Open Letter to the Conscience of Humanity

by Roger Tucker Editor and Publisher, One Democratic State
 
It is only right and fitting that a proper response be made to the OpEd written by Moshe Feiglin, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, and head of the Manhigut Yehudit ("Jewish Leadership") faction of Israel’s governing Likud party, entitled My Outline for a Solution in Gaza http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845.html and published in Arutz Sheva on July 15th, 2014.

1. An international commission should be established to bring Israel and its supporters to account for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, dating back to the first terrorist attacks on Palestinian and British targets in Palestine by the Irgun and other Jewish terrorist organizations starting in 1937. This near century long crime can properly be termed a holocaust, as its ruthlessness, intensity, longevity and destruction of lives and property is on a par with, or exceeds, the crimes of those prosecuted by the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials.

2. The first task of this commission would be to identify the most culpable of the Zionist criminals still living, not to exceed one thousand people. Millions are guilty but bringing those most responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Iranians, the Egyptians, the Syrians et al and the many millions of other direct and indirect victims of the Zionist project, would best serve the cause of justice.

3. Those people so identified should be drawn from the various sectors of society that have been primarily responsible for the heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed over these years, regardless of their countries of residence, particularly among the politicians, the military, the media, the financiers, the public intellectuals, academics, the religious leaders and the leaders of Zionist organizations. Those found guilty would be sentenced to a minimum of life in solitary confinement without parole.

4. In addition to those specifically indicted, all of those people who have actively provided material, organizational or public support for this genocide should be rounded up and interned in camps designated for this purpose. Given the very large numbers of such people, the so-called FEMA camps in the United States would be suitable for this purpose. An alternative site could be constructed in the Siberian Oblast set aside by the Soviet Union for the Jewish people. An appeals process would be instituted to ensure that only the clearly culpable would remain in these camps. Those adjudged guilty would be consigned to hard labor and re-education designed to eventually make them suitable for re-entry into human society, if that is at all possible.

5. Given the impotence of the United Nations, due to the veto power and influence of those countries that have historically aided and abetted the aforesaid crimes, such a commission could not be instituted through its auspices. The UN must first either be reformed to make it a truly representational international body, or it must be replaced by a new organization that represents the highest norms and values of humanity, rather than merely an instrument of control by the victors of the last world war. The International Criminal Court would be the ideal venue, if the jurisdictional problems (the US and Israel are not signatories) and the political will can be mustered.

6. The greatest obstacle to the realization of such a process is the current tribal Jewish hegemony over the Western democracies and their allies in the Arab world. But there is nothing absolute about this power. Many Jews, not to mention others, are beginning to understand the fate that will inevitably befall them if they don't join the struggle against Zionism and its lackeys. The historical pattern is perfectly clear.

6. Finally, it goes without saying that Palestine would be returned to its rightful owners.

Roger Tucker
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Note: please make sure to also check the interview I did with Roger in 2008. 

Ali Abunimah and Gilad Atzmon at the OK Corral

by Roger Tucker for One Democratic State

The recent open letter Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon, apparently written by Ali Abunimah, has come as a shock to many people, including yours truly. Not only have the Zionists colonized Palestine and subjected them to a permanent campaign of genocide, but as anyone who has been paying attention knows, they have colonized the Western democracies, turning them into obedient puppets. Now it appears that they have also colonized the Palestine Solidarity movement.

At the end of this essay are links to a number of responses supporting Atzmon and what he stands for. These cover the ground pretty well, but I’d like to add a critical look at the language used by Abunimah et al and some of the notions underlying such terminology. I’ll start with the title itself, which begins with the curious phrase “Granting No Quarter.” The phrase is familiar to anyone who has read books or seen films based on British naval warfare set in the 18th or early 19th centuries. - this is as extreme as it gets. This from a group of mostly Palestinian supporters of the Palestinian struggle against Israel in opposition to another such supporter. That is sufficiently mind-boggling in itself, but Ali Abunimah, and I would assume at least some of his fellow signatories, are also supporters of One Democratic State as the solution to the basic conflict in the Middle East, as is Atzmon. Some fundamental and portentous difference, beyond a mere dispute about strategy or tactics, must be responsible for such a total and uncompromising attack on a seemingly close ally. It allows for no debate, no compromise – no quarter offered or accepted.

Some observers have implied that Ali & Co. have actually gone over to the enemy, or may have been Zionist agents from day one, and that the Jewish members of these Solidarity groups are acting as their handlers. For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that is not so, that they are perfectly sincere in considering themselves loyal to the Palestinian cause as they conceive it. Looking at the signatories of the Letter we find some successful academics, Abunimah and Massad being the most prominent. They have prospered as unofficially sanctioned spokesmen for the Palestinian cause in the US and have no incentive to rock the boat. If they presented any perceived danger to tribal Jewry, they would likely find themselves on the street, as has happened to a number of academics, many of them Jewish, who have dared to challenge the predominant Jewish narrative. This points to a simple motivation based on economic and professional self-interest, but I believe there’s more to it than that.

Racism

“Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by heritable phenotypic characteristics, geographic ancestry, physical appearance, and ethnicity.” So begins the Wikipedia page on the subject. Race is a broad brush that covers just about any typology that attempts to divide humanity into distinct groups according to such criteria. All such attempts have very fuzzy edges. “Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature (i.e., which harms particular groups of people).” The accusation of racism has typically been a characteristic of leftist critiques of systems that practice discrimination against members of relatively powerless minorities. The accusation of racism against Zionist Jews is a curious exception. This particular group is far from being powerless. More to the point, there has been an obvious racist component within Jewish culture from the very beginning. Just take a look at the Old Testament, let alone the blatant contempt for the “goyim” (non-Jews) found in the Talmud. The dehumanization of “the Other” is a very old and characteristically Jewish pattern. For tribal Jews and their allies, the “shabbas goyim,” to bandy about the term “racism” is hypocrisy of the highest order. (“The term shabbos goy refers to a non-Jew who performs duties that Jewish law forbids a Jew from performing on the Sabbath.” – wikipedia) What I am getting at is that Ali Abunimah et al are arguably shabbas goyim, non-Jewish elements of the currently dominant political force in the Western world that James Petras refers to as the Zionist Power Configuration (JPC).

Antisemitism

This term is the most powerful weapon in the tribal Jewish verbal armory. To be labeled antisemitic is akin to having been labeled a heretic by the Holy Roman Inquisition. It might not invite torture and burning at the stake, but they will set about ruining your life. It is purportedly a special case of racism, whereby the Jewish people are cast as the eternal victims of racial prejudice. I defer to a Jewish thinker on this subject:

“If this hostility, even aversion, had only been shown towards the Jews at one period and in one country, it would be easy to unravel the limited causes of this anger, but this race has been on the contrary an object of hatred to all the peoples among whom it has established itself. It must be therefore, since the enemies of the Jews belonged to the most diverse races, since they lived in countries very distant from each other, since they were ruled by very different laws, governed by opposite principles, since they had neither the same morals, nor the same customs, since they were animated by unlike dispositions which did not permit them to judge of anything in the same way, it must be therefore that the general cause of anti-Semitism has always resided in Israel itself and not in those who have fought against Israel.” ~ Statement regarding the expulsions of Jews, by noted Jewish author Bernard Lazare in “L’antisémitisme, son histoire et ses causes,”published in 1894.

As a number of people have pointed out, there is another problem with the use of the word antisemitism. “Semite” is a linguistic term denoting peoples who speak semitic languages. Israelis are not semites in spite of the fact that they speak Hebrew ((it’s an adopted language of far too recent a vintage). The Zionists who created Israel and still run it are descended from the Khazars, linguistically a “Turko-finnic” people. The vast majority of semites speak Arabic as their native language, making tribal Jewry, particularly the Israelis, the only people in the world who are truly “antisemitic” - and they are virulently antisemitic.

Colonialism

Abunimah invokes this term, specifically “settler-colonialism,” as characterizing the nature of the Zionist invasion of Palestine. They claim that Atzmon rejects this characterization. Actually, all he does is point out that settler-colonialism has traditionally referred to efforts of European powers to install a permanent presence of their nationals in countries they wish to control. In all such cases, except Israel, there is a mother country that the settlers can rely on to finance and support their efforts. This is different from the case of the Jewish State, in which that role has been played by world Jewry in the diaspora. It’s a non-issue, really, except that once again Abunimah is misusing language to make his argument.

Culture

Race, as we mentioned above, is a clumsy, inaccurate and misleading way of looking at the distinguishing characteristics of people that we attempt to lump together in identifiable groups. There’s a much better way of separating out what Atzmon calls “collectives.” This is by looking at characteristic ways of thinking, speaking and behaving, which together pretty much determine who we are. These distinctions are cultural. And this is where the already shaky limb that Ali is clinging to breaks and he tumbles into complete nonsense. Ali doesn’t mention culture in his letter, but take a look at this, Ali Abunimah attacking Gilad Atzmon at the Stuttgart One State conference (Dec 2010. “Jewish Culture.. doesn’t explain anything at all.” This remark is not only absurd - it would be like saying that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War, or that the playing of the pipes has nothing to do with their Celtic origin, or that the French drink wine merely as a matter of personal choice, etc. , etc. (one could make a parlor game out of this) – he is so intent on demonizing Atzmon that he abandons any shred of intellectual integrity. Perhaps he secretly believes in “Intelligent Design?”

The notion of race is based on genetic differences, which determine our physical being. Genetic evolution in the human race more or less ceased some 5,000 years ago. Culture, on the other hand, is memetic. Memes are patterns that we inherit from our environment, starting when we are children with our families and continuing as we get older to to the notions, norms and attitudes prevalent in our societies. Culture is far and away the most significant causal factor in how we manifest in the world. What makes memetic (cultural) evolution possible and far more rapid than through genetic mutations is that we have the ability to change our minds based on new information, or seeing things in a new way. To do so requires curiosity, an open mind and considerable humbleness. This is what the word "freedom" means in its fullest sense. Many people become rigid and inflexible in their views, including far too many academics. As Eric Hoffer, the great longshoreman philosopher put it in his book 'The True Believer,' "In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. "

Identity politics

This term, frequently used by Atzmon, is the crux of the matter. If you will indulge me, click on Us vs. Them: On the Meaning of Fascism. It is about identity politics and how this phenomenon tends to evolve into fascism. Atzmon is absolutely correct in making it central to his investigation. He stresses that it is intellectually dishonest to attempt to discuss Zionism and Israel without reference to “Jewishness.” Zionism was a specifically Jewish endeavor to create a Jewish state. What could be more obvious? If you leave out the “Jewish” part there isn’t much left, is there? The point is too obvious to belabor, but Abunimah attempts to do just that. Atzmon, in the grand tradition of intellectual inquiry, has committed himself to trying to understand the whole complex picture, which centers around the question of what “Jewish” and “Jewishness” mean. Abunimah cries foul and invokes the taboo that has been the mainstay of Zionist propaganda from day one. You can’t talk about “Jews.” You can’t talk about “Jewishness.” Otherwise you are “racist,” “antisemitic.” A circular, absurd argument. I guess it might upset somebody, most likely “The Wandering Guess Who.” (There is a very intriguing piece from an unlikely source, a recent issue of the New York Times. The author has some very intiguing things to say about tribal identities. Click on Forget the Money, Follow the Sacredness.)

I am Jewish, Atzmon is Jewish (whether he likes it or not – sorry, Gilad, but it’s a friendly dig), and so are many of his supporters. I don’t want anyone telling me that I can’t look at what that means. It is one of my fondest hopes that a great many Jews honestly consider the question “who am I?”. As long as the answer is “I’m a Jew, first and foremost” we are in for a lot more trouble. If the answer is “I’m first of all a human being and the rest is secondary” then there will be grounds for optimism. If enough Jews have the courage to look in the mirror and ask this fundamental question, we could easily solve the most pressing problem facing the world today, because, like it or not, tribal Jewry currently holds all the cards. Without at least the tacit support of most Jews they wouldn’t be able to play their game any longer.

Political Correctness

We are now going to address what I believe to be the primary motivations behind Abunimah’s extraordinary attack on Atzmon. A number of political fashions arose out of postmodernism, such as multi-culturalism, radical feminism and gay and lesbian activism, for example. In all cases, these fashions endorse various flavors of identity politics, These particular ideas were actually pioneered within the 60’s counter-culture, but the postmodernist academics turned them upside down. Instead of being inspired by a sense of our common humanity, we were inundated by all sorts of identity politics, all with narratives that, under the new dispensation, couldn’t be challenged without confronting the enforcement arm of the new orthodoxy – political correctness. All of this grew out of the Marxist culture that had previously been the fashion on the Left, but needed a new intellectual basis after the reaction to the horrors of Stalinism and Maoism, and eventually the fall of the Soviet Union. Ergo, postmodernism and its progeny provided continuity and a new lease on life.

In keeping with the tradition of Marxism-Leninism, the neo-Marxists needed to instill monolithic party discipline. After all, there can be only one vanguard of the proletariat. The new ideology of identity politics developed the strategy of political correctness to enforce its monopoly over discourse. This is not confined to the groves of Academe – the ADL and similar Zionist institutions actively enforce the orthodoxy. And, just as an aside, Jews continued to make up a large proportion of both the party leadership and the party faithful, just as Bolshevism was largely a Jewish project. Although the thought police concern themselves with decrying any perceived denigration of a number of tribal groups, by other academics particularly, there is no question that the one and only Sacred Cow is the Jewish Tribe. Casting aspersions on black people, gays or women, for example, will get you a serious dressing down, but any reference to Jews or Jewishness that isn’t flattering might well cost you your livelihood, or worse.

To sum up, the attacks on Gilad Atzmon and Ken O’Keefe reveal an organized attempt to silence independent voices within the Palestinian support community. Many moons ago I was in the US Army. As it was peacetime, the only enemy in sight was the Army itself. We fought to a draw. There are many of us who don't like to take orders, least of all from from the PC thought police. This an attempted political coup, actually, much like the successful efforts of the Bolsheviks (which means “majority,” although they were a small minority – quite Orwellian, actually) against the Mensheviks. But it isn’t going to work, because Atzmon and O’Keefe aren’t interested in power or being part of an organized movement. They are truly independent people taking a personal stand against a great evil, and they take their stand on behalf of all of suffering mankind, not just the Palestinians. Their efforts are prompted by the plight of the Palestinians, but like Gandhi, ML King and Mandela, they serve an even higher purpose, that of justice, wisdom, compassion and peace.

I would leave it there, but I want to make an appeal to Ali Abunimah et al to reconsider their views on this matter. When I got involved in One State advocacy more than ten years ago, I realized that we needed to operate under a big tent. After all, we are a small, relatively powerless group of people, up against the most powerful and ruthless fascist endeavor in history. At the very least, we need to accommodate one another even if some people have some views that rub us the wrong way. So I would like to invite Ali Abunimah, Joseph Massad, my friend Haidar Eid and all the others to check their guns at the door and rejoin the rest of us involved in the greatest struggle of our time.

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Supporters of Atzmon have written a flurry of responses to Abunimah’s letter. Here are links to some of them:

Permission to examine "Jewishness," by Rich Siegel | deLiberation

Atzmon-Palestinian Infighting Reveals Underbelly of Gutless Duplicity, by Gordon Duff | Veterans Today

I'm So Glad We've Got Gilad, by Francis Clark-Lowe | deLiberation

Why Hate Gilad Atzmon: “He’s WRONG!” (Or Is He?), by Kevin Barrett | Veterans Today

Ali Abunimah and his Solidarity Career, by Paul Eisen | deLiberation

Ali Abunimah attacking Gilad Atzmon at the Stuttgart One State conference (Dec 2010)

Disavow with no mercy? Not in my name!, by Nahida the Exiled Palestinian, by Nahida | The Exiled Palestinian

Faint Heartedness, Political Correctness, and Peculiar Timing: The Attacks on Gilad Atzmon, by Richard Edmondson | Left-wing Christian

Abunimah Boycotting and Censoring Gilad Atzmon? by Debbie Menon | My Catbird Seat

More on the Atzmon Controversy, by Noel Ignatiev | PMP

Engaging Gilad Atzmon: Interview by Prof. Norton Mezvinsky | YouTube

Ali Baghdadi's (Arab Journal, Chicago) responds to Abunimah & Co | Uprooted Palestinians

A Call for the Disavowal of Splittism, by Kim Petersen | Dissident Voice

Don't Shun Gilad Atzmon, by Michael Rabb | CU-Divest

“Disavowal” of Gilad Atzmon? The Truth be damned! by William A. Cook | Veterans Today

Cynthia McKinney Interviews Gilad Atzmon about Israel, Zionism, and Jewish Identity Politics | YouTube

The unfortunate division over Gilad Atzmon | AlisonWeir

Needless to say, Atzmon and O’Keefe have had something to say about it as well:

A Response to Ali Abunimah & Co., by Gilad Atzmon

Gilad wrote to his list: “It seems as if in spite of a very well orchestrated Jewish campaign, truth and justice prevailed, a lot thanks to you out there. There is a simple basic fact my detractors fail to grasp. I am not a politician, I do not seek power. I am an artist, I search for beauty and justice. And as it happens both are out there available for us.”

It appears that the same people who are trying to excommunicate Atzmon are also after Ken O'Keefe, which is really disgusting. There aren't that many real heroes in this world, but O'Keefe is certainly one of them.

Thought Police within the so-called ‘Palestine Solidarity Movement’, by Ken O'Keefe

Ken O'Keefe Lecture at Middlesex University: Israeli Apartheid Week - February 23, 2012

The One State Solution sounds like a good idea, but...

Solving the problem of Israel/Palestine isn’t rocket science: the solution is obvious.

We just have to get serious about it.

A brief history

Due to recent events, things are coming to a head in the Middle East. As Israel becomes more belligerent and aggressive, more committed than ever to using overwhelming force as its only answer to a rapidly deteriorating situation, feeling itself even further victimized and becoming ever more paranoid, two issues come to the fore: the question of legitimacy and the question of long-term viability. More and more people, even within Israel itself, are becoming aware that what we are looking at is a severe societal case of paranoid schizophrenia, a split personality featuring the Jewish Uebermensch and the poor innocent yiddische victim, in light of which the search for a solution becomes even more pressing.

It is becoming clear even to very slow learners that a European settler-colonialist society based on ethnocentric identity, established in the middle of the 20^th Century no less, in the midst of people with whom they have little or nothing in common, aggressively alienating their new neighbors through the establishment of an Apartheid state based on blatant racism, and carving out ever more territory for itself through ethnic cleansing and remorseless genocide, never really had much of a future.

The only reason that this bizarre "State" has lasted so long, six decades and counting, has been the financial, military and political support that Israel has been receiving from the West. This support, in turn, has been the result of intense pressure brought to bear by a relatively small number of wealthy and powerful Zionist Jews, the Israel Lobby, particularly in the English speaking democracies. This support seems to be on the verge of weakening, while the political elites are finally beginning to comprehend the insupportable costs to their countries, in lives, wealth, international support and moral standing, of succumbing to such blackmail.

Equally relentless have been a small but determined number of liberal Jews who have fought Zionism from day one, and whose numbers are now increasing exponentially. These people have come to realize not only the moral hypocrisy and irrationality of supporting liberal, humanitarian and universalist causes everywhere except Israel, but the age old danger to themselves of antagonizing their host populations and ultimately incurring their inevitable wrath.One would think that we Jews, supposedly so smart, would learn from history, not mindlessly repeat it.

So is there a way out of this increasingly intolerable and dangerous situation? Of course there is; it’s been there from the beginning, and in fact it was the mainstream Zionist policy for nearly eighty years prior to the rise of Nazi Germany. Various configurations were envisioned, but what it boiled down to was sharing the land with its existing inhabitants, the Palestinians, on the basis of justice and equality. These were the conditions, in fact, articulated in the United Nations resolution in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state, which, like all subsequent UN resolutions, Israel has treated with the utmost contempt.

That brings us up to 1948. A great deal has happened since then, but I must reduce it to a few sentences. The inexorable logic of political Zionism, driven by fear of the "demographic problem," requires the maintenance of a predominantly Jewish population - the traditional ratio being no less than 80:20. As the current Palestinian population within the ever shifting boundaries of “Israel” is about 20% and growing faster than the Jewish population, the politically convenient notion of the Jewish State being a "democracy" is threatened by the greater fertility of its (second-class, feared, hated and barely tolerated) non-Jewish citizens. In addition, since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza, areas previously in a political limbo, but now representing an "existential" threat within the borders of what the political Zionists have always claimed as "Greater Israel." (See The Zionist Plan for the Middle East) Even not counting the Palestinian diaspora, those within Israel together with the populations of the Occupied Territories would soon constitute a majority.

Although Israel forcibly evacuated its settlers from Gaza, hoping thereby to consign the inmates of what then became an open air concentration camp to oblivion or, they hoped, rule by the Egyptian dictatorship (who declined the offer), the residents, mostly refugees since the Nakba, refused to accept their fate. In response, the government has chosen to lay a medieval siege to the area, employing the ancient strategy of literally starving the besieged into submission.

This situation arose because the Israeli intelligence services, comparable in power and ruthlessness to the Soviet KGB, had instigated the creation of an Islamic fundamentalist party called Hamas to counter the previously dominant Fatah party of Yasir Arafat. When Hamas surprisingly won the elections sponsored by Israel and its patron, the U.S., and was able to consolidate its power in Gaza if not in the West Bank, Israel promptly instituted a siege of Gaza, hoping thereby to undermine Hamas. It wasn’t a very bright idea and has lead to barely imaginable terror and further suffering of people most of whom were already refugees from the Nakba.

There is a third segment of the Palestinian population, the Diaspora, the most numerous of the three groups, living in refugee camps in Lebanon, in Syria, as well as constituting nearly half the population of Jordan, and spread out across the globe, with many of them in the U.S. and the U.K. They have steadfastly refused to give up their right of return, a right that is not based on an ancient story, like the one that forms the core of the Jewish narrative, but is clearly historical, quite recent, and deeply enshrined in international law.

This is the real "existential threat" to Israel, not the seemingly endless and arbitrary series of enemy nations "out to get them," the latest target being Iran. The real existential threat to us, the rest of the world, is the Israeli proclivity to act on its paranoia regardless of consequences, to rely on its overwhelming military superiority (built from the largesse of U.S. taxpayers) to its perceived enemies.

Israel is a nuclear power (again, thanks to its fifth column within the U.S.) and there is no reason to believe that if they imagine themselves sufficiently threatened they won't use those nukes. The bottom line, the reason that the story herein described is so vital to understand, is the likelihood that Israel, if allowed to continue on its path unchecked, will inevitably provoke a nuclear war, a catastrophe that life on this planet might very well not survive.

The Solution
There are various proposals for resolving this state of affairs, but they really boil down to two: the one state solution vs. the two state solution. The latter has been endorsed by most of the world's elites, including significant minorities within the Israeli government and civil society; in the West, led by the U.S.; most of the Arab countries and the PLO since Yasir Arafat himself endorsed the idea. Well, that pretty much settles it, one might say, at least if you don't look too closely. The two state solution proposes that an independent Palestinian state be created in the West Bank and Gaza within the borders that existed prior to the 1967 war. Such a state would have territorial integrity, a protected land corridor between the two sections, the rights and privileges of any member of the United Nations, provide a home for all Palestinian refugees and have its capitol in East Jerusalem. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Actually no - it's pure fantasy. For one thing, it would mean defeat not only for the basic Zionist project of building Eretz Yisroel (Greater Israel), to which the Israeli government is more and more committed, but it runs directly counter to the dynamic that drives the Jewish state, as in all forms of ethnocentric or nationalist fascism. As Lebanon's Druze leader Walid Jumblatt succinctly put it on May 23rd, "Israel can't survive without expansion and war." Assuming for the sake of argument that we’re talking about a truly viable, sovereign Palestinian nation, consider Israel’s dread of a contiguous state populated by its recent victims – well, I needn’t belabor the point.

And just exactly how is the Israeli government going to pull off the forced evacuation of half a million of its citizens? They were faced with a violent struggle to remove the 8,000 Jewish settlers in Gaza. And those settlers have now become nearly dominant in the government and the military, so exactly who is going to do this? What the Israelis mean when they talk about the two state solution is the legitimization of the Matrix of Control that they have designed and mostly already constructed. It consists of about a dozen isolated bantustans, surrounded by barbed wire, checkpoints and guards. These "self-governing" labor camps would not only supply very cheap labor for the Israeli economy, but would have to support their entire infrastructure and administrative budget from such meager revenues through internal taxation. Collectively they would have the status of being a "Palestinian State." What a deal!

It would also erase the bottom line of the Palestinian struggle, which is the Right of Return to the land from which they were and are being expelled. Neither side, when push came to shove, could or would accept such an arrangement. Any Israeli government that seriously endorsed the idea would immediately fall, as would the collaborationist Palestine Authority in Ramallah if the prospect became imminent. An even more convincing reason, though, is that it could not even remotely be called a "solution" - quite the contrary. Such a configuration could theoretically be imposed by force by the U.S., acting in concert with its allies and the U.N., but it would be like placing a massive nuclear bomb between the river and the sea, just waiting for the spark that would give it critical mass.

There are clear and obvious reasons why the various elites are promoting the idea of the two state solution. For Israel, the "peace process" provides public relations cover for its ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. It should also be clear to people who understand the dynamics of the Jewish state that one thing can't be allowed to happen - a successful conclusion, peace. Peace is anathema. The primary reason for this is embedded in the nature of Zionism itself. One has to understand that fear, ancient and deep-seated paranoia, is at the heart of Zionism.

"For three years I have been imploring you, Jews of Poland, the crown of world Jewry, appealing to you, warning you unceasingly that the catastrophe is nigh. My hair has turned white and I have grown old over these years, for my heart is bleeding that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spew forth its fires of destruction. I see a horrible vision. Time is growing short for you to be spared. I know you cannot see it, for you are troubled and confused by everyday concerns... Listen to my words at this... for time is running short."

- Vladimir Jabotinsky to the Jews of Warsaw on Tisha b'Av 1938

Moreover, Zionism is a textbook example of ethnocentric fascism, almost identical to Nazism, merely having a different tribal identity. A salient characteristic of such ideologies, as Jumblatt pointed out, is that they have no brakes - if they stop picking fights with their neighbors, if they stop trying to expand further and further, they lose their cohesion, their raison d'etre, and die.

This is particularly true in the case of Israel for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is that the Jewish population of Israel is a hodgepodge of different peoples, a true melting pot of cultures that have little in common with one another except for the notion that they are "Jewish." But, as Sand has convincingly demonstrated, there is no such thing as “the Jewish people,” any more than there was such a thing as the “Aryan race.” It's just a story, the kind one would tell to children, which was then massaged into powerful propaganda. Without the glue of an external enemy and serial wars, Israel would implode. Its people, by and large, distrust and even detest one another. As long as their fear and hatred can be directed at the "other," the external enemy, then the house of cards can maintain itself.

Until recently, Israel resembled India, a caste system with the Brahmins (the Ashkenazim) on top and those from the third world at the bottom, with the Sephardim somewhere in between, and the Ethiopians and other exotic “Jews” being the Untouchables. However, several new wrinkles have emerged in recent years, particularly with the massive intake of Russian opportunists (many of whom are about as "Jewish" as Mao Tse-Tung), and more ominously, the rise of a virulently fascist religious element. And lastly, the Gush Emunim, the settler movement, a group of way over the top fanatics who largely overlap with the religious zealots. They are becoming increasingly powerful and are challenging the old Ashkenazi elite in both the political establishment and the military. These factors create an opportunity for reaching out to the small but still potent segment of Israeli society that retains some vestiges of sanity with the idea of one democratic state.

The motivation of the Vichy government in Ramallah is clear enough. This is the small Fatah elite that inherited the Palestine Authority from Yasir Arafat. It is widely recognized as corrupt and wholly self-interested. A Palestinian state would solidify its grip on power and the spoils that would go with it. In any case, they take their orders from Israel and the US.

One State, Three Variations on a Theme
The current situation is already a single state, consisting of Israel and the OPT. Israel has de facto control of the entire country, although Gaza is in a state of resistance, its people desperately trying to survive. Israel controls the all the borders, the transportation infrastructure, the electricity supply, the water supply and has an overwhelming monopoly on military force, in fact everything but the air that people breathe. But those pesky Palestinians refuse to give up and die, which must be extremely irritating to the leadership in Tel Aviv. The strategy is, and always has been, to rid the land of non-Jews, using whatever means are available, but limited by the constraint that Israel vitally needs the support of the West, at the very least American support. The possibility of losing this support - without which Israel would be in the same position as the apartheid state of So. Africa when they could no longer ignore the writing on the wall - is the only thing that has so far prevented the total expulsion or extermination of the Palestinians within the country.

This view, the goal of which is the establishment of Eretz Yisroel, is the Zionist version of a single state. There used to be a largish contingent who imagined that the borders of this state would be the Tigris/Euphrates to the east and the Nile to the west, but there is now a consensus that would be satisfied with the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

There are two other possible versions of a single state, at least in theory. The first is a mirror image of the Zionist one, as articulated by a few Palestinians and their more strident supporters. This vision entails, at least metaphorically, driving the Jews into the sea. For an eloquent and passionate expression of this vision, read 'A strategy of liberation requires emancipation', by Nahida Izzat, someone I admire and respect. It is, at bottom, a simple but unconditional demand for justice. In her view the only solution that would satisfy this condition would be to return the land to its rightful owners - end of story. She leaves up in the air the question of what would happen to the current Jewish population - that is not her concern. This view, which really entails returning to the status quo ante of more than 60 years ago is difficult to fault. However, it ain't gonna happen. As Thomas Wolfe put it, "you can't go home again." The fact is that most of the now resident Jewish Israelis were born there. However, as an initial negotiating demand, the version of a single state articulated by Nahida has more validity than the Zionist one, at the very least.

The government of Israel, The Palestinian Authority (PA), the Arab dictatorships and the US Empire and its vassal states are all primarily concerned with short term political and economic advantage rather than an actual solution to the problem. Not only that, but the Western democracies are hamstrung by the nearly absolute power wielded in those countries by the Israel Lobby, a situation that, in the U.S., reaches back at least as far as the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Those who have an actual stake in solving the conflict, and thereby achieving the universal goals of human rights, peace and justice, are ordinary Israelis, Jews everywhere, the Palestinians and the population of the West, not to mention the Umma, the Islamic world – actually, all of us.

All of which brings us to the third alternative, the only one that is not only actually possible in the long term, but is the only proposal that actually solves the problem - the replacement of the existing political configuration by a single democratic, pluralistic state. What is seldom mentioned in discussing this possibility is that it would be, to use a kitsch expression, a win-win for everybody, even the extremists on both sides. Let's see how it would affect the various protagonists, which actually includes all of us, since whether we like it or not we are all connected. I don't think it's necessary to go into any detail about the basic idea - it is simple, obvious and is already accepted by most of the world as the gold standard for modern nation-states.

Indeed, it is the entire world that is at risk. Considering the high probability of Israel setting off a nuclear war if it feels irremediably backed into a corner, it is in everyone's most fundamental interest to bring about a peaceful resolution, which can only be achieved through the establishment of one democratic state.

How Israelis would benefit
One of the most often heard objections to the One State Solution (OSS) is that the Israelis would never accept it. This argument is false on several counts. For one thing, never say never. The Nationalists of apartheid South Africa loudly proclaimed "over my dead body," as did the Protestant Unionists of Ulster. There are many examples. In the heat of battle, the enemy is always seen as barbaric, the embodiment of evil, people with whom one could never be reconciled. But what actually happens after an armed conflict has been concluded? The hated "Huns," the dreaded "Boches," become one's friends and allies. The "Yellow Peril," the "Japs" and so forth, not to mention the dreaded Russians, become one's principal trading partners and fellow upholders of the peace.

No matter how deeply embedded the Israeli dread of annihilation at the hands of their victims may seem, such attitudes, like all political attitudes, are only skin deep and as temporary as the fevers of love and hate. As Gideon Levy put it last year in one his pieces for Haaretz, "the only recognition that is needed now is Israel's recognition of the Palestinians as human beings. If this is obtained, all the rest will be relatively easy."

We should also recall that Zionism, prior to the ascendance of Jabotinskian fanaticism and terrorism in Palestine about 80 years ago, envisioned a cooperative, binational state. It was not that long ago. The ridiculous notion that "they've always hated and fought one another," another objection that one often hears, is just one of many facile inventions of Zionist propaganda. Barring relatively brief eruptions of tribal and religious strife, like the Crusades, the siblings of the Abrahamic tradition (outside of Europe at least) have gotten along rather swimmingly for the last 1,500 years, i.e., since the birth of Islam, which has traditionally respected and been hospitable to both Christians and Jews.

The Zionists wanted to have a place where Jews would be safe from their implacable enemies, a place where they could be just ordinary people, going about their business - a place where Jews would no longer be exposed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Unwilling or unable to recognize that the Western democracies already offered such a haven, they settled on Palestine as the location of the putative Jewish state (a number of other places were considered), they convinced themselves that they could unobtrusively insinuate themselves among the natives, who wouldn't really mind. After all, the Zionists were enlightened Europeans and the natives were benighted, albeit inoffensive, orientals. No doubt they would feel honored and grateful. Land would be purchased, deals would be made, and knowledge and wisdom would be transferred. Bear in mind that all this was promulgated at the height of European colonialism and the idea of the White Man’s Burden.

Well, what can one say? Good luck, sir, as my teacher put it. We Jews have a reputation for being "smart" people, but a dumber idea has never been formulated. It arose out of a sense of utter desperation and the delusion that Jews would be safe only if they had a State of their own, a sort of super ghetto. So we set about constructing the Golem, but in our usual Rube Goldberg fashion. Even so, the Golem was fed and cared for, and as predicted, it became a monster.

What is it that most Israelis actually want? Not surprisingly, we find that they want what people everywhere want, security and stability, peace, to be respected if not loved, to be free of constant fear and anxiety, to have the sense that their children will have the opportunity to live normal, productive and happy lives. All surveys have been consistent in this respect. None of these things are possible as long as the Israelis stick with political Zionism, and the Israelis, deep down, know this. They may be temporarily deluded, even collectively insane, driven by the howling winds of paranoia, arrogance and bloody minded defiance that always accompany full-blown fascism, but they aren't actually stupid, and the madness cannot last.

So let's consider what would likely happen if wiser heads prevailed and the Israelis were to agree to share the land, no matter how reluctantly, with the Palestinians in a genuine, rather than faux, democracy. Jerusalem would become the capitol. Jews, like anyone else, could live wherever they liked in the whole country. Given that they would initially be in the numerical majority, they could insist on whatever safeguards they thought necessary to protect their interests, a negotiating position that the Palestinians would have to give due consideration to. They would most likely have to accept the necessity of a truth and reconciliation commission, but that's a far cry better than the possible consequences of a solution imposed by a world no longer willing to tolerate a totally out of control rogue state - or the final war, the one that the Jews lose, quite possibly on terms of unconditional surrender, quite possibly after blowing up half the world. Fortunately for the Israelis, the Palestinians have proven themselves to be an extremely decent, tolerant and amazingly patient people. In general, they show remarkably little animosity towards Jewish people, and the remaining hotheads, on both sides, could be dealt with.

Realistically, the Jews, after eventually becoming a minority of the population, but a very substantial minority, would largely retain economic control, as well as dominance in many other ways. South Africa stands as just such an example of "the more things change, the more they remain the same." And a Jewish culture, with its multifarious institutions, customs and traditions would coexist with its Palestinian counterpart, enriching both but threatening neither.

It should be noted that among all the Islamic peoples the Palestinians are the most secular and the most highly educated. Together, the synergy of the two would almost certainly result in a dynamic society that would instantly become the flagship of the Middle East, in which Jews could play a respected and admired part instead of being universally reviled and hated. Sound too good to be true? Not really - it's a reasonable projection of what would likely happen if just a little sanity were to prevail.

How Palestinians would benefit

In a survey taken a couple of years ago 72% said they would accept a two state solution. Responding to a different question, 72% said they would accept a one state solution. In a word, the Palestinians would just like the nightmare to stop - they want a solution and they're not picky about what form it takes. However, as we have pointed out, a two state solution is anything but a solution - it would be a recipe for an even greater disaster. Not that the Israelis, while under the sway of political Zionist leadership, would ever actually consider a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. So it's not something that we even have to seriously consider, unless the US led West, in its predictably imperious, blundering, short-sighted manner, were to try to impose such a thing.

As for specifics, Jerusalem would be the capitol. The right of return of the Palestinian diaspora, enshrined in international law, would be acknowledged and the negotiating parties would have to work out the details. Needless to say, the obscene wall would come down. The West and the Arab countries would have to pony up a lot of money to deal with the costs of repatriation, compensation on both sides and reparations, but in the long run it would be far cheaper than any conceivable alternative. Again, the details would have to be worked out between the two parties directly concerned, in consultation with all other interested parties.

Presented with such a possibility I think we can say with some certainty that the vast majority of Palestinians would be in favor of such arrangements. After all, like the Israelis, they aren't stupid. So the other major objection one hears far too often - that the Palestinians have to decide among themselves what they want and then we will support that - can be dismissed as the nonsense it is. The Palestinians, with the boot firmly planted in their necks, are in no position to decide much of anything. And just how would they get together to come up with some expression of their collective desires? In Gaza they are cut off, unable to come and go; in the West Bank they are under an oppressive regime consisting of self-interested Quislings under the military command of an American General, and otherwise they are scattered around the world, many in refugee camps, in no position to even begin to formulate their collective will, if there is such a thing.

How the rest of the world would benefit

This should be too obvious to even mention, but a couple of things need to be said. With the Jewish state dissolved and the problem solved, Zionism, a combination of ethnocentric, religious and nationalist fascism dedicated to the continued existence of Israel, would no longer have a raison d’être and would consequently die a quiet, unlamented demise, to the great relief of billions of people. In one stroke, its iron grip on the political life of the West would relax and perhaps the ideals and hopes that gave rise to the great democracies could somehow be salvaged. The U.S., foremost among these, might once again be viewed with respect instead of with a mixture of fear and contempt. Perhaps we could begin to deal with the real problems that face humanity, without being distracted by the wars, hypocrisy, treason, crimes, terrorism, distortions, double standards, lies, confusion and scheming that Zionism has until now plagued us with.

If one agrees that One Democratic State is the only conceivable solution, then, you, dear reader, must act. As is frequently said, silence is complicity. And as mentioned earlier, we cannot look to the powers that be to accomplish this. They mostly have other agendas, utterly inimical to working for the actual benefit of their constituencies, let alone humanity as a whole. That leaves us, ordinary people, to bring this about. We will have to work within our communities, our towns, cities and states, our own countries. Most people, in the West particularly, have been subjected to incessant propaganda that has left them confused and almost totally ignorant. If you talk to people and just point out a few simple facts you'd be surprised how people will respond. It starts with "Oh, I didn't know that. Keep talking." One by one people will become more aware and start pitching in, like a snowball rolling downhill.

If you're interested, please get in touch with me (we’re just collecting email addresses at this point) - some of us have developed a workable strategy for moving forward, but we need a bunch of people to help out. We envision a three-pronged campaign, in Israel itself, within the Palestinian communities and, most vitally, among the population in the West. It was worldwide moral outrage that undid South African apartheid, along with the resistance of the oppressed, working together with their white South African allies, and, eventually, the recognition by key members of the ruling elite that the jig was up. This will be more difficult, because the power elites in the West weren’t part of the problem then as they are now. The craven, hypocritical politicians have been bought and are terrified of the Israel Lobby. The Zionists own the mainstream media and are in firm control of the Universities. This will be more of a challenge than Apartheid in So. Africa or overcoming Jim Crow and segregation in the US was, but we the people can do it, and it has to be done.

It's high time that One State advocacy went from being a few voices crying in the wilderness to a worldwide movement that will solve the central international political crisis of our time and, potentially, transform our world.

Roger Tucker

One Democratic State

Many articles and essays advocating One State can be found here.

Source

God bless Helen Thomas

by Roger Tucker

As everyone knows, Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, has gone into retirement after making some heretical remarks about Israel and Israelis. The current wikipedia entry reads in part as follows:

"On May 27, 2010, outside a White House Jewish heritage event, Rabbi David Nesenoff asked if Thomas had any comments on Israel. Thomas replied, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine... Remember, these people are occupied, and it's their land." She was then asked where the Israelis should go, to which she replied: "they should go home" to "Poland, Germany,... America and everywhere else." Thomas subsequently issued an apology on her personal web site: "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon."

She was perhaps the last representative of a proud tradition of American journalism, of calling it like you see it and damn the torpedoes - in a word, of telling the truth. Presidents have either trusted or feared her, depending on their own proclivities for truth telling, hardly a hallmark of politicians of whatever rank. There she always was, up front and center due to her rank as America's premier representative of the press, ready to ask that one piercing question directed at whatever cover-up, hypocrisy or skullduggery the DC suits were up to at the moment. The most recent example was her pointed question to President Obama, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle East that have nuclear weapons, which was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to "speculate". Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama's answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region. Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle East since their last encounter.

In preparation for my bar-mitzvah I attended Hebrew School at a place called Temple Emeth in Brookline, MA. Emeth is Hebrew for truth, and I was young enough, 11-12, to be curious what that meant. What I mostly discovered was an ancient cult dedicated to telling old wives tales meant to frighten and cajole its adherents into becoming and remaining loyal members of the tribe. The "truth" indeed. But I do remember that some of the old texts frequently mentioned something called "righteousness," which was somehow supposed to be the bedrock of the whole thing. Of course, no one actually believed in God. The "enlightened" Jews of Europe threw out that retro concept generations ago. Their new faith was Zionism, which can be summed up with the words, "God does not exist, but he gave us the Land." In replacing the old faith with the new, that old notion of "righteousness" conveniently disappeared - the baby got thrown out with the bathwater. What did remain was the actual faith of the Pharisees going back to biblical times, the worship of the Golden Calf, the belief in and absolute devotion to money and power.

She has seen it all, and if there's anyone who knows what the truth is, it is Helen Thomas. She saw the pressure and treachery applied by the Zionist mafia that led to the birth of Israel as an American protectorate in the Middle East. She saw her country that she so loved fall prey to a ruthless fifth column that has turned America into an obedient puppet of what a French diplomat once called "that shitty little state." She watched as the Chicago Jewish political mafia picked out and groomed a nobody for the Presidency, the perfect Uncle Tom with a silken tongue who would smoothly carry out Massa's orders

Who knows what the "rabbi" said to set her off, but whatever it was, she could no longer contain what she (and hundreds of millions of others who have not been duped or seduced by the Zionists) have felt all along, so she said what is so obvious - a bunch of genocidal settler-colonialist Eastern European fascists have no business being in Palestine in any other capacity than as tourists and should just get the hell out.

God bless Helen Thomas.

Us vs. Them: On the Meaning of Fascism

by Roger Tucker

"We have met the enemy and they are us." - Pogo

Pretty much everyone nowadays rejects fascism, but nobody seems to know quite what it is. The words "fascist" and "fascism" are frequently flung about, but they seem to be applied to all sorts of different and unrelated people and things. The dictionaries and Wikipedia are no help because they all assume that the word refers to a political phenomenon that arose in Europe in the 20th Century. That is indeed when the word "fascism" was coined (in the form of "fascismo," an Italian word for the ideology of Benito Mussolini's political party). Here's an excellent contemporary example: "The definition of “fascism” has some academic variance, but is essentially collusion among corporatocracy, authoritarian government, and controlled media and education. This “leadership” is only possible with a nationalistic public accepting policies of war, empire, and limited civil and political rights." (1) However, it is rather easy to demonstrate that fascism, in terms of usage (what people mean when they employ the term) dates back to the dawn of history. In order to do that we have to look at what goes into the process of properly defining a word. There are two things that need to be taken into consideration; the historical, linguistic roots (the etymology of the word) and contemporary usage. The Oxford English Dictionary is usually helpful with the former but not in this case, as it too (following the OED rule that looks at the first instance in print) refers only to the recent manifestations in Italy and Germany. In order to determine usage we need to pay close attention to how and when people nowadays commonly employ the terms "fascist" and "fascism."

The Etymology

The word "fascism" has as its root the Latin term "fascis." Here Wikipedia is helpful: "[Fasces:] from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle," symbolize summary power and jurisdiction...The traditional Roman fasces consisted of a bundle of white birch rods, tied together with a red leather ribbon into a cylinder, and often including a bronze axe (or sometimes two) amongst the rods, with the blade(s) on the side, projecting from the bundle. It was used as a symbol of the Roman Republic in many circumstances, including being carried in processions, much the way a flag might be carried today...Believed to date from Etruscan times, the symbolism of the fasces at one level suggested strength through unity. The bundle of rods bound together symbolizes the strength which a single rod lacks. The axe symbolized the state's power and authority." Another word with the same root is "fascia," which Wikipedia defines as follows: "(from latin: a band) is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue system that permeates the human body...It is responsible for maintaining structural integrity..." Again there is a sense of the binding factor, suggestive of the social glue or cultural bond that defines and holds a community together and gives it strength and endurance.

The Etruscan origin is probably correct and some have theorized that the original symbol depicted a bound sheaf of wheat. Whether factual or not, this hypothesis is very suggestive and goes to the heart of the matter. The bound sheaf of wheat, or bundle of sticks tied together, are clearly symbolic of the basic family, clan or tribal group that lives and works the land together cooperatively. That is what most of the names of indigenous tribes or peoples all over the world mean in their own language, "us," "the people," bound together by blood, language and place.

In its primary and positive sense the fasces symbolizes how we are bound to the earth and how, by working harmoniously with it, we sustain ourselves. It evokes primal feelings of oneness with nature and with one another and is suggestive of nurturing and fertility. It invokes the feminine, or mother principle, and it is no wonder that the early agricultural communities worshipped an earth goddess. Its not so benign meaning emerges with the addition of the axe blades, symbolizing the masculine principles of power, authority and the monopoly of force wielded by those who sit atop the heirarchy that naturally develops in human groups. In that sense, the original holders of the fasces were the mother and father of the primitve family and through the evolution of culture has become invested at the highest level in the leaders of nation-states and those who represent them.

In the simplest and most basic sense we are talking about group ego. The term "ego" is generally understood as the sense of self, all of the disparate physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual elements that we think of as an "I," an ongoing, solid and independent actor. All wisdom traditions point out the danger of solidifying this concept. They teach us that we are inextricably connected, existing only in relation to one another and to everything else. Whether perceived as pacific and cooperative or aggressive and warlike, all group identities court the same danger, the reification of the concept of "Us." Fascism is neither masculine nor feminine, neither rightist or leftist, but a combination of both. Nor does it have anything to do with a particular political or economic setup. Let's take a look at what the Italian fascisti, the ones who coined the term, had in mind. The following is in Wikipedia's translation of the Fascist Manifesto:

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The Manifesto (published in "Il Popolo d'Italia" on June 6, 1919) is divided into four sections, describing Fascist objectives in political, social, military and financial fields. Politically, the Manifesto calls for:

Universal suffrage polled on a regional basis, with proportional representation and voting and electoral office eligibility for women;
Proportional representation on a regional basis;
Voting for women (which was opposed by most other European nations);
Representation at government level of newly created National Councils by economic sector;
The abolition of the Italian Senate (at the time, the Senate, as the upper house of parliament, was by process elected by the wealthier citizens, but were in reality direct appointments by the King. It has been described as a sort of extended council of the Crown);
The formation of a National Council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made of professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a General Commission with ministerial powers (this concept was rooted in corporatist ideology and derived in part from Catholic social doctrine).

In labour and social policy, the Manifesto calls for:

The quick enactment of a law of the State that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers;
A minimum wage;
The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions;
To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants;
Reorganisation of the railways and the transport sector;
Revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance;
Reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55.

In military affairs, the Manifesto advocates:

Creation of a short-service national militia with specifically defensive responsibilities;
Armaments factories are to be nationalised;
A peaceful but competitive foreign policy.
In finance, the Manifesto advocates:
A strong progressive tax on capital (envisaging a “partial expropriation” of concentrated wealth);
The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor;
Revision of all contracts for military provisions;
The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.

The Manifesto thus combined elements of contemporary democratic and progressive thought (franchise reform, labour reform, limited nationalisation, taxes on wealth and war profits) with corporatist emphasis on class collaboration (the idea of social classes existing side by side and collaborating for the sake of national interests; the opposite of the Marxist notion of class struggle).

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This sounds remarkably like a program that most liberals and progressives could salute, doesn't it? Of course, fascismo changed markedly after Mussolini assumed control and turned it into a right-wing dictatorship, but what we're concerned with here is the evolution of the term fascism from its linguistic origins in pre-Roman Italy to the present. However, we must guard against the notion that there is anything particularly Italian (or German for that matter) about fascism. The symbolism of the fasces is widely used and displayed in government sponsored designs in the U.S., France and a number of other Western democracies. Similar symbols are native to most cultures; it is well night universal.

In order for fascism to come to dominate an identity group, it must have a compelling narrative. Whether group identity is based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, caste, gender or whatever, there is sure to be a story that glorifies the "tribe" and sets it above all others. Typically, it reaches far back into history and has elements both of exaltation and humiliation, triumph over its adversaries and victimhood. And it will come replete with slogans and symbols, and nowadays, more than likely, bumper stickers.

To sum up, the linguistic root of the term fascism and its visual representation clearly refer to identification with a particular group of people, originally based on family, clan and tribe, including place and language, evolving eventually into what we would nowadays call nationalism, or internationalism when it is based on a politico-economic ideology like capitalism or communism. As will be discussed further, the essential principle applies to any kind of identity politics that distinguishes between "Us" and a "Them" and asserts "Our" interests as primary. At what point, then, does this basic pattern, which is neither good nor bad in itself, become malevolent and get properly labeled as "fascist"? One could say that it turns ugly when sports fans, for example, start physically assaulting one another rather than just rooting for the home team. At the scale of international relations, when nationalism becomes aggressive and predatory, then we can clearly identify the pattern as fascistic. The simplest manifestation is that of the schoolyard bully, usually consisting of a leader and his loyal followers. Writ large, it supplies the tacit or explicit rationale for all wars.

It must be stressed that there is nothing inherently wrong with group identification. On the contrary, without it we would be alienated and lost. The turning point is when a healthy sense of group pride turns into belligerent arrogance and racism; when patriotism becomes an excuse for hating foreigners, when we start dehumanizing and vilifying others, when we go along with a party line that gives us the right to oppress and dispossess outsiders.

Usage

Many observers have remarked that people use the words "fascist" or "fascism" in a context that has only the vaguest reference, if any, to historical events that occurred in the previous century. However, there is a remarkable consistency to the usage that is commonly overlooked. First of all, it is always negative, something to be rejected and actively opposed. Second, it is always used to refer to something characteristic of a particular group of people unlike us, people with whom "we" don't identify, all of whom have in common this "fascistic" quality. And it always contains some explicit or implicit accusation of injustice, abuse of power and arbitrary use of force. At this point it should be becoming clear that fascism is a word that may have been coined in the context of 20th century European politics, but which has been adopted in popular speech to refer to something far more basic, universal and timeless, for which no handier term existed. I suspect that the peculiar potency of the word derives from the enormously successful wartime propaganda of the Allies that strove to identify "our enemies" du jour with evil incarnate, and kept alive through a myriad of films, books and the approved version of history taught to young people. It is no accident that fascists are always the "other," while "we" are always both the victims and the heroic warriors keeping "them" at bay.

Let's look at some circumstances in which a person or some group of people are typically labeled fascist. Children sometimes accuse their parents, or caretakers, of being fascists. What they mean is that their liberty to do as they please is being unfairly circumscribed. No, you can't stay up late playing video games. You can't sleep over with your friends, or whatever. They are fascists because they have used the authority vested in their position to control your behavior and activities. You must comply, because they have a monopoly on the use of force, the ability to withold whatever you want or feel you need and are entitled to, and in the last resort, to inflict physical punishment if you do not obey. Another frequent use of the term occurs in the context of confrontations with the police. They represent authority, as signified by their uniforms and the fact that they are armed and have the government sanctioned option to use their weapons. Nowadays, in our generally disaffected mood, the Government is commonly perceived to be fascist. Here, the relationship to the Roman fasces is obvious - they are identified with the State and its power. A wonderful example of the notion of fascism as it is popularly understood is the character of Nurse Ratchett in Ken Kesey's classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." She represents the absolute and arbitrary power of established authority to control others' lives. One might accuse one's boss of being a fascist for exactly such reasons. They have the authority and the power and, as you see it, they abuse it.

In terms of politics, the term is generally employed in reference to parties whose ideology asserts a prerogative to rule based on ethnocentric supremacy, a form of extreme nationalism. However, it has been applied to a variety of political views based on group identity if that identity is used as a rationale for precedence over others. "We" could just as easily be "the working class" as self-proclaimed representatives of national or religious identity. It is useful to remember that both the Italian Fascist party and the Nazis considered themselves to be socialist, while the Spanish and Japanese parties openly appealed to conservative, traditionalist sentiments. In terms of a useful definition of fascism, these distinctions are meaningless.

Let's try a thought experiment to test our own fascist propensities. Create a mental list of those characteristics that constitute your identify. I will provide an example by doing this for myself. I am male, Caucasian, an American, a Jew by birth and a Buddhist by inclination, a senior citizen and retiree, a veteran, a writer, a revolutionary, left-handed and blue-eyed with dark hair. And that's just a partial survey. To what extent do I identify with each of the groups just enumerated? The answer is all of them, to a greater or lesser extent. By identify I mean that there is some emotional attachment, some sense of tribal belonging, however vague and ill-defined that might be. But is that really who I am? Note that all of the above are accidents of birth, except for being a Buddhist and a writer, which are the result of choices that I made (I enlisted in the Army when I was young, confused and looking for a place to hang my hat, and almost immediately regretted it), Also note that, with the exceptions mentioned, all of these identity groups have a story associated with them, ranging from some simple positive affirmation to a long and complicated narrative. Let's look at them one by one in terms of fascist potential.

Male - Just ask a feminist (or vice-versa)
White - Just ask anyone who isn't
American - The Free (to dominate, monopolize, control and bomb) and the Brave (when backed up by overwhelming firepower)
Jewish - When I was young I thought Chosen People meant chosen to suffer. But things morph and change, and now it appears to mean to make others suffer (see the Old Testament).
Buddhist - Yes, there are Buddhists who claim exclusive possession of the Truth
Senior/Retiree - Ah, the Gray Panthers and AARP
Veteran - Ever been to a VFW gathering?
Writer - Those who really know about stuff, the intellectual elite
Revolutionary - the Vanguard of the People (the new ruling class in waiting)
Left-handedness - Well, you know, we are more intuitive and creative
And so on and so forth...

Examples

Fascism, as herein defined, is ubiquitous and has no particular origin. It seems to make sense, then, to talk only about the two varieties with which I'm most familiar, being both an American and a Jew. Coincidentally, they also represent the greatest political challenges facing our world today.

American fascism

American fascism, by definition, became possible once the inhabitants of the Colonies began to see themselves as other than ordinary Englishmen who happened to reside on the other side of the Atlantic. They had to become an identity group. That self-perception solidified, at least among the disaffected, as soon as friction arose between the two populations, culminating in the War for Independence. Victory arrived with all of the fascist accoutrements, tribal symbols, a self-glorifying national narrative and, of course, a flag. However, those who had the responsibility of fashioning the new nation were an unusual assembly of highly educated, sophisticated people (mostly lawyers) who were well aware of the dangers the fledgling republic was facing - not external dangers, but internal ones. Much consideration went into creating obstacles to giving birth to what we are calling a fascist state. But the seeds had already been planted; America's development was dependent on the processes of genocide and slavery. If one overlooks American poaching in Canada and Florida and similar early adventures, one could say that it was pretty much a done deal once the Republic engaged in its first full-blown war of international aggression, which resulted in the acquisition of the northern half of Mexico. Not too much later, the United States proclaimed itself a full-blown Imperialist power in the European tradition with its conquest of the Spanish territorities of the Phillipines, Cuba and Puerto Rico, while at the same time grabbing Hawaii from its indigenous population.

Something needs to be said at this point about two terms that are closely related to fascism, "racism" and "imperialism." Fascism necessarily includes racism. Just as in the case of individual egoism, group ego requires the solidification of the sense of separation and distinctness from the other. Furthermore, in order to start going down the road to full-blown fascism, group identiy must become chauvinistic, that sense of overwheening pride in ourselves and our superior characteristics. The expression of this sense of superiority over others is what is called racism, and America, as we know, is a profoundly racist country and always has been - although the "other," aside from the old standbies - the blacks, the Indians and the Hispanics - kept changing depending on who the latest immigrants were. The next step, to full-blown imperialism, requires nationalistic aggression against other states. Whether to acquire loot in whatever form, or to expand control over an ever increasing territory, the drums of war are frequently heard around the land. All of this has become fully institutionalized in the U.S., to the extent that the prevailing national doctrine is now perpetual war (the current Pentagon term is "the long war"). Not that long ago President Calvin Coolidge could say that "the business of America is business." But times have changed; imperialist war - business by other means to paraphrase Clausewitz - has become our major occupation and economic activity - and, no doubt, will in due time be our undoing, as history so clearly tells us. This pattern of serial aggression, which requires creating enemies when they don't conveniently present themselves, is inherent in the dynamics of fascism. All empires have fallen when they have become fully overextended, militarily, financially, geographically and in every other respect. America now has clearly has opted for this destructive and self-defeating strategy.

Jewish fascism (aka Zionism)

Another clear, albeit bizarre, example is Israel, which would no doubt quickly implode without the requisite unifying principle of an external enemy with which the nation must always be at war, or preparing for war. I refer to it as Jewish fascism because it predates the Zionist project. When I was in Hebrew school in the early 50's, in preparation for my bar mitzvah, I thought I should read the Old Testament. What struck me was that much of it conformed to what we were being taught was the essence of fascism, though I didn't make much of it at the time. Although I haven't read it, it appears that the Talmud, the primary scripture of the Orthodox ashkenazim, is a veritable manual of Jewish fascism. (4)

Israel is exceptional in a number of ways:

1. It is the only nation that has ever been deliberately created with the express purpose of occupying foreign territory through the ethnic cleansing of its inhabitants.

2. It is the only nation that required the invention of a "people" to carry out such a settler/colonialist project (1).

3. It is the only nation to have invented a religion (the Holycause) to complement its secular political ideology (Zionism).

4. It is the only nation that is wholly parasitical, dependent on extorting the economic means to survive from other societies that it (or its agents in other countries) has effectively subverted.

Thus, Israel combines three convergent forms of fascism: ethnocentric (based on mytho-history much like the Nazi notion of an Aryan race); religious (nominally Jewish, although its founders were secular. Following the 1940's the place of Judaism as the sustaining religious identity was essentially replaced by Holocaustism, complete with a Holy Inquisition.); and, of course, virulently nationalistic. Fortuitously for the Jewish fascists, or maybe not so coincidentally (3), an extremely powerful ally emerged from within the American fascist world, the Christian Zionists. Although essentially a doomsday cult, it numbers, conservatively, 40-50 million Americans eager for Israel to build the Second Temple, thereby paving the way to Armageddon. At this point American and Jewish fascism appear to have converged into an aggressive pathological force that endangers humanity more than any such phenomenon in the past. At this point American and Jewish fascism appear to have converged into an aggressive pathological force that, considering Israel's nuclear arsenal, endangers humanity more than any such phenomenon in the past. Both Americans and Jews have made extraordinary positive contributions to world civilization, but a ruthless and predatory American imperialism and fascistic Zionism we can do without.

The Antidote

The inner fascist in all of us claims to be one of the "good" people, the "superior" people, the "strong" people, or the "smart" people, but whatever flavor it comes in, we are one of the "entitled" people. The antidote to such delusions is the realization that we are just people, pretty much like everybody else, with as much right to be here as anyone else (and vice-versa). This realization cuts through self-deception, protects us from buying into whatever snake-oil the zealots happen to be selling today and contains within it the possibility of a sane society, however far off and illusory that may seem. We all belong to one tribe, humanity, and if we take our cue from those whom history has deemed wise, we realize that caring for others and the environment that supports us is the key. When we attempt to separate ourselves, individually as egomaniacs or as part of some fascistic identity group, then we're only asking for trouble. We may think we are protecting ourselves by attempting to control and manipulate others, but in the end what goes around comes around, a pointless and painful cycle that reason and experience tell us to abandon. Fascism as we have been describing it is a social pathology and it can legitimately be considered humanity's most urgent public health problem. If enough people come to understand what the disease is and how to diagnose it, perhaps there will emerge a means to inoculate ourselves. At this point American and Jewish fascism appear to have converged into an aggressive pathological force that endangers humanity more than any such phenomenon in the past.

In the short term, it is imperative to dissolve the Jewish state of Israel. Such a state, which has no basis other than a fascistic narrative constructed out of paranoia and mythology, has no legitimacy in our world. It embodies all of the characteristics that humanity has resoundingly rejected in the last century - settler colonialism, racism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide. The dehumanization and destruction of a people, along with the dispossession of their land and property, is utterly intolerable. The only feasible alternative is its replacement by a pluralistic, democratic state that includes the Palestinians as equals. There is no other viable solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a conflict that threatens to engulf the entire planet in nuclear devastation. In the long term, we must overcome the tendency to adopt belief systems that are based on blind faith, whether they take the form of political or religious dogmas. Only then can we grow up and have the opportunity to create a truly sane world.

Notes:

1. American fascism: by political definition the US is now fascist, not a constitutional republic, by Carl Herman

2. The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand

"...According to Sand, the description of the Jews as a wandering and self-isolating nation of exiles, "who wandered across seas and continents, reached the ends of the earth and finally, with the advent of Zionism, made a U-turn and returned en masse to their orphaned homeland," is nothing but "national mythology." Like other national movements in Europe, which sought out a splendid Golden Age, through which they invented a heroic past - for example, classical Greece or the Teutonic tribes - to prove they have existed since the beginnings of history, "so, too, the first buds of Jewish nationalism blossomed in the direction of the strong light that has its source in the mythical Kingdom of David."...

3. Scofield Bible made uncompromising Zionists out of tens of millions of Americans, by Maidhc Ó Cathail

4. The Babylonian Talmud (Complete Soncino English Translation)

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.” - 'The True Believer' by Eric Hoffer