Zionists become Holocaust deniers

AT PENPOINT

One of the most interesting dimensions of the Israeli genocide in Gaza has been how Israel, or rather the international Zionist lobby backing it, has developed ties with the far-right in the West. This is strange, for all of these organizations have views which would be described by Zionists as anti-Jewish.

One telltale has come from the Holocaust survivors who have spoken out against the genocide, saying, “Not in our name.” This is in clear reference to the use of the Holocaust by Zionists to justify the Zionists state’s slaughter of Gazans.

It is worth noting that the Holocaust is one of the points of friction between Zionists and the far-right. The Zionists claim that during World War II, the Nazi regime killed six million Jews after herding them into concentration camps. Holocaust deniers claim it didn’t happen. The historical consensus is that while the six million figure is probably too high, at least 4.5 million and more like 5 million, were killed. The dead were not all Jew, but included Gipsies, gays, people with disabilities, communists and other opponents of Nazi-ism. The vast majority, at least four million, were indeed Jewish, but there were hundreds of thousands of others.

The far-right are usually Holocaust-deniers. The neo-Nazi movement is more often than not strong in their ranks. One ends up with someone like Donald Trump, who enjoys support from neo-Nazis, but also from Zionists, and who has a Jewish son-in-law whom he appointed a special envoy to the Middle East.

At this point, it is worth distinguishing between Jews and Zionists. A Zionist is one who believes that there should be a special homeland for Jews, where anyone who can prove that his mother was Jewish, can return and automatically obtain citizenship.

Zionism was born out of the pogroms of the later 19th century in the Russian Empire, and was strengthened by the granting after World War I of independence to several nations which had been part of the defeated Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. After the last Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, had refused to give Palestine to the World Zionist Congress, and after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I, Britain took (as a UN mandate) Palestine, while France took Syria and Lebanon. This was in pursuance of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, an agreement between France and the UK on how the Ottoman Empire was to be divided up. The UK gave Jews a free hand to change the demography, but not enough Jews were enthusiastic enough to make the aaliyah, or ‘return’ to Israel.

The problem is not hatred for Palestinians or Arabs, but all Muslims. The coming together of Israeli rightists with other rightists has allowed them to make common cause against Muslims, but it has also placed Auschwitz survivors on the same side as Holocaust deniers.

Thus when the British left in 1948, the Zionists who took over had to make sure that the people of the land disappeared. Thus ensued An-Nakba, the Catastrophe, in which about 350,000 to 400,000 people were expelled from their homes, with many killed. Interestingly, Israel is the world’s only state which promotes one denial, Nakba Denial (which claims that any Palestinians who left, did so voluntarily), while excoriating another, Holocaust Denial.

One of the commonalties between Zionists and the far-right come from the figure of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Mufti Amin Al-Hussaini. Facing a rising tide of Jews making the aaliyah, he started making overtures to the Nazis, which culminated in a visit to Germany in 1943, when he met Hitler. According to some Israelis, he was briefed about the Final Solution, and is supposed to have expressed his approval.

Though a small icon, he is still one among the far-right. He was clearly following the policy of ‘An enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Hitler was anti-British, so clearly Al-Husseini would favour him. It is not clear if al-Husseini realised the impetus Hitler was giving the Zionists by his persecution of Jews, which before the War had gone from his apologists saying that his anti-Jewish rhetoric was merely rhetoric, to the Nuremberg Laws which deprived Jews of German citizenship among other things.

Hitler had other admirers, including Indian leaders opposed to the British, like Allama Inayatullah Mashriqi of the Khaksar Tehrik, and V.D. Savarkar, the founder of the RSSS. Interestingly, the main anti-British parties, the Congress and the Muslim League, were never pro-Nazi, unless one is to count Maulana Zafrullah Khan, who merged his Neeliposh party into the Muslim League, while Khan Abdul Ghaffar’s Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgars or Surkhposh were allied to the Congress. The adoption of a particular colour was noteworthy, for the original Italian Fascists wore Blackshirts and the Nazis wore Brownshirts.

However, if indeed Al-Hussaini did what he is supposed to, Zionists should not criticize him, because of the closeness they are developing with Holocaust deniers and Nazi sympathizers. Perhaps the best symbol of this was Elon Musk, one of Trump’s leading supporters in 2024. When Trump won, Musk did a Nazi salute to the watching crowd. Not only Trump is a vocal Israel supporter, but so is Musk, having been feted in Israel when he visited.

Musk is not the only Nazi sympathizer Israel seems cool with. Gert Wilders was the most prominent European, though perhaps behind Marine Le Pen of France or Niigel Farage of the UK. More mainstream, there is of course Donald Trump,  Then there is Imran Khan, whose brother-in-law Zac was the 2016 Tory mayoral candidate for London, and is not only of Jewish origin but a well-known Zionist.

It is worth noting that there are Christian Zionists as well as anti-Zionist Jews. Both support or oppose Israel for theological reasons. Christian Zionists hold that the creation of Israel, and the coming of all Jews there, is necessary to the Second Coming of Christ.  The anti-Zionist Jews, on the other hand, hold that the Jewish state will be created after the coming of the Messiah. Muslims do not believe in any Jewish state before or after the Second Coming.

Indeed, because of the way Palestinians have been treated, Muslims are generally anti-Zionist. Their theology inclines them to having Al-Aqsa Mosque under Muslim control, and the Accord of Umar is generally mentioned, in which Jerusalem was duly surrendered by the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem to the Caliph Umar in person. The terms were renewed when Salahuddin Ayyubi took the city back from the Crusaders six and half centuries later.

Israel was a Zionist construct, and may well not have happened if Hitler’s Holocaust had not created the public opinion in the West enabling it. Though Zionism originated in Europe, among East European Jews, because so many sought refuge there from the pogroms, Israel is still dominated by East European-origin Jews who went there from the USA. From the USA also comes racism. That combines with Islamophobia to give Zionists common cause with the far right.

Zionists were originally on the left, and it is not for nothing that the Labour Party not only formed its first government, but remained in power for almost 30 years. Then the right hit back, with Netanyahu, who has been PM for 18 of the last 30 years. He is one of those few national leaders who was in office before 9/11.

Since then, Islamophobia has risen, not just in the West but in India and Israel too. The problem is not hatred for Palestinians or Arabs, but all Muslims. The coming together of Israeli rightists with other rightists has allowed them to make common cause against Muslims, but it has also placed Auschwitz survivors on the same side as Holocaust deniers.