have more of their rights stolen to encourage them to negotiate. If they do not accept the empty terms dictated to them, they are unreasonable. On the other hand is they do not resist then they will be quietly ignored and squeezed year by year. Could this happen in a civilized country? How could this be justified by a nominally democratic government with a free media? Look at Israel for all the answers.

So when the Congress of the USA gives 29 standing ovations to the right wing Likud Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, you know that now is the time to worry.