Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering
that "Israel is not like other countries." Oddly enough for him, that time
he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish
nationalism, whether or not one pins the "Zionist" label on it.
Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and
negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their
neighbors. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost
every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g., the French
nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya's had the Mau Mau, etc.).
But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration,
extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular
or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible
predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that
all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does
mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be
under any electable government (a point I'll develop in another article).
The differences between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and that of other
countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:
1. Zionism is a real witches' brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism,
and militarism that places it way outside of a "mere" nationalist context —
for example, when I was in Ireland (both parts) I saw no indication
whatsoever that the PIRAs or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a
shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country,
although there may well have been a handful who thought that way — and goes
far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis;
2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries
in a way that other nationalist movements (and even ultra-nationalist
movements like Nazism) did not — e.g., a large majority of American Jews,
including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of
political bigamy called "dual loyalty" (to Israel & the US) that is every
bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, attempts to finesse the precedence they
give to Israel over the US (lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in
the IDF but NOT in the US armed forces), and has absolutely no parallel in
the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable
ethnic or racial group in America — even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared
once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members
volunteering for the US armed forces;
3. The "enemy" of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and
perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with
the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out
there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and
placement on its very long list of enemies (which is now America's target
list); and
4. Almost all nationalist movements (including the irredentist and
secessionist variants) intend to create an independent state from a
population in place or to reunite a separated people (like the Sudeten
Germans in the 1930s) — it is very rare for it to include the wholesale
displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of
successful colonialist movements as in the US — and perhaps a reason why
most Americans wouldn't care too much about what the Israelis are doing to
the Palestinians even if they DID know about it, is because that is no
different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/Native
Americans here in a longer & more low-tech fashion.
The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other
countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling.
The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would
be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission —
which these days encompasses the US Government, given Israel's affinity for
throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama's visible
affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu's own "Uncle Tom"
come to Washington.
The late General Moshe Dayan, who — Zionist or not — remains an honored part
of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel's
security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have
been correct. But he neglected to note that the preferred response of
everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and
bite. It is an option worth considering.
Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps
veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at
docbrosk@comcast.net