More Similarities Between Zionism and Nazism

Some readers might remember a previous post titled ‘A Quick Comparison of Zionism and Nazism’ which explored some obvious similarities between Nazism and Zionism. These include the simultaneous belief in their alleged intrinsic racial superiority and perpetual persecution, justifying genocide of “inferior” races, inventing fake archeology to justify their quest for more ‘lebensraum’ and a peculiar obsession with racial purity and fertility. There are also some differences between the two such as Zionists being nowhere near as photogenic, fashionable, honest and historically relevant as Nazis. The conclusion was that Zionism was a weak, washed out and insipid imitation of Nazism- like diet Coke to real Coke. At that time, I felt that a further exploration of this pathology was not required, but events since then make that necessary.

1] Let us begin the sequel by comparing the behavior of IDF “soldiers” with Nazis- specifically the ones in SS. While some might already know this, the SS (Schutzstaffel) was a paramilitary organization distinct from the normal German army during WW2 aka the Wehrmacht. This becomes important to the topic of this post because the vast majority of deliberate civilian killings in Europe during that war were done by the SS, not Wehrmacht. This not imply that everyone in the Wehrmacht were perfect soldiers who did not kill civilians, however it is established historical fact that the vast majority of mass executions attributed to the Third Reich were committed by the SS and their local collaborators. But why is this point relevant to the behavior of IDF “soldiers” and other armed Israeli personnel in Gaza?

It comes down to what they kept posting on social media sites such as TikTok etc. In these posts, we saw them joyfully shooting civilians, pregnant women, children, pets and more. By now we have seen many hundreds, or more, of such video clips filmed by IDF “soldiers” expressing great joy and satisfaction doing whatever they were doing. We could also go into how the IDF uses extreme torture, humiliations etc as the default way of dealing with any Palestinian. Now compare this behavior to what regular Wehrmacht soldiers during WW2 did to the people of occupied countries. While every armed conflict in human history does brings out the sociopaths, it is notable that soldiers in the Wehrmacht rarely spent their military service behaving like the IDF. Indeed, there was a strong desire among the regular German military leadership to avoid such a breakdown of discipline- for a number of reasons.

It is telling that the IDF in Gaza behaved like the SS, rather than Wehrmacht in WW2. For those who don’t know, the SS was a much smaller and self-selected paramilitary force made of volunteers who fervently believed in the racial superiority claptrap and other Nazi ideology BS. It says a lot when the regular soldiers of a conscript army behave like a bunch of ideology driven sociopaths, but it even more telling when a society built on belief in its perpetual victimhood encourages, celebrates and rewards such behavior. It is also noteworthy that “normal” IDF soldiers are unintentionally recreating scenes from Holocaust movies such ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘The Pianist’. Readers can draw their own opinions about the mindset of a volunteer army which unintentionally and unironically recreates scenes from Holocaust movies- many of which are based on highly fictionalized and exaggerated accounts of what survivors claimed they suffered. Let that sink in.

2] Now let us turn our attention to the society which produces a volunteer army that behaves in such a manner. Here is some relevant information that will help us compare the mindset of average people in Nazi-era Germany with Israel. But first some history. The Nazi party was founded in 1919 by Anton Drexler and Hitler joined it later that same year. However for the first few years, they were nothing more than a fringe group in Bavaria. Even after the failed ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ and subsequent trial/ brief imprisonment of Hitler in 1922, they remained a marginal party which received only about 2-3% of votes- as late as 1928. It took the global economic crash of 1929 and subsequent severe economic crisis and massive unemployment in Germany due to American banks demanding their loans back to make the average German even consider voting for the Nazis. To summarize, it took a decade of back-to-back and increasingly severe economic crises (hyperinflation, multiple boom-bust cycles, crash of 1929, very high unemployment, severe austerity policies etc) for even 15-16% of German voters to finally start supporting the Nazis.

All of this is a longish way of saying that the ideologies of Nazism never had majority acceptance in Germany- as seen in the last somewhat free and fair election of Weimar era- in 1932. Serious anti-Semitism and calls for extermination of all European Jews was, therefore, always a minority belief in Nazi-era Germany. Even the majority of devout Nazis strongly preferred expulsion of Jews to outright genocide. While this brief introduction to the real levels of popular support for serious anti-Semitism in Nazi-era Germany might seem pedantic, it becomes relevant once we start comparing Nazi-era Germany to Israel. For starters, the state of Israel was founded on the belief of racial superiority and forced displacement of hundreds and thousands of people who lived there for much of recorded history. Hence, even at the time of its official founding- the Jewish population of Israel was already more extreme than the average German in Nazi-era Germany. And it only gotten worse.

While that country did, at least, pretend in the first four decades of its existence to desire peace and coexistence with its unhappy neighbors including the hundreds of thousands who has been displaced by its creation- every aspect of its behavior clearly suggested otherwise. While the precise point at which Israel, as a country and society, stopped pretending to be normal is a matter of personal opinion- the 1990s are the best candidate. It was at this point that right-wing parties and even more extreme religious parties started to become the dominant part of their political scene. To be clear, the even more extreme worldview necessary for supporting such parties was already dominant in that country as early the 1970s, but some combination of shame and external pressure kept them for openly supporting that worldview. And let us be honest about something else, this transformation was greatly facilitated by many wealthy Jewish people and organizations in USA.

So what can one say about present day Israeli society- even the one which existed before October 7, 2023. While we can go over results from a large number of studies done over the years to prove that point, doing so would distract us from the bigger picture. The simple fact is the mindset of Israeli society today has more in common with hardcore SS members and their families than the median German in Nazi-era Germany. These include a strong personal belief in manifest destiny and lebensraum, intrinsic racial superiority etc to openly desiring genocide and wanting a final solution to the Palestinian problem. Hence, the median Israeli is closer in his or her world view to a hardcore SS supporter than the average German during the Third Reich. Once you understand this fact, a lot of the unusual behavior by Israel as a nation and people suddenly make much more sense.

We are then faced with the question of how to deal, or not, with the resultant situation. If you use history as a template, Nazism was considered so revulsive and evil that its supporters were systematically eliminated (by USSR) or made to recant by West) after defeat of the Third Reich. So what does one do, or allow to occur, when the majority of a small nation’s population display a similar worldview and mindset? And what about those who willingly and knowingly support it from the outside? At this point it might be worth mentioning that the only nation which truly supports Israel, aka USA, is currently in the midst of an accelerating death spiral that will soon leave it irreversibly weakened or even mostly irrelevant- and this problem might fix itself.

What do you think? Comments?