The Mass Psychology of Fascism in the 21st Century – part 7 – Israel

The state of Israel is accusing peace activist organisations such as EAPPI, BtSelem, and CPT, of ‘harming the state of Israel and its citizens’. The opposite is true: these organisations are helping those suffering persecution by The state of Israel to resist and transform the violence imposed by a fascist regime that is itself bringing down disaster on Israel’s own citizens. The state of Israel is the biggest enemy of the citizens of Israel. So, here, I look at some features of Israeli State ideology and practices to see if they justify describing Israel as a fascist state breeding xenophobia and self-destruction.

For Umberto Eco, there are several aspects that are not individually pathogonomic of fascism but each of them is a characteristic around which fascism can congeal.

According to Umberto Eco’s essay there are 14 features that should alert us to the presence of ur- fascism (or eternal fascism).

In this essay I identify two of these 14 features that should alert us to the presence of fascism or proto-fascism in Israeli state policy in 2020.  There are other features present, especially relating to a ‘lack of a clear social identity’ leading to an excessive and xenophobic fear of the enemy producing excessive displays of force (bombing Gaza and murdering youths at protests or throwing stones), and an exaggeration of the power of the enemy to hit back (the so-called rockets from Gaza).

However, here I want to focus on just two features that are highlighted by Trump’s recent 2020so-called deal in alliance with the Israeli State (see below for more detail),   these two features of the Israeli state are:

a) the cult of tradition, where, for Israel, the worship of (military technology) obscures an ideology based upon biblical historical myths about homelands, ancestors, roots, as well as about future destiny:

” The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism … dream of a revelation received at the dawn of human history”.

and b) elitism, both within the state, and in relation to the rest of the world:

Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world

I suggest we can detect both of these proto-fascist features in Israel’s current structures, and behaviours.

To demonstrate this here is an excerpt from Alastair Crooke writing on the 2020 Trump ‘deal’: as a ‘deal’ that is trying to impose the de-facto legalisation (ignoring international legal norms) of settlement/colonies, in order to accelerate colonialism free from international sanctions, and to end the refugees rights of return.

Crooke relates Netanyahu’s use of the ‘destiny’ in terms of, first, both a political concept – what is a good thing for our people ; as well as, second, a mythical origin concept – fulfilling both a sacred biblical prophesy and imperialist expansionist ambitions . This is an underlying ideology of tradition, an abstract idea of preordained entitlement and destiny – attachment to the land of Israel or as the Nation State Law (see below) calls it Eretz Y’Israel. An idea of Israel that limitlessly extends Israel‘s current geographic boundaries.

[needs quote]

He then reveals Ben Gurion’s elitist ideology (the state of Israel’s first leader) for Israel:

That is because Jewish Zionism, as expressed by Netanyahu this week, though ostensibly secular, is not just a political construct: It is, too, as it were, an Old Testament project. Laurent Guyénot observes, that when it is asserted that Zionism is biblical, that doesn’t necessarily mean it to be religious. It can, and does, serve as key leitmotiv for secular Jews too. For secular Zionists, the Bible is on the one hand, a ‘national narrative’, but on the other, a particular civilizational vision, bound around a modern state (Israel).

Ben-Gurion was not religious; he never went to the synagogue, and ate pork for breakfast, yet he could declare: “I believe in our moral and intellectual superiority, in our capacity to serve as a model for the redemption of the human race”. Dan Kurzman, in his biography (Ben-Gurion, Prophet of Fire, 1983) writes that “[Ben Gurion] was, in a modern sense, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, a messiah, who felt he was destined to create an exemplary Jewish state, a ‘light unto the nations’ that would help to redeem all mankind”. This is the inner Universalist vision (tied to a state). These backstage, half acknowledged, convictions – of being ‘elect’, as an example – clearly do condition political actions, (such as disregarding legal norms).

Israel’s policies outlined in the Nation State Law of 2019 ; see appendix) includes a national duty to extend Israel’s boundaries to create Y’Israel or greater Israel. This is a policy that requires colonisation and ethnic cleansing, or the incremental (slow) genocide of Palestinians. This is portrayed as a civilising a world in its own image. Trump’s policies backed by Judaeo-Christian evangelists also sees this as consistent with USA’s own civilisation of the world in its own supremacist image. And, together with Sunni Arab alliance, the USA and Israel hope to achieve dominance over the Middle East and especially Shia Iran.

Netanyahu uses the rhetoric of destiny, an impoverished rhetoric that functions as a kind of Orwellian newspeak (another one of Eco’s features of ur-fascism).

Appendix:

Nation State Law:

•Only Jews have a right to ‘self-determination’ in Israel (the right to decide state policies)

•Establishes an exclusive Israeli Jewish: flag, anthem, language, effective access to purchase land, right of entry, and

•The National Duty to colonise oPt.

•Applies to ‘Eretz Ysrael’ – the ‘Land of Israel’ and so legitmises annexation of the West Bank

Commentary from Adalah (Palestinian legal authority)/

By providing for Jewish settlement (only) as a national value throughout Eretz Israel (when read with Article 1), the law institutes racial, ethnic and religious segregation as a new legal norm. In the OPT, it gives legal justification to the establishment and retroactive legalization of the settlements, and gives existing annexations and laws constitutional backing; indeed the annexation of the West Bank was a major purpose behind the law.”