Andrew Feinstein, Israel's fascist government, Starmer, Gaza, Apartheid, Arms Trade, WWIII

Andrew Feinstein, Israel's fascist government, Starmer, Gaza, Apartheid, Arms Trade, WWIII

https://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2023/10/26/not-the-bcfm-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-163/

Einstein’s nightmare: the fascist politicians wielding power in Israel 

Likud’s corrupt, ultra-nationalist chauvinists are driving genocide in Gaza – as anticipated by 1940s Jews horrified by contemporary events in Israel, writes Andrew Feinstein
3 November 2023

5 to 6 minute read
A close up image of a white man in a suit, Netanyahu, holding arms aloft against a blue background

In December 1948, a group of prominent US Jews, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, wrote a letter to the New York Times expressing concern over the emergence of ‘The Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut) in the newly-created state of Israel.

The letter highlighted that the party was formed out of ‘a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organisation in Palestine’. It described Tnuat Haherut as ‘closely akin in its organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties’.

As their letter details, Tnuat Haherut preached ultra-nationalism and racial superiority. Its leader, Menachem Begin, was involved in the massacre of 240 men, women and children in the village of Deir Yassin. The letter predicted :‘from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.’

Today, as Israel continues to pound Gaza – dropping more bombs in six days than in the entire 2014 conflict; killing more children in three weeks than killed globally in all conflicts over any year since 2019 – it is clear that horrific future is upon us. It has been upon us from the establishment of the State of Israel, a settler-colonial project that required the forced removal and elimination of millions of inhabitants of historic Palestine. 

Since then, Israel has pursued a process of entrenched apartheid and an illegal and brutal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). What is happening now feels very much like a second Nakba, in which Israel’s current Likud government has decided to undertake the ethnic cleansing of Gaza in order to realise their vision of Greater Israel. 
The future is now

Tnuat Haherut was a fore-runner of Likud, which was also founded by Begin, who became Prime Minister in 1977 while leading the party. The Likud leader since 1993, Binyamin Netanyahu, has instincts not dissimilar to Begin’s: ultra-nationalist, genocidal, chauvinistic and fascist – with an added element of systemic and personal corruption on a scale that dwarfs his many corrupt predecessors.

Netanyahu’s corruption is evident not only in the well-documented cases of receiving excessive gifts and benefits and ‘buying’ favourable media coverage, but also in massive arms deals involving bribes on a far larger scale.

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/global-politics/palestine-middle-east/einsteins-nightmare-the-fascist-politicians-wielding-power-in-israel/