Fausty’s Libertarian Blog November 24, 2009

Mark Wallace posted a rather chilling article and accompanying spreadsheet on Conservative Home on the population figures the Optimum Population Trust would like to see in each country of the world.

Mark’s article:

The Optimum Population Trust, for those of you who haven’t yet come across them, are an odd bunch. Bluntly, they believe the best way to save the planet is to get rid of as many human beings as possible.

On the plus side, at least they are being more honest than most greens in their open contempt for human beings. The reality of many in the environmentalist movement is at core a deep anti-humanism, an arrogant dislike for people who are somehow too stupid to see the problem with their pursuit of a happy life and a healthy family.

On the down side, the OPT’s aims are actually pretty worrying – verging on sinister, even. Buried in their website is a  detailed spreadsheet [Excel link] laying out their ideal “sustainable” populations for each country. And those “ideal” populations are a little worrying, if you try to imagine the reality of them.

 

For example, the UK should shrink to 29 million people, from the 60 million we currently have. We are of course a small island, but ask yourself which half of your friends you would rather did not exist?

 

And we get things comparatively easy in the OPT’s dystopian vision of the future.

Only one in six of the current Algerian population should really be allowed. Bosnians are unlikely to be overjoyed that 3 million of their 4 million people are, in the OPT’s eyes, an inconvenience. Rwanda should apparently go from 7 million people to only 2 million.

What the OPT seem to forget is that these aren’t just statistics. They aren’t just “emitters”, as their website terms them. They are real human beings, who live, love and laugh. It is peculiar that Sir David Attenborough, the Patron of the Trust, can show so much compassion for animals but is apparently happy to back such a dispassionate dismissal of the value of our fellow humans.

Yesterday, the OPT released the results of a  Yougov opinion poll [Excel link] which they trumpeted as showing public support for their aims. “Public want smaller UK population”, announces their website. However, when you actually read the tables for the polling results, it turns out that the public are bothered about far more real world, centre right issues than greenie pipe dreams.

It turns out, people are actually perfectly happy for us to be allowed to continue breeding – directly contrary to the OPT’s aims.

One major question was, “Do you think people should take the impact on the environment into account when deciding how many children to have?”

The answer is pretty clear. A miniscule 15% say people either should not have any children or should only have one, while 24% either think “the number of children people have won’t affect the environment” or that people shouldn’t worry about it. Unsurprisingly, the biggest support  – 34% – is for people choosing to have two children, which is just about what people actually do have in real life. Far from endorsing the OPT’s views, people are voting for no change, and life as usual.

Most interesting is the question which investigates public support for various policies on population. Most left those surveyed pretty unmoved, with only three gaining majority support:

• Reduce immigration: 69%
• Let people work after the retirement age: 63%
• Better family planning support to reduce unwanted pregnancies: 62%

So, it turns out that far from being radical greens who want to interfere in people’s family life, the public are just bothered about high levels of immigration and unplanned pregnancies, whilst wanting to allow pensioners to work. More back to basics than ban the babies.

Bir önceki yazımda nazilerin yargılanmasını Türkiye’de yaşanmış güya gizli tarih aktörlerine de uygulanmasını isteyen bazı aydınlarımızdan bahsetmiştim.  İkinci cumhuriyetçiler ve fethullahçı liberaller için, “Kenan Evren bu gizli tarih aktörlerinden münezzeh midir?” sorusu yasaklı sorudur. Hiçbirinin ağzından “o yargılansın şu yargılansın” atıp tutmalarının arasında Kenan Evren ismi geçmez. Kenan Evren konusu ve 12 Eylül ayrı tartışma konuları elbet. Bir önceki yazımda bahsettiğim gibi, o dönemin yapısını, Kenan Evren’in içinde bulunduğu dış ve iç ilişkiler yumağını bu günkü gözlerle çözemeyiz. Ancak 12 Eylül’ün hediye ettiği Özal yönetiminin günümüze hediye ettiği sol-liberal, kürtçü, fethullahçı aydın tipinin “darbeciler yargılansın” diye bas bas bağırırken “önce Kenan Evren yargılansın” demelerini bekleyemeyiz.

Neyse, bu yazının konusu Kenan Evren değil, nazilerle ilgili sahip olduğumuz ön yargıları biraz tartışmak. Nazilere küfretmek ve nazilerin insanlık suçu işlediğini söylemek, günümüz modern insanının dilinden, dininden, kültüründen sonra bağlandığı ve sonuna kadar inandığı bir düşüncedir. Naziler tarihin tabusudur. Aşağılanması doğal, tartışılması, nedenlerinin konuşulması ise tabudur. Nazilerin ve yahudi soykırımının büyük bir misyonu vardır insanlık tarihi açısından. İnsanlık gelişmiştir, modernleşmiştir, inançları ve metafiziği yıkmış, yeni bir ahlaki ve kültürel yapılaşmaya ihtiyaç duymaktadır. İdealisttir, gözü karadır, salt modernizmden yanadır. Ama o düzeni yeniden kurmak kansız olmaz, savaşlar çıkar, soykırımlar olur. Savaşlar ve soykırımların sonrasında insanlık arkasına bakar, vicdan azabı çeker ve insanoğlunun büyük bir çoğunluğu inançlarına ve metafiziğine döner. Çünkü insanlık modern ve inançtan bağımsız bir ahlak yapısını kuramamıştır. Bu bahsettiğim fikirler bize Nietzsche’yi hatırlatıyor belki. Köle ahlakı üzerine kurulmuş olan hıristıyanlığın ve bu ahlakın yıkılmasını, yeni bir ahlak düzeninin  kurulmasını istiyordu Nietzsche. Bunu yapabilecek olan da insandan sonraki üst insan yani übermenschdi. Nietzsche’nin fikirleri Nazi siyasetiyle paralellik gösterir, hatta bir çok kişi Nietzsche’nin teorik fikirlerinin Hitler’le hayata geçtiğini söyler. Gerçekten de ikinci dünya savaşı ve birinci dünya savaşını biraz karşılaştırırsak, birinci dünya savaşı daha çok “hammadde arayışıyla” öne çıkarken, ikinci dünya savaşı sanki “büyüyen cermen imparatorluğuna” karşı yapılmış bir savaştır. Hitler’in Nietzsche’den etkilendiği bilinen bir gerçektir ve nazi hareketinin Nietzsche felsefesinden etkilendiği aşikardır tabii Nietzsche’nin Almanya’dan nefret etmesi dışında. Nietzsche ve Hitler karşılaştırmasında en büyük benzerlik te antichrist fikirlerdedir. Nietzsche hırıstiyanlık karşıtı fikirlerini The Antichrist adlı kitabından topladı. Ona göre köle ahlakı dediği şey dinleri, günümüz anlamındaki hukuku ve demokrasiyi ihtiva eder. Eski çağlarda güçlü olanın koyduğu ahlak ilkelerinin(efendi ahlakı) yerine güçlenen ve ayaklanan kölelerin koyduğu ahlak ilkeleri(köle ahlakı) gelmiştir. Eskiden güçlü olan, boyun eydiren, gücün kendisi olan, artık tek başına zayıf ama birlik olduklarında güçlü olan kölelere karşı gelememiştir. Hıristıyanlık da roma toplumunda önce köleler arasında yaygınlaşan daha sonra köle ve ezilmişlerin ayaklanmasıyla yayılan bir dindir. Nazilerin hıristıyanlığa karşı olmaları, cermen paganizminden esinlenip gama haçını bayrak yapmaları belki Nietzsche’den etkilendiklerini daha da ortaya çıkarmaktadır.

Tüm bunları yanyana koyduğumuzda Nietzsche ve naziler arasında fikirsel bazı benzerlikler, Hitler ve übermensch karakterinin benzerlikleri göze çarpabilir. Ancak tüm bu benzerliklere rağmen Nazilerin Nietzsche’den esinlendiğini ama Nietzsche’nin tam olarak anlatmak istediğinden uzakta olduklarını da belirtmek gerekiyor. Nietzsche yıkılan efendi ahlakından sonra dinlerin de çözülmesiyle yıkılacak olan köle ahlakı sonrası übermensch ahlakına ulaşmayı hedefliyordu. Ona göre insan, ahlakın emrettiği iyi ve kötü dışında yaşayabilen, özgür olabilen bir canlı olmalıydı.

Bu kadar felsefeden sonra Nazileri fikirsel olarak yücelttiğim düşünülebilir. Nazileri fikirsel olarak yüceltmiyorum ama onların Nietzsche’den etkilenen, fikirleri peşinde koşan ve fikirleri yüzünden bu kadar lanetlenen insanlar olduklarını belirtmek istiyorum. Tarih hakkında en doğru tespitlerden biri de “Tarihi yazanların tarihi kazananlar” olduğudur. Bir antichrist motivasyonuyla, köle ahlakını ortadan kaldırıp efendi ahlakını dünyaya tekrar getirme istekleriyle hareket eden naziler, hıristıyanlığın en yaygın olduğu dünyada elbette lanetleneceklerdir. Denilebilir ki adamlar milyonlarca yahudiyi yaktı, ne felsefesinden bahsediyorsunuz?Başka ülkeler tarafından, ikinci dünya savaşı esnasında atom bombasıyla ya da başka soykırımlarla öldürülen insanların ve hatta daha birkaç yıl önce yanıbaşımızda öldürülen insanların hesaplarının sorulmadığı bir dünyada özellikle nazilerden hesap sormak bana pek samimi gelmiyor. Savaşları ve savaşların şartlarını ayrı bir tartışma konusu ancak kuzey amerika esintili nazileri lanetleme kültürü, insanlığın bir tür günah çıkartması. Popüler kültürün öğelerinde de sık sık yer alan bu kültür, Amerikan halkı tarafından bile eleştiriye uğruyor(Yahudi soykırımından bahsetmeyen bir film oscar alamaz gibi.)

Ülkemize gelirsek, bu kültürün bir benzeri, güya cumhuriyetin gizli tarihini yahudi soykırımına benzetmekle ortaya çıkıyor. Kenan Evren’in bahsedilmediği, “kahrolsun darbeler” tadında geçen bu konuşmalar da, tıpkı nazilere lanet etme kültürü gibi yapay bir davranış.

On Saturday, November 21, 2009, UK’s special prosecutor Helen Garlick, now installed in the Turks and Caicos Islands‘ interim government, announced UK’s intention to, “have a permanent presence [in Turks and Caicos].” The UK had abolished Turks and Caicos’ right to self determination in August, citing local government corruption.

In August, the UK assured Turks and Caicos and the world that new elections would be held in June 2011, restoring governance back to the people at that time. However, based on Saturday’s announcement and UK’s actions since taking governance of the islands, it is evident that the UK has no intention to return the islands’ autonomous constitution back to the people at any given time.

The corruption allegations, causing the UK’s take over, emerged from a small group of Turks and Caicos Islanders and expatriate who have since been revealed as a political group backed by a developer who reportedly has a grudge against the former premier over denied building development contracts and Crown land favors. This political activist group (TCI Journal and backers) accuse many developers in the islands of being corrupt while being financed by a competing developer. Their well orchestrated letters and complaints to the mother land (UK) of last year was admittedly designed to bring down the islands’ government with a goal to create better “fairness” (to namely Hartshorn).

The UK was all too eager to jump on board and support the claims of corruption (many anonymous) in Turks and Caicos by calling for a very bizarre one-sided inquiry that failed to explore the whistle blower’s motives and which documented a skewed perspective of foreign resort developers who duly invested in Turks and Caicos. The inquiry was also conducted by a known activist judge from the UK, Sir Robin Auld, who made sole determinations in the investigation and resulting inquiry.

Even more bizarre, the people’s right to trials by jury was abolished as to the entire Turks and Caicos population.

In Helen Garlick’s announcement Saturday, she states that in addition to Sir Robin Auld’s report, new and more far reaching charges will be explored and prosecuted. Ms. Garlick then made a most alarmingly statement following her vow of continued corruption inquiries: “I continue to encourage members of the public to contact us, if they have information that they wish to give, or if they have any concerns that they want to take up with us.”

To understand why these announcements by UK are particularly dangerous, it is necessary to explore police state regimes and their resulting oppressive powers over their citizens.

The term “police state” is described as an overpowering government implementing oppressive and repressive controls “over the social, economic and political life of the population … and … there is usually little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.”

The source of the totalitarian action, “is often established by an internal whistleblower or an external critic or activist group.”

In 1933, Nazi Germany adopted the Malicious Practices Act which called for ordinary citizens to volunteer information on citizens’ “suspected infringements of the letter or spirit of the laws”. This had a crucial role in the Nazi’s terrorizing citizens under Hitler’s dictatorship and gave particular power to those who were willing to report their neighbors. This cooperation, by means of the Nazi’s incentive to oppress citizens, by using threats of reports by other citizens, is called Nazi Denunciations.

According to Nazi historian Robert Gellately, these lessons from the past, “impel us to rethink … willingness, consent, and support when these concepts are applied to modern dictatorships.”

What is in it for the denouncers, besides power over the other citizens? Nazi’s took advantage of denouncers as these complainants usually had “selfish purposes” that could be politically exploited by the Nazis. The denouncers received a leveling or settling of a conflict or removal of the conflicting party to the complainant. “In all of these systems, citizens lost many of the traditional means for resolving conflicts, and soon adapted and relied on unmediated access to the means of coercion” and ultimately a fundamental loss of justice.

In addition, according to Gellately:
“In the last two decades, corruption has become a key concern throughout the world. Most of what we know about corruption comes from those instances in which misdeeds become public, usually generating a scandal. Why do some acts of corruption become corruption scandals and others do not? In addressing this question, this argues that scandals are not triggered by corruption per se, but that the emergence of corruption scandals is caused by political competition dynamics within the party or coalition in government. Government insiders leak information on misdeeds in order to gain power within the coalition or party in power.”

There is also sometimes a racial component to the totalitarian and supreme right over another culture. As in a more extreme example, in the case of Nazi Germany, governance was considered absolute and it reserved the highest power over, “Jewish and/or eastern workers” as Hitler was particularly racist of that group. But it is not uncommon for a totalitarian regime to exhibit prejudice over the group in which it feels supremecy over and thus forcibly takes governance. In the case of Turks and Caicos, the UK might have a special prejudice over an island culture that it could see as less sophisticated or worse.

This could explain the British’s take over of the island’s government and its “firing” of Belongers (Islanders) elected officials who might have influence over other Belongers.

In the United States, the government-sanctioned program called “Wetip” called for citizens to report child abuse; it has had similar problems. Wetip has been deeply criticized as it rewards citizens for helping a government by reporting crimes against each other. This was called denunciation because crime reports skipped usual reporting channels, and on the other hand motives and incentives were not called into question or investigated by the government.

In the Turks and Caicos, an oppressive UK regime has been proven. This is evidenced by UK’s initial use of denunciation and encouragement of denunciation of citizens going forward. This is particularly true because the complainants are rewarded with the removal of their offending party without an investigation into the complainants’ motives. The right to jury trials for the citizens have been taken, taking typical justice away from the citizens. Local government officials have been all but replaced entirely. Residents of Turks and Caicos are readily terrorized by the threat of denunciation by a group who has been exploited and incentivized to report “crimes” to the interim government. The usual process of justice is now easily foregone with this practice of denunciation labeling this island now as a police state with the denouncers as the terrorists working for the supreme and ultimate leader, the UK.

Helen Garlick article: http://www.suntci.com/index.php?p=story&id=545http://hsr-trans.zhsf.uni-koeln.de/hsrretro/docs/artikel/hsr/hsr1997_439.pdf
Although the was an implementer of violence and intimidation within the Nazi state 1933r
Balan, Manuel. “Competition by Denunciation: The Political Dynamics of Corruption Scandals in Argentina and Chile” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL, Apr 02, 2009 . 2009-11-10 
Historical Social Research, Vol. 22 – 1997 – No. 3/4, 228-239 
Denunciations and Nazi Germany: New Insights and 
Methodological Problems

Silvio Meier Demo in Friedrichshain 2009

Am Sonnabend dem 21.11.09 war es wieder soweit und die jährliche Silvio Meier Demo stand an. Die Demo stand unter dem Motto: gegen Nazis, gegen Gentrifizierung, gegen Polizeigewalt und gegen mediale Hetze. Wir gingen um 15.30 Uhr zur U-Bahn Samariterstraße an der die Demo beginnen sollte. Auf dem Weg dorthin sah man schon gleich das ganze Aufgebot der Berliner Polizei. Eine Bullenwanne nach der anderen parkte am Straßenrand. An der U-Bahn Station angekommen viel mir auf das die Polizei versuchte so ziemlich jeden Teilnehmer zu durchsuchen. Was das bringen sollte blieb mir doch ein wenig schleierhaft, denn der “Kontrollring” um die Demonstranten war sehr klein und es waren immer wieder große Lücken zu sehen. Ich stempelte diese Aktion unter reiner Schikane ab. Zu Beginn der Demo zogen die Polizei dann ganz ab und niemand wurde abgehalten seine Glasflaschen mitzunehmen. Es wirkte alles ein wenig unkoordiniert. Der Zug setzte sich in die Mainzerstr. in Gang und es ging über die Scharnweberstr. vorbei an der Kneipe “Amnesie”, die als eine Kneipe mit rechter Kundschaft bekannt sein soll. Diese Informationen bekam man von der Sprecherin aus dem Lautsprecherwagen. Von der Scharnweberstr. ging es dann in die Jessnerstr. und von dort wieder auf die Frankfurter Allee. An der Ecke Jessnerstr. Frankfurter Allee wurde vor der Großraumdisko “Jeton ” eine Kundgebung abgehalten. Diese Disko in Friedrichshain ist bekannt dafür das sich dort gerne Nazis und rechte Hooligans treffen und von dort aus Gewalttaten gegenüber Linken und Ausländer und Anderen durchführen. Aus der Disko heraus wurden der Demonstrationszug fotografiert. Weiter ging es zur Ecke Frankfurter Allee und Voigtstr. in der der Zug dann abgebogen ist. Wir mussten hier leider den Demozug verlassen, da mein Kollege einen kaputten Fuß hat und er Schmerzen hatte. Wir gingen zurück zum Ausgangspunkt und setzten uns ein wenig in unser Auto und der kaputte Fuß konnte sich ein wenig ausruhen. Nach ungefähr 45 Minuten gingen wir dann in Richtung Grünberger Str., Gabriel Max Straße und trafen den Demonstrationszug dort wieder. Hier bekamen wir mit, das es wohl schon einige Festnahmen gegeben haben soll und an er Ecke Simon-Dach Straße, Grünberger Straße wurde die Demonstration von den Veranstaltern dann aufgelöst. Ab jetzt zogen die Teinehmer alleine durch das Viertel und die Polizei war total von der Rolle. In kleinen Gruppen versuchte die Polizei die Teilnehmer daran zu hindern laut durch den Kiez zu ziehen. In Mitte der Niederbarnimstraße gab es dann die ersten Reibereien zwischen Demonstranten und der Polizei. Die Polizei versuchte zu verhindern das die Leute zu Frankfurter Allee durchkamen. Nur sie versuchten mit ca. 20 Schergen ca. 150 Menschen aufzuhalten. Das ging nach hinten los und sie mussten sich zurückziehen. Nachdem die Verstärkung da war gab es in der Boxhagener Straße Rangeleien zwischen Kleingruppen der Polizei und von Autonomen. Die Polizei schien mir völlig planlos denn sie liefen immer wieder in Kleingruppen durch die Gegend und man hatte das Gefühl sie wussten nicht was sie machen sollten. Irgendwann kam dann die “große” Verstärkung und wir gingen dann in Richtung unseres Autos.

Hier noch einige Fotos:

Mercedesul lui Adolf Hitler a fost cumpărat de un oligarh rus pentru câteva milioane de euro. Maşina făcea parte dintr-un parc de maşini folosit de liderul nazist pentru călătorii prin Europa în timpul războiului.

Maşina, model 770 K, făcea parte din colecţia unui german din Bielefeld, alături de alte şapte autovehicule folosite de liderii nazişti.

Michael Froehlich, dealer de maşini, a arătat că a ajuns la un acord cu un miliardar anonim care a achiziţionat şi celelalte automobile din colecţie.

Printre acestea se mai afla şi un Mercedes identic deţinut cândva de Joachim von Ribbentrop, ministrul nazist de Externe, spânzurat la Nuremberg .

După al Doilea Război Mondiali, maşina a ajuns în Austria, apoi la un muzeu din Las Vegas, pentru a se întoarce în Europa, la Munchen şi în fine la un colecţionar.

Publicaţiile germane scriu că pe aceasta s-ar fi plătit între 4 şi 10 milioane de euro.Sursa(Antena3.ro)

I was in Olympia, Washington driving towards Evergreen State College when I got a phone call from someone in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. An Evergreen graduate named Rachel Corrie had been killed a few days before by an Israeli soldier in an armored bulldozer, and someone with an Australian accent on my cell phone named Tom was wondering whether it was OK for the International Solidarity Movement to use the lyrics to a song I had just written about the incident on their website. Rachel’s murder was followed quickly by the murder of a British ISM activist named Tom Hurndall.

And now, almost six years to the day after the murder of Rachel Corrie, my friend and comrade Tristan Anderson has been critically injured by the IDF. He joins ISM activist Brian Avery, who was also shot in the face. Brian survived, seriously disfigured but otherwise intact. Tristan lies in a coma in a hospital near Tel Aviv and may or may not be as lucky as Brian. His brain was exposed by the tear gas canister fired at close range at his face, and as I write, large parts of his frontal lobe have had to be removed by the surgeons.

Rachel, Tom, Brian and Tristan join the ranks of the thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese civilians killed and the tens of thousands maimed by the IDF since 2000 alone. Being privileged foreigners (at least before they were killed or maimed), they did not have the opportunity to join the ranks of the millions of Palestinians and Lebanese who have been driven into desperate poverty, malnourishment and homelessness by the Israeli invasion and occupation of their lands.

There are many other contemporary and historical examples of genocidal regimes. A few of them – contemporary Turkey, Indonesia or, chiefly among them, the United States – lay claim to the notion that they are democratic countries. Others, such as Saddam’s Iraq, apartheid South Africa, and Nazi Germany also made such claims, but nobody believed them. It’s challenging to make comparisons between them, at least in terms of trying to figure out which one should deserve the title of Most Genocidal Regime. There are issues of scale, longevity and historical circumstances that make such judgements difficult. Other types of comparisons, though, are not only easy to make, but seem as unavoidable as the elephant in the living room.

It probably didn’t help that as the Israeli military was laying siege to the Gaza Strip two months ago I was on a tour of Australia, free from my responsibilities as a father and thus with more free time than I ever have when I’m home these days. I did then what I normally do in my free time – read. The book I happened to be reading at the time was one I had been meaning to read for decades, which I had just picked up at a book store during a visit to Canada – William Shirer’s 1,200-page tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. As Israel’s massive armored divisions and ultra-modern Air Force was laying waste to an already-occupied walled ghetto filled with nearly starving refugees armed with nothing more than rocks and the occasional small arms, mostly home-made, I was reading about the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The comparisons are not exact. At the height of what was then widely known as the Nazi Terror, in Auschwitz the SS killed thousands of Jews and Russians every day. No such gas chambers exist or have ever existed in Israel. But for those of you reading this who have not already decided that I am a self-loathing Jew or some kind of anti-Semite, I would like to share with you some of the streams of consciousness that were passing through my head as I was attending protests in Australia against the bombing of Gaza, in between the unavoidable visits to the ubiquitous Australian war memorials and the next chapter of Shirer’s history of Nazi Germany.

There I was, bearing witness to the siege of a walled ghetto already under occupation. There have been many sieges of cities over the centuries, but sieges of already-occupied walled ghettoes are far fewer, and for any student of history the similarities are obvious, the comparisons inevitable.

When I first visited Israel in 1999 I was struck by what a nation of trauma survivors it was. I was reminded immediately of my first visit to Ireland some years before, where the great famine that wiped out half the population over a century before seemed like it had happened perhaps a generation ago. In Israel the Nazi Holocaust seemed to have happened yesterday, and in the mindset of many Israelis it seemed as if it were carried out by Palestinians rather than Germans. I encountered anti-Arab racism daily in Israel. When I sang songs about the horrors of the sanctions against Iraq (around a half million Iraqi children dead as a direct result at that point according to UNICEF) I was told by middle-class, middle-aged Israeli folk music fans that killing Iraqi children was OK because they were just going to grow up to become terrorists anyway. I was told that “the Arab mindset” was hopelessly backwards and that They just wanted to “drive us into the sea.” (I even heard Israeli Jews refer to “Latin numerals” when it was clear from the context that they meant Arabic numerals – a Freudian slip I’m sure.)

Most of the Israeli Jews I met seemed confident of the historical persecution of Jews in the Middle East. Actual history bears no resemblance to their version of it, but this did not get in the way of their fantasies. It was in Europe where the Catholic Church and the Nazi movement carried out pogroms and built death camps, not in the Muslim world, but these Jews identified culturally with their European inquisitors, not with their historical Muslim and Christian friends with whom their Arab and Persian Jewish brethren had lived in peace for thousands of years.

And now after decades of the so-called “peace process” Israel’s new Foreign Minister openly advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Israel, for the driving out of the million or so Palestinians living within Israel’s 1948 borders. In this nation of survivors of the Nazi Terror, race laws reign supreme. There is one set of laws for Jews, and another set of laws for everyone else. As in Nazi Germany, “everyone else” is then divided into groups with relative privileges in comparison with each other (for example, “Israeli Arabs” vs. West Bank Palestinians vs. those condemned to live in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison and the most densely-populated place on Earth).

Like the Zionists, the Nazis also came to power on the backs of trauma and claims of victimhood. For decades, history has been written by the victors, so it is hard to imagine how well Hitler was able to sell the case to the German people (and to many others around the world) that Germany was a nation oppressed by their neighbors as well as by “the enemy within,” the Jews.

Millions of Germans had been slaughtered — along with millions of Russians, French, Brits, Australians, etc. — in the War to End All Wars (WWI). German Jews were disproportionately of a leftwing persuasion, and many of the leaders of the social democrats who signed the Treaty of Versailles were, in fact, Jewish. Thus the Jews could be blamed for Germany’s defeat (never mind the Kaiser’s imperial ambitions) and could also somehow be blamed for the devastating economic depression that followed it (never mind the fact that much of the rest of the world was also in the throes of a similarly devastating depression). The Nazi solution to the “Jewish problem” was to create a society based on racial laws that systematically discriminated against Jews, took away their property, prevented them from joining the military or doing any number of other jobs, drove them out of the country or into ghettoes around which the Nazis built walls, and then ultimately invaded many of the countries into which the Jewish refugees had fled, laid siege to the ghettoes, starving and ultimately killing most of the residents.

Fast forward a few years to 1948, to Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel’s father and others in the Zionist movement. The propaganda to try to encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine was that Palestine was a “land without a people for a people without a land,” but the Zionist movement actually on the ground in Palestine knew better. For them, the Palestinian people were all too real, and were an obstacle, a problem to be fixed through systematic, brutal ethnic cleansing. The Zionist movement in Palestine, followed by the State of Israel, dealt with the Palestinian problem (that is, the problem of the existence of Palestinians), by creating a society based on racial laws that systematically discriminated against Palestinians, took away their property, prevented them from joining the military, drove them out of the country or into ghettoes around which the Jews built walls, and then ultimately invaded many of the countries into which the Palestinian refugees had fled, laying siege to their cities, ghettoes and refugee camps, starving and killing thousands upon thousands of the residents, oftentimes in the form of wholesale slaughter that in some instances rivalled the intensity of the Nazi genocide.

The Irgun and other groups whom the British administrators of Palestine referred to as terrorists blew up buses full of Palestinian civilians, attacked Palestinian towns and cities with naval bombardment, laid siege to towns with tanks and automatic weapons on three sides in order to force the residents to flee. This is how the Zionist movement formed their state, this was the Israeli “war of independence.”

The Zionists who were flooding into Palestine and quickly changing the demographics of Palestinian society claimed they were being persecuted. There were many isolated incidents that could be called persecution, and many more incidents of Zionist settlers in pre-1948 Palestine persecuting the residents with whom they were sharing a country. By the same token, the Nazis made mostly baseless claims that German-speaking citizens of Poland and Czechoslovakia were being persecuted – the Germans were being persecuted and had to defend themselves by invading their neighbors. By the time the Nazis invaded and occupied France, and Britain finally decided to make good on its treaty obligations and fight fascism, the Nazis could – quite rightly – claim that they had been attacked by Britain. The Germans were the victims of Britain was the Nazi line.

Fast forward again to 1948. The Arab countries neighboring Palestine belatedly sent in a force to defend their fellow Arabs from the Zionists – a force that was numerically and militarily no match for the Zionist army and was quickly defeated. But in the annals of Zionist propaganda this was not Arabs coming to the defense of their brethren who were being slaughtered and driven from their land, it was an “unprovoked attack,” like the British assault on poor Germany. Like the Germans surrounded by hostile neighbors bent on keeping the Germans down, “the Arabs” wanted to “wipe Israel off the map.”

One of Hitler’s favorite methods of managing, at least in the Nazi-run press, of appearing to be the voice of reason in the face of his “war-mongering” European neighbors was to make a pretense of “peace negotiations” which were generally last-minute ultimatums that could be accepted or not without any actual negotiating at all. For example, Czechoslovakia (and its ostensible allies, Britain and France) was told it could give up the Sudetenland and other Czech territories and thus avert destruction at the hands of the German military. It actually acquiesced to all German demands (with the encouragement of Britain and France) and was annexed by Germany anyway, on the grounds that the Czechs were being unreasonable, that Czechs were terrorizing ethnic Germans within its borders, etc.

Similarly, the Israeli government regularly asserts that if countries like Syria and Lebanon and political movements like Hamas would only “recognize Israel’s right to exist” then there could be peace. The Arab states are consistently portrayed by Israel as the unreasonable parties, and any efforts on the parts of Arab countries to obey the will of the majority of their people and stand up to Israel’s daily theft of Palestinian land and slaughter of Palestinian people is portrayed by Israeli leaders as proof that they want to “wipe Israel off the map.” Yet when the Israeli government is asked the very simple question, where are your borders, no answer is forthcoming. Like Nazi Germany, the neighboring countries are expected to acquiesce to all Israeli demands or be portrayed as the aggressors. But how can any reasonable country be expected to recognize a nation that will not itself recognize its own borders? What is Israel, and where does it end and its neighbors’ lands begin? Also, on what grounds should Israel be recognized, when it is daily involved in violating all sorts of international laws, daily involved in theft and murder, daily involved with the subjugation of the Palestinian people, and refuses to give back land it took by force of arms from Lebanon and Syria?

Resistance to Nazi tyranny within Germany or in occupied countries was dealt with through incredible brutality. Entire families of dissidents would routinely be sent to concentration camps and often killed. If an occupation soldier was killed, collective punishment was the modus operandi of the Nazi regime. Oftentimes a hundred people in a village would be killed in retribution for the murder of one German soldier.

Similarly, whereas the families of partisans would be sent to the camps, the houses of the families of resistance fighters from the West Bank and Gaza are routinely destroyed. An attack on Israeli territory is routinely responded to (even when the attack itself was generally a response) with massively disproportionate collective punishment, including attacks by helicopter gunships on densely-populated areas where multiple families are killed in order to take out one Hamas or other political leader. Border closures resulting in loss of employment for hundreds of thousands are another routine Israeli response to any resistance to their occupation. Thousands of children and adults are routinely arrested and held indefinitely in Israeli prisons without ever being charged (in courts that are themselves illegitimate anyway). As in Nazi-occupied Europe, no Palestinian man or boy can ever be confident that he will not be dragged out of bed on any given night, taken from his home and arrested.

We are told by the Israeli government not to pay attention to the numbers, that proportionality doesn’t matter. There often seems to be a clear effort on the part of the IDF and its political leaders to kill a hundred Palestinians for every Israeli killed, as was the case in the most recent Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. If proportionality is irrelevant and morality has no numerical measure, then presumably it would be morally justifiable from the Israeli government perspective if a hundred Israelis were killed for every Palestinian the IDF shoots, but if such a thing were to happen we could be sure to hear from the Israelis all about Palestinian monstrousness, no doubt. This, however, is extremely unlikely ever to happen, since there is no Palestinian military, no Palestinian tanks, no Palestinian Air Force, etc. It’s jet fighters versus home-made bombs and ineffective “rocklets” that rarely hit any target.

The Nazis became famous for, among other things, developing methods of torture that make the Spanish Inquisition look humane. Israel has also excelled at developing new ways to cause horrible physical and emotional suffering to human beings. During the most recent Israeli “war” against Lebanon, among the many buildings demolished from the air was the old Khiam Prison in southern Lebanon. When I visited Lebanon in 2005 I toured the Khiam Prison, which was in an area abandoned by the Israelis in 2000 after years of fighting between the IDF, their Lebanese collaborators, and Hezbollah. In Khiam Prison one could see where the US military got its ideas for torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. There were specially-designed boxes just big enough for a man to kneel, far too small to stand up or lie down, in which men would be held for weeks at a time and subjected day and night to loud music, regularly taken out of their boxes to be beaten.

We are told by the Israelis that the massive civilian death toll among Palestinians is unavoidable, since Palestinian “terrorists” hide among the civilian population when they carry out their attacks on occupation soldiers. We are also told that the Palestinians are targeting civilians in the (now almost nonexistent) suicide attacks inside Israel. It’s an interesting form of two-faced logic, since the main form of transportation used by Israeli soldiers are public buses. This is abundantly obvious to anyone who takes a public bus in Israel. In this highly militarized society where most men and women over the age of eighteen are either active-duty soldiers or reservists, you can hardly find a public bus that is not transporting at least one uniformed soldier with a machine gun hanging off of his shoulder.

It’s also an interesting form of dual logic, since the ghetto fighters of Warsaw so justifiably revered by Israeli society were fighting entirely from civilian areas, since they were themselves civilians, fighting from and for their homes, armed with home-made or occasionally smuggled weapons, just like the Palestinian fighters today.

The Nazis found collaborators within the Jews of Warsaw, who became their Jewish Police, or Judenrat. Prior to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it was the Judenrat who arrested or rounded up Jews wanted by the Nazis, and brought them to the border of the ghetto, to be safely (for the Nazis) handed over, and generally sent to their deaths. Taking a page from this history, the Oslo “peace process” involved a dividing up of Palestinian territory into areas A, B and C. Area A is the downtown, or the area within the ghetto walls that now surround so many of the bombed-out shells that were once thriving Palestinian towns and cities. Area A is the part that Israelis have generously allowed to be policed by Fatah, which has increasingly become, in the eyes of many Palestinians, Israeli collaborators. Israel regularly invades Area A parts of the West Bank whenever it wants to, but otherwise it tries to get the Fatah police to do their policing for them.

Hamas, which refuses to go along with the program, is then painted as a terrorist group that simply must be wiped out, because they doggedly refuse to be collaborators. Like the Jewish Fighting Organization (the ZOB was their Polish acronym) in Warsaw, Hamas does not deal gently with collaborators or with the Israeli occupation forces. Facing impossible, overwhelming odds and essentially certain death, Hamas does what they can to mount some kind of a resistance to the Israeli Terror. ZOB fighters referred to themselves as the “walking dead.” Like the ZOB and other valiant resistance groups throughout the history of every continent, Hamas also embraces martyrdom. Embracing martyrdom is often painted by Israelis and others as some kind of peculiar trait of “Islamic fundamentalists,” which is ridiculous and completely ahistorical, as well as an insult to the memory of the very ghetto fighters in Warsaw who helped inspire the Zionist state in the first place.

Hitler loved to portray his “Aryan” soldiers as icons of morality and good behavior, which of course was nonsense. Like the IDF, the German soldiers fought very well and bravely, especially from the inside of a tank. And like the IDF, who are also widely viewed within Israel as the world’s most moral army, the German soldiers consistently engaged in acts of sadism against civilians throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. And like the IDF, they were almost never punished for such acts.

Reminders of the sadism that permeates the Israeli military are never far away, and are often described most eloquently by former occupation soldiers who turned against their commanders in the Knesset. (Thankfully, there are many such soldiers. Unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough of them to make a difference.) The tendency of IDF soldiers to shoot children in the head with live ammunition is well-known and well-documented.

I vividly recall the outrage of many of my Jewish Israeli fans when Ariel Sharon “visited” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, along with hundreds of soldiers, prompting some stone-throwing from local Palestinian youths, to which the soldiers responded with live ammunition, killing many, leading to the Al-Aqsa Intifada and thousands more deaths, overwhelmingly of Palestinian children.

My fans weren’t outraged at Sharon, however, they were outraged at me for writing my first of a series of songs about the Israeli occupation, “Children of Jerusalem.” What many people took particular offense to was the line about the general (Sharon) grinning. They told me this couldn’t be accurate, because IDF soldiers carried out their duties with a grim sense of necessity, never enjoying the killing of the kids who were always shot because they were in the way of the ubiquitous “Palestinian gunmen” who were always firing first, at the poor defenseless tanks which for some reason were in the middle of their cities. For my outrageous accusations they called me a fascist and all sorts of other things.

But unfortunately they’re wrong. The soldiers often are grinning. Like the smirking soldier who was standing in the ambulance that was trying to transport Tristan Anderson to the hospital just a few days ago, refusing to move to allow the medics to close the door. Tristan was only one of a multitude of victims of the Israeli Terror, and this sadistic soldier was only one of many other sadistic Israeli soldiers obeying the whims of a government run by sadistic, racist men and women.

Israel bears many of the hallmarks of a fascist regime. What’s more, it is, like Nazi Germany, a very popular regime among its people. Like Nazi Germany, it is justly reviled by people around the world, but actively supported by so many of its people. Like Nazi Germany, governments and corporations around the world prefer to profit from trading with it rather than standing up to it and isolating it. Like Nazi Germany, it is dependent on the outside world for food, fuel and other basic necessities of life.

Unlike Nazi Germany, Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons. Unlike Nazi Germany, Israel is not going to be defeated militarily. But it can be defeated if the people of the world – especially in the US — pressure their governments to recognize Israel for the aggressive, racist state that it fundamentally is and has been since 1948, cut off the aid and impose trade sanctions of the sort that were imposed on South Africa under apartheid. The beginning of the process of isolating this small country from the world community that allows it to prosper is to educate people about the true nature of Zionism.

The Middle East has been and must be shared by Muslims, Christians and Jews as it was since long before the Zionist armies expelled 700,000 Palestinians from their lands in 1948. Nothing, including the Nazi Holocaust, justifies what has been done and, most importantly, continues to be done to the Palestinians. The time is long since past to call the Jewish state out for the fundamentally racist regime that it is. In the name of the ghetto fighters of Warsaw, let us strive to see a world where no one needs to die with a stone in their hand trying to defend a starved, walled ghetto against an army of tanks and planes, where people like Tristan don’t need to have their brains blown out for trying to prevent a wall from being built around yet another ghetto.

David Rovics is a singer/songwriter, father, and occasional essayist based in Portland, Oregon.  His website is http://www.davidrovics.com