Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and expediency

Rachel Maddow’s new book Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism is a gripping tale of Nazi machinations in America in the lead-up to and during the second world war. In the first few pages, I learned I had already read most of the books she referenced in this work. But I did not stop because I wanted to see where it would go and the brilliant writer she is, she truly sticks the landing.

In the middle of granular details, one thing that stands out is the similarity between the product of the Nazi effort in those days and the realities of today. From the ‘Unite the Right’ rally to the January 6 attack and the casual dismissal of these assaults as minor disagreements by some on the right everything rings a bell. And Nazism is one evil that somehow refuses to die. What could be the cause of it?

One explanation would be that Goebbels’ influence campaign, coupled with the traumatic times the world was passing through, became so successful that it still haunts our lives. But I am loath to give a deeply flawed man more blame or credit than he deserves. That’s my conclusion after reading Goebbels: A Biography by Peter Longerich. Maddow brings up another explanation. That, unlike Europe’s Nazis, their American version did not have to face any Nuremberg-like consequences because everyone was in a forgive-and-forget mood. Not to mention, explicit racists like George Kennan were in great haste to lay the foundation of the Cold War.

It must be remembered that in the former British colonies, anyone who confronted their oppressors could be mistaken for a hero. The Indian subcontinent lionised Hitler. It is getting harder and harder to convince Indians why Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s close association with Hitler makes his legacy hard to celebrate. Likewise, Inayatullah Mashriqi’s meeting with Hitler was nothing to crow about. And then there was the matter of one Savitri Devi Mukherji née Maximiani Julia Portaz, the so-called Hitler’s priestess, who resented the Christian-led egalitarianism so much in Europe that she traveled to India, converted to Hinduism and ended up radicalising generations of Hindu rightwing leaders some 90 years ago. In the current Hamas-Israel conflict a Pakistani senator, who should have known better, tweeted out Hitler’s picture ostensibly in solidarity with Palestinians.

When Hamas butchered over a thousand Israeli citizens, mostly unarmed civilians, on October 7, it was confident that as the war progressed tribalism would normalise this condemnable act. It is noteworthy to mention here that Islam strictly prohibits the murder of civilians even in war. The attack came with an almost too convenient pre-designed narrative. It was called Hamas’ desperate attempt to block the Saudi-Israel normalisation effort. But as you will see later Hamas was not the only side bound to lose relevance in case of such normalisation.

And Benjamin Netanyahu’s response was predictably typical. In the past thirty years since he assumed the leadership of the Likud party Bibi Netanyahu has made his career out of exploiting Islamophobia and paranoia. Likewise, since 1986 when he compiled a book on terrorism, his addiction to the term is worth noting. If you want to know why it is difficult to digest the Hamas attack as an intelligence surprise you need to read The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Antony Loewenstein or Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud or even Ronen Bergman’s brilliant Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations.

In the past year, Bibi has put together a coalition of Israel’s far right, in the name of national security and paranoia. Israel’s defence was its raison d’etre. But when the real attack came the government was caught snoozing. So what does Bibi do? He quotes 1 Samuel 15:3 from the Bible, calls Palestinians ‘Amalek’, justifies the murder of women, children, even animals, and instead of rescuing the Israeli hostages through very capable intelligence operatives launches airstrikes and then ground assault on Gaza’s civilian population. And the ostensible objective is deliberately kept as vague as the destruction of Hamas. How can an invasion of Gaza achieve that when its leadership is sitting abroad?

While the Western media since then keeps showcasing the murdered Israelis, the media in the Muslim world relaxes its code of conduct and inundates viewers with pictures of brutally murdered Palestinian children.

Let’s go back a little. Netanyahu doesn’t mind anti-Semitism in the Muslim world or the West. In fact, it serves him well. In the Muslim world, it may revive terrorism which would justify his Islamophobia. In the West, growing hate towards Jews forces them to abandon their comfortable lives in the developed world and move to a warzone offering more cannon fodder for his settler expansionism, territorial wars and electoral machinations. Locally too Hamas and Bibi keep each other in power. Every time he is struggling in politics along comes a barrage of missiles from Gaza. This time too the first Israelis killed were likely anti-Bibi liberals and moderates and not his fanatic supporters.

In fact, he has sponsored a malicious campaign against Jewish moderates like George Soros, the ADL, and civil liberties organisations like the SPLC. He has built partnerships with card-carrying anti-Semites among America and Europe’s hard right in exchange for their support of Israel and his own politics. Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer calls his son Yair “our favourite Jew”. After Bibi undermined Obama in 2015, his surrogates threw their weight behind Trump in the vain hope that he would rekindle the fire of Islamophobia from the dying embers of terrorism-related paranoia. Trump speechwriter and political advisor Steve Miller was a Bibi plant. But once Trump came to power he killed ISIS leadership, ended the war on terror, and brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab countries. This would have put an end to Netanyahu’s politics of hate and paranoia making him redundant. He went along with the plan until he could dump Trump and then jettison the whole deal. And in case you think Hamas is not helping just look at some of its recent statements. When it became clear that the pro-ceasefire protests in the West included countless Jewish protesters too and Netanyahu surrogates could not smear them as Hamas supporters, it issued a statement encouraging such protests to immediately provide Bibi supporters the material for anti-peace propaganda. No, Bibi and Hamas are joined at the hip. Why are you surprised? An extremist is another extremist’s best friend.

This sibling rivalry between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam could work well for the politics of their extremist fringes. But it also unlocks their common enemy, the worst hounds of hell, the neo-Nazis. To an average neo-Nazi racist who wants to revert to the pre-Christian West, Islam is an enemy because it is an extension of Christianity, and Christianity an extension of Judaism. All our children will suffer in the end.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2023.

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