A Quick Comparison of Zionism and Nazism

While the title of this post might seem deliberately inflammatory, many scholars have made the same observation in the past. In early 1960s, Arnold J. Toynbee, wrote in the final volume of his most famous work, A Study of History:

“I think that, in the Zionist movement, Western Jews have assimilated gentile Western Civilization in the most unfortunate possible form. They have assimilated the West's nationalism and colonization. The seizure of the houses, lands, and property of the 900,000 Palestinian Arabs who are now refugees is on a moral level with the worst crimes and injustices committed, during the last four or five centuries, by gentile Western European conquerors and colonists overseas.”

Some semi-famous Jewish people, such as Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Yehuda Elkana and Omer Bartov, among others, have also expressed milder versions of these sentiments. Even some of the first generation of Israeli politicians (David Ben-Gurion) and military leaders (Moshe Dayan) were unusually honest about what the establishment of Israel really entailed, specifically its settler-colonial origins. In other words, this comparison was being made decades before I was born. While some like to reframe it to saying that Israel is similar to Apartheid-era South Africa, the reality is that it is more similar to an especially insipid version of the Third Reich, and here is why..

1] Let us go back to the initial ideas propagated by Hitler and other Nazis during his rise to power, specifically how he made the case that ethnic Germans were being screwed over by the “lesser races”. In between his justified critique of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler spent much time talking about how ethnic Germanic people were simultaneously genetically superior but also under constant threat from surrounding “lesser races”. His proposed solution was uniting all Germanic people under one flag, expelling members of those “lesser races” from that territory and then conquering more land (Lebensraum) to accommodate an expanding Germanic population.

To achieve the later, the Nazis wanted to evict and then kill people of those pesky “lesser races” who were previously living on that land. A few would be kept around as third-class workers to perform dangerous, dirty or menial tasks. The Nazis set about doing exactly this as soon as they invaded Poland, Czechia and Slovakia at the start of WW2- which was the first part of their ultimate designs (Generalplan Ost) for rest of Eastern Europe. Now does this not remind you of the policies and goals of another contemporary nation? Sure, the scale of ambitions of the later is much smaller and far less ambitious than the Nazis- but the overall resemblance is rather uncanny.

2] Now let us talk about the main ideological justification behind the establishment of Israel in the Middle-East. While that nation was formally established in 1948, the first moves towards doing so started as early as 1903- with small but deliberate and targeted immigration of Jewish people from Eastern Europe into that area. But why choose the Middle-East? Why not USA, especially given that a large number of East European Jews had already emigrated to that country? Or why not South America, especially Argentina which was busy recruiting immigrants from all parts of Europe during that time period? Well.. because the originators of Zionism wanted a state that was purely Jewish, rather than one in which they would just be a large percentage of population.

This endpoint was not feasible in USA, Argentina or any other nation on the face of this earth- because an attempt to pull this off in them would have ended in yet another mass expulsion. This is why, the original Zionists decided that the part of Middle-East which was historically associated with their religion and still in a state of flux after collapse of the Ottoman Empire post WW1 was their best bet to pull of this project. Oddly enough, East European Jews have considerable European (mostly South European) admixture and had never lived in their supposed “promised land” for over two thousand years. So why is that a lot like Nazism? As it turns out, the Nazis too faced a similar problem with trying to establish a legitimate claim to lands beyond the boundaries of the older German Empire.

To address this problem, they employed a lot of scholars, archeologists and historians to make up “proof” to claim previous residence, or ties with, lands which they had recently conquered. That is why so many Nazi scholars and academics were busy measuring skull shapes and trying to locate mythical archeological sites in Europe- one of the main plot themes in the classic video game “Return to Castle Wolfenstein”. Zionists tried doing something very similar since the establishment of Israel in 1948. They also used their “sacred books” to justify their claim to the land. As you can see, great minds think alike, though the Nazis did it with much more ambition, honesty and.. dare I say.. style.

3] It is also noteworthy that the mindset of the majority in Israel has, especially in past two decades, moved closer to the group they have always secretly admired. Consider, for example, their obsession with Jewish female fertility and not losing the demographic race to those pesky Arabs- a race they are still losing. In a few years, they might roll out their local version of Cross of Honor of the German Mother- if they already haven’t done so. Furthermore, both Israel and the Third Reich are effectively garrison states- defined as states dominated by their military-industrial complex and centered around glorification of military exploits- real or fictional. Some might think that these comparisons as too far-fetched and unfair to Israel. Maybe.. then again, Nazi Germany did not start setting up concentration camps and use slave labor on an industrial scale from the day they came power in 1933. It took a few years and many military victories between 1933 and 1941 before they went full-scale Nazi.

It is also hard to ignore that the situation for people in the West Bank and Gaza bears more than a passing resemblance to what was inflicted on Jews in Ghettos set up by the Nazis- specifically the ones where they were forcibly relocated to before being sent to concentration camps. If that particular comparison is offensive, the way Germans treated ethnic Poles after 1939 invasion of that country was also rather similar. Some might say that Israel has not gone that far down the road, and I would agree. But make no mistake; their lack of progress down that path has everything to do with lacking the wherewithal to reach that level, rather than any personal scruples. There is a reason why the military success in 1967 against poorly trained, equipped and lead Arab armies was the high-water point of their territorial expansion. Today, even a paramilitary force such as Hezbollah in Lebanon is seen as a peer rival for the IDF.

Having listed some similarities between Zionism and Nazism, let us also talk about the differences between them. For starters, Nazis wore much better-looking uniforms and were far more photogenic. They actually made evil and genocide look fashionable. Nazis were also far more honest and open about how they really felt about “lesser races”. When they went genocidal, they did so without pretending to be the “real” victim. WW2 was also responsible for the development of many technologies that would revolutionize the world after the war ended. There is a reason we still make movies and videogames about Nazis in 2023. To put it bluntly, even though Nazis were evil and did many bad things they did so with a perverse level of honesty and on a large scale. In contrast- Zionism is a weak, washed out and insipid imitation of Nazism

What do you think? Comments?