Tag: Nazi

Israel Invokes the Holocaust

~ The Koboi Project

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, donned the despicable yellow star that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis to mark them out as such in Aryan society. After saying “From now on my team and I will wear Yellow Stars”. He stood up to put on his star, sat down again, and said, “We will wear this star until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.” The original yellow star had the word ‘Jude’ emblazoned across its center, while the ambassador and his delegation donned stars that said, ‘Never Again’. The Irony of this political theatre at the UN is that the Holocaust had already been invoked in the mediain a comparison with the contemporary Israeli persecution of Palestinians. Palestinian American celebrity Mohamed Hadid made a much maligned repost of a meme on X which itemised the 6 congruities between Israel and the Nazis . Hadid was accused of antisemitism and eventually removed his post. I have restated the correlations presented in the meme below –
1. an ideology/nationality based on racial supremacy,
2. the forced transfer of populations,
3. containment within ghettos and concentration camps,
4. the use of language to dehumanize,
5. collective punishment and
6. genocide by industrial means.

Image: https://staging-beta.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2023/10/31/israel-envoy-wears-yellow-star-at-un/

https://www.firstpost.com/world/staying-silent-in-face-of-evil-israel-envoy-to-un-vows-to-wear-yellow-star-until-un-condemns-hamas-atrocities-13323472.html

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/tierin-rose-mandelburg/2023/10/30/deport-him-bella-gigi-hadids-dad-roasted-comparing

The Morality of the Concentration Camp

~ The Koboi Project

In a moving and stunningly clarifying interview with Chris Hedges, Middle East scholar, Norman Finkelstein gives a historical and personal lesson about the morality of oppression. He locates the meaning of terrorism and the targeting of civilians within the context of genocide and ethnic cleansing, he refers to the Slave Revolts of Nat Turner and John Brown, as well as his own parent’s experiences of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and of Nazi concentration camps.

He contextualizes the acts of terror committed against civilians by HAMAS in terms of the traumatic spiritual and psychological conditions, the despondency and rage, of living in occupied Gaza. He cites Fredric Douglas and W. E, B. Du Bois (on John Brown’s killing of civilians) and, particularly, William Lloyd Garrison (on the killing of innocents in the Nat Turner Rebellion), all three of whom refused to condemn the brutal rebellions against the humiliations, degradations, and physical assaults of slavery. He also quotes his mother, whom he holds to be a deeply moral person, about her thoughts about the millions of German civilians who died in the Allied terror bombings of World War II. She said, “Our feeling was if we’re going to die, we’re going to take some of them with us.”

Describing Gaza as a “Concentration Camp” Finkelstein declares, “You want me to apply moral categories, condemn? … I’ll describe my reaction. I will acknowledge by a dictionary definition that it constituted a very large atrocity. That’s a dictionary definition, and it’s accurate. However, when you want me to apply a moral category to what happened, you lose me … I won’t do it!”

26. 10 2003 update: 7,028 people killed by air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-death-toll-names-killed-released-biden-questions

Ukraine: Oliver Stone’s View

~ The Koboi Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iaUWtbE0Os

In this important overview of the historical divisions in Ukraine that have evolved into the present invasion by Russia. Oliver Stone explores and explains Ukraine’s legacy of nazism – the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Stephan Bandera, Mykola Lebed, Dmytro Dontsov, and the imbrication of the neo-nazi movement in contemporary Ukrainian politics. This fascist tendency in Ukraine is represented by figures and organizations like Oleg Tyagnibok, Svaboda, Dimitry Yarosh, Trizub, The Right Sector, Andriy Parubiy, and the Social-National Party (SNPU).

Particularly revealing is Stone’s explication of the USA’s involvement in fostering and instrumentalizing these far-right nationalist forces in their war against the Soviet Union during the cold war and, even after perestroika, against Russia. Stone presents abundant evidence of these machinations, during the Euromaidan revolution, including the infamous phone call between the US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Victoria Nuland, and the US ambassador.to Ukraine.- ‘Fuck the EU’! Another important revelation in this documentary is the nature and extent of rupture between Ukraine and and its Russian citizens in the East and the South.. There is, it seems, a civil war taking place, one that has been downplayed by the mainstream Western media.

Ukraine on Fire is the first of two documentaries directed by Igor Lopatonok and produced by Oliver Stone on the emerging situation in Ukraine.

It’s Time to be Clear 6

~ The Koboi Project

Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’ Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia are the 7 regimes that Laurence W. Britt analyzed to develop his set of fascistic characteristics. Like Umberto Eco before him, he came up with 14 key characteristics, which he construed as fascist and proto-fascist means of obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. He presented this list in an Op-Ed titled Fascism Anyone? in Volume 23, No. 2 Spring 2003 of ‘Free Inquiry’ as follows –
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

While, as Daniel Malmer notes this list was not intended to be used to diagnose fascism in present governments, but rather characterize historical fascist governments, it is nevertheless interesting to see how many of these fascistic characteristic apply to the purported democracies of the world.

As a Malaysian, I find that the polity of my country seems to exhibit a good 11 of the Britt’s 14 traits. If this were not worrying enough for the long view, we have just joined a list of dysfunctional nations that have suspended parliamentary rule and instituted emergency powers in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic. This is the first such declaration of emergency since the aftermath of the race riots of May 13th 1969.

According to Bloomberg, the state of emergency was declared soon after some key leaders in the ruling coalition’s largest partner, United Malays National Organisation had called for a fresh election. They also report that the Pakatan Harapan opposition has admonished the Prime Minister for burdening the people with a declaration of emergency for the sake of saving himself. Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs has described the emergency as “totally unnecessary” and that “If you’re not careful, we will slip from parliamentary democracy into a rule by diktat.”

https://secularhumanism.org/2003/03/fascism-anyone/

https://medium.com/@danielmalmer/the-long-complicated-history-of-the-14-defining-characteristics-of-fascism-e366412932f

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2021-01-12/malaysia-pm-says-it-s-not-a-coup-but-critics-see-a-power-grab