International context while Israel begins its ground operation against Gaza City.
International context while Israel begins its ground operation against Gaza City.
By Mohamed Sabreen, from Cairo / Egypt
Western countries have witnessed a state of chaos, confusion, and attempts to cover up and justify the unjustifiable. The genocide in Gaza has stripped away all Western masks, leaving governments and supporters of Israel in a miserable state as they try to explain the secret behind their support for a fascist state and a Nazi ruling group in Israel, which commits war crimes and is wanted by the International Criminal Court. Israel’s dirty operations have exposed the West’s complicity. Amid this chaos, German Chancellor Merz made matters worse when he brazenly declared that Israel is carrying out its dirty operations on our behalf. Meanwhile, a wave of condemnations and denunciations of the crimes of genocide, starvation, and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Israeli entity against the Palestinian people has erupted. At the same time, an earthquake has struck the arena of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with a succession of recognitions or promises of recognition of the Palestinian state issued by 150 Western and international countries, most of which are permanent sponsors of Israel and its Zionist project in the region. This is an unprecedented development since the beginning of the conflict eight decades ago. This is a strategic shift in the landscape that will have repercussions in the coming days and confrontations. Strangely, Western recognition of a Palestinian state came very late, and sometimes burdened with conditions that are difficult to swallow and digest. This has led many observers to view what is happening with skepticism and suspicion, even accusations of ambushes and traps, invoking the “conspiracy theory.”
Repeated lies by supporters
An Italian proverb says, “If a man deceives me once, it’s not my fault, but it’s my fault if he deceives me twice.” We have witnessed the far-right Israeli government, and its army deceive Western politicians and journalists since the October 7 attack—not once, not twice, but several times. There are many lies and distortions to be tracked down, including the story of the forty children beheaded by Hamas, which “did not happen.” There was no hideout under Al-Shifa Hospital, and the list hanging on the wall of Al-Rantisi Hospital did not list the names of those held by Hamas, but merely the days of the week in Arabic. Many wonder about the atrocities that Israeli forces vociferously denied committing, but were later found responsible. According to them, there are “examples of this, such as the flour massacre in February, the bombing of the refugee convoy last October, and the white phosphorus attack in southern Lebanon also in October.” But “no Israeli lie is more harmful, destructive, and deadly than the claim that UNRWA and its employees colluded with Hamas and participated in the October 7 attack.” UNRWA is the main organization responsible for providing aid in Gaza. Mehdi Hassan asks in an article in the British Guardian, “Which is worse: Israel’s lies about Gaza or its Western backers who repeat them?” He poses another question, “Why was UNRWA’s lie the most damaging?” He answers by saying, “It helped deepen a devastating and ongoing man-made famine inside the Gaza Strip.”
As a result, 16 donor countries, including the United States, UNRWA’s main funder, suspended approximately $450 million in aid to the agency. He adds that “Israel starved the people of Gaza,” criticizing “the idiots who helped it justify this.” Hassan explains that donors were warned that the Israeli dossier against UNRWA contained nothing but “weak and unsubstantiated allegations.” Worst of all, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted on January 29 that “the United States did not have the capacity to investigate the allegations itself.” Despite this, Washington went on to describe the unverified Israeli allegations as “highly credible.” Blinken has yet to apologize for or retract his false claim. Several countries have resumed their funding to UNRWA, including the German government, the agency’s second-largest source of funding, after an independent review concluded that the agency’s work “remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian assistance and essential social services.” Hassan asserts that the independent review stated that Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence for these allegations, so it was again “a lie by Israel.”
Dirty Work for the West
After Israel launched its attack on Iran in the early hours of June 13, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Israel was doing “dirty work… for all of us,” meaning the entire West. Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, agreed, saying that Merz accurately described the reality of the Middle East. This is because Israel has become a brutal power, and thanks to the West’s unlimited support, it has become embroiled in occupation and discrimination and is now experiencing a reversal reminiscent of dark periods in history. But what did the German Chancellor mean by this provocative statement? This is the question that Odeh Bisharat, writing in Haaretz, analyzed to understand its significance and implications. Basharat, a Palestinian journalist from the Arab community of Israel, says he turned to Google and found no Israeli public figure who disagreed with Meretz’s opinion. He wondered, “Is this the state that the persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe dreamed of? Is this the fate that befalls a people who are supposed to be ‘a free people in their land,’ as the Israeli national anthem puts it?” He expected Meretz’s statement to spark an ideological, political, and moral storm over the role he assigned to Israel as the tip of the West’s spear against the East. Why was Israel chosen to play this role? Basharat wondered, saying that Meretz summarized in a few words that what the West wants from Israel is for it to be the contractor that carries out the West’s dirty work. The West, after all, doesn’t want to get its hands dirty if Israel is willing, even enthusiastic, to do the job for it.
Hunger Made in Germany
Suddenly, there were pictures of emaciated children, with their hollow eyes and sunken faces. Finally, the pictures of Gaza reached a wide segment of German public opinion. Not only on Twitter, but also in major dailies and news bulletins. Amid a wave of widespread criticism within Germany, the German government stands idly by despite its significant political influence. Writer Jannis Hegman believes that Berlin is now called upon to take action to stop this inhumane catastrophe. However, Germany has not taken this seriously. On the contrary, the federal government has continued to support Israel’s policy of “starving” Gaza by continuing to export weapons. Hunger in Gaza now bears the imprint of “Made in Germany,” a slogan by which Germany is known worldwide, alongside BMW cars and the Bayern Munich club.
Disagreements within Germany
What is less well known internationally is that Germany is witnessing an escalating domestic debate, with voices critical of the war rising. The parliamentary bloc of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner in the ruling coalition, has called for an end to the war and the suspension of the EU partnership agreement with Israel. Even within the Foreign Ministry, led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a kind of internal protest has begun to take shape. Around 130 diplomats, mostly young, have united to pressure Foreign Minister Johann Wadebühl to change course, in an unusual move. Der Spiegel magazine described the move as a “rebellion within the Foreign Ministry.” A large segment of the German public, especially after Trump’s absurd statement about turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the complete blockade of Gaza, has realized the nature of the partnership between Trump and Netanyahu. However, this shift in German public opinion and policy has not translated into concrete action. The current government, like its predecessor, appears like a dog that doesn’t know whether to follow its master or its master: on the one hand, there is the concept of “Staatsräson,” or “Israel’s security is a supreme interest for Germany,” which is misunderstood as blind solidarity; on the other, there is a random war that has led to tens of thousands of deaths and a deliberate starvation crisis. The German government must halt arms exports to Israel as long as the starvation and senseless killings continue. Israel relies on military imports from Germany, which constitute approximately 30% of its total arms imports, making Germany the second-largest supplier to the Israeli military after the United States. This is no small amount of influence.
Illegal Permits
Germany is one of the largest arms suppliers to Israel, and this is unlikely to change under Meretz. Lilian Löwenbrock of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights says that politicians and manufacturers could face charges of aiding and abetting the commission of international crimes.
South Africa has filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention. In March 2024, Nicaragua filed another lawsuit against Germany, accusing it of violating the same convention and international humanitarian law due to its arms exports to Israel. Several individuals from Gaza also began challenging German export permits before German administrative courts in March 2024.
All this may have contributed to the temporary decline, but last fall, the situation changed dramatically, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz clearly announced that Germany had delivered and would deliver weapons to Israel.
Type of Weapons
According to available information, no approvals have been granted for the export of military weapons to Israel since February 2024, but rather under the category of “other weapons material.” Military weapons are weapons classified under German law, such as tanks, anti-tank missiles, bombs, and certain types of ammunition. “Other weapons material” may be components of military weapons, such as tank transmissions or software used in drones. Germany argued in the Nicaragua case that 98 percent of its approvals concern this type of material, as if it were not dangerous, even though a tank’s transmission, for example, is a critical component of warfare. International legal obligations apply to both war weapons and other armaments. The War Weapons Control Act requires that a permit be denied if there is reason to believe that granting a permit would violate Germany’s international obligations or jeopardize them. Despite the difficulties, political decision-makers who grant illegal arms export permits can be prosecuted if they are found to have aided the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, either through Germany’s International Crimes Act or at the international level in the International Criminal Court. These include members of the Federal Security Council, such as the German Chancellor, and the ministers of economy, foreign affairs, and defense. Executives of arms companies can also be held accountable for aiding the commission of international crimes.
A Special Case
Israel is a special case because its conduct of the war in Gaza has been assessed and legally criticized by numerous organizations and experts since October 7, 2023. The United Nations warned of the risk of genocide and called for a halt to arms exports to Israel. The International Court of Justice found a reasonable risk that Israel was violating the Genocide Convention. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Galant. Yet, surprisingly, the German government continues to publicly support continued arming of Israel. Merz has stated that he will find ways to receive Netanyahu in Germany without being arrested, indicating that military support for Israel will not only continue, but may even increase.
Not the End of the Principle of the Higher Interest
German Chancellor Merz has announced a halt to the supply of weapons to Israel that could be used in the Gaza Strip. Critics accuse him of abandoning Israel. However, this halt may have little effect. Bild reported that Merz made this decision almost alone, and that all of his party members expressed their lack of understanding of it. Merz announced the decision in response to Netanyahu’s plan to occupy Gaza City. Merz found himself forced to justify his decision, saying that the principles of German policy toward Israel have not changed, and that “we will continue to help this country defend itself,” but the German government “cannot supply weapons to a conflict that is killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.” Germany remains a friend of Israel, but friendship can endure such a current disagreement.
Poor poll results
Was Merz also influenced by recent polls, such as the one conducted by the German public television channel “Deutschland Trend” and published a few days ago by the Infratest DimAp Institute? This poll showed that a clear majority of 66 percent of those surveyed believe the chancellor should increase pressure to force Israel to change its behavior.
Previously, both Chancellor Merz and his predecessor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), always emphasized that Germany still has a special responsibility for Israel’s existence. However, among those surveyed by the German public television program “Deutschland Trend,” only 31 percent still agree, 5 percentage points lower than before. People have little confidence in the Merz government, which has not even been in power for 100 days: 69 percent are dissatisfied with its performance.
The export suspension is more symbolic
The question regarding the weapons that will not be supplied to Israel, dominated the political debate. A spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defense surprised everyone by noting that Germany had, in any case, stopped sending any weapons or ammunition to Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza War in October 2023. He referred to a previous statement by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. In a press interview, the head of the Chancellor’s Office, Torsten Frei (Christian Democratic Party), said that Germany would continue to supply arms to Israel, especially…everything that serves Israel’s self-defense, for example in the field of air defense and naval defense.”
My faith in Western liberalism was an illusion
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the most controversial topics, Canadian-Egyptianone in which moral boundaries are blurred and every word is politicized. This challenge is addressed in three new books recently published by authors with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
In her book, “Der letzte Himmel” (The Last Heaven), German-Palestinian journalist Alina Jabareen recounts her personal and professional journey in search of Palestine. While Canadian-Egyptian writer and journalist Omar Alakkad presents his scathing arguments about the moral corruption of the West, French-Lebanese political researcher Gilbert Achcar places the destruction of Gaza in its historical context and the ideological struggle between Zionism and Hamas. Jabareen recounts her experience living in the West Bank between 2020 and 2022, describing the expulsions, land confiscations, and arbitrary arrests taking place in Palestine even before October 7, 2023. Jabareen’s book is particularly interesting when it highlights issues rarely discussed in the German public. While demands for the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas have received widespread attention, Israel’s policy of administrative detention—detention without charge—of Palestinians has not.
The illusion of the West
Forms of dehumanization are at the heart of Omar Akkad’s book “One Day, Everyone Will Be Against This Forever,” the German translation of which was recently published. Unlike Jabareen, Akkad seems to have already found his voice. He does not pose questions. Rather, he accuses Western liberalism of moral corruption in light of the massacres in Gaza, describing Israel’s actions there as genocide. He considers “Western values” to be nothing more than a “moral illusion.” They are not based on a system of universal values, but rather distribute belonging based on origin, religion, and skin color, a fact clearly demonstrated by the Gaza war.
Al-Aqqad had previously covered the war in Afghanistan as a correspondent, where he saw how non-Westerners were dehumanized in the media. However, he only later realized that his belief in Western liberalism as an intellectual field was an illusion, as he admitted in an interview with the American magazine Jacobin.
However, he also does not exempt Arab regimes from criticism; their rhetoric in solidarity with Palestine often remains hollow slogans that do not translate into real action. However, unlike the West, he had no doubts about them.
A Setback to Barbarism
Gilbert Achcar, professor of political science at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, takes a historical analytical approach in his book “The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in a World-Historical Perspective,” extensively analyzing the ideological foundations of both Zionism and Hamas. Political Zionism, he writes, arose in response to anti-Semitism in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries, but it was also inspired by Western colonialism.
As for Hamas’s ideology, Achcar sees it as imbued with Islamic fundamentalism and elements of European anti-Semitism and is based on some Islamic texts that he describes as “anti-Jewish.” However, this radical combination emerged as a reaction to Zionist expansionism.
Achcar emphasizes that a free future for the Palestinians is unimaginable without the involvement of Israelis and describes some members of the Israeli government as “neo-Nazis.” Achcar reminds us of the need to adhere to the moral commitment that Embodied by international law, he sees the global order as threatened with collapse in light of what he describes as the genocide in Gaza. “The Western promise of the rule of law, made in 1945 and renewed in 1990, has failed. Today, the law of the strongest prevails,” Ashkar writes, adding, “Let us hope that this relapse into barbarism stops before it leads to a new global catastrophe.”
A negative view of Israel is overwhelming. Among Democrats, 69% of Americans are negative. Even half of Republicans under the age of 50 say they have a negative view of the Jewish state.
In fact, Israel is losing an entire generation of Americans, particularly Democrats who have turned against the US-Israel alliance. The Senate Democratic majority recently voted to block some arms sales to Israel, and prominent Democratic activists believe that cutting off aid to Israel should be a litmus test within the party.
America’s Jews are divided
Zahran Mamdani, a member of the New York Legislature, has made a remarkable advance in the city’s mayoral race despite his positions. Anti-Israel sentiment, reflecting shifts within the Democratic Party. He received the support of 20% of Jewish Democratic voters, but he raised concerns within the Jewish community due to the escalation of anti-Israel rhetoric and the rise in hate crimes against Jews in the city. This represents a remarkable political shift and a significant advance for New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in the race for mayor of the American city, despite his public anti-Israel positions. This was seen as an indication of profound changes within the Democratic Party regarding its stance toward Tel Aviv. The New York Times reported that this shift comes at a time when Israel’s popularity has significantly declined among American Democrats in the wake of the war in Gaza, threatening a decade-long political tradition of broad support for Israel within the party, especially in New York City, which has the largest Jewish community outside of Israel.
The world is turning against us
Israeli media outlets have covered the growing international isolation facing Tel Aviv in light of the war on the Gaza Strip, warning that any large-scale attack on Gaza City and the camps in the central Gaza Strip would lead to heavy human, economic, and diplomatic costs, without ensuring the achievement of military objectives. Announced.
Analysts noted that Australia’s announcement of its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state next September is an extension of broad shifts in international positions, amid an unprecedented decline in support for Israel in the United States, even within both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Journalist and author Ari Shavit considered the collapse in the American position toward Israel to be unprecedented, explaining that the majority of Democratic Party senators now support halting military support, while a segment of President Donald Trump’s supporters and young evangelicals are turning into opponents.
The journalist emphasized that Israel is losing both major parties in Washington, noting that any battlefield victory in Khan Yunis could end in a political defeat in the US capital, meaning that military gains cannot compensate for strategic losses.
Lost Legitimacy
For his part, Channel 12 military affairs correspondent Nir Dvori confirmed that Israel has lost the legitimacy of its military operations worldwide, with the exception of the United States. He noted that Israeli officials warn that prolonging the war could lead to a loss of American support as well.
Dvori added that this political dimension has become a key element in the calculations of the Israeli leadership, alongside military and security considerations on the ground, in light of increasing international pressure.
In a related context, Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Ben-Dror Yemini considered the late Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, “laughing in his grave,” asserting that Israel’s image abroad is rapidly deteriorating, approaching the status of South Africa during the apartheid era.
Yemini explained that there is an undeclared academic and cultural boycott against Israel, as well as indications of a de facto economic boycott, including a decline in exports to Europe and an increasing difficulty in concluding deals, which Israeli businessmen are directly experiencing. Economic Isolation
He added that businessmen are avoiding publicizing the extent of the crisis for fear of exacerbating the damage, but the decline in exports reflects tangible repercussions that could put Israel on the brink of comprehensive economic isolation.
In parallel, Channel 12 noted that more countries are preparing to recognize the State of Palestine during the upcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly. Australia has joined the list after its Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, announced his support for the Palestinians’ right to establish their own state.
Channel 12’s Arab affairs analyst, Ehud Yaari, considered that French President Emmanuel Macron opened the “dam gates” by recognizing Palestine, prompting leaders in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and even Singapore to take similar steps.
Yari pointed out that Israel is failing to convince the world of its narrative, explaining that what the West sees in the Israeli Prime Minister’s statements is plans to uproot approximately one million Palestinians from their homes in Gaza, which exacerbates international isolation and bolsters the Palestinian position in international forums.
Resignations Revealed by the New York Times
Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the New York Times has witnessed the resignation of a number of writers and journalists for reasons related to the newspaper’s coverage of the war, or even pressure for simply expressing an opinion on the war and calling for a ceasefire.
The most recent resignation was that of Anne Boyer, a poetry writer for the New York Times Magazine, who resigned in protest of the war and the Israeli lies she called “the American-backed Israeli war machine against the people of Gaza.”
In early November, writer Jazmine Hughes was forced to resign after signing an open letter accusing Israel of committing genocide and also criticizing a New York Times editorial in which she affirmed the Jewish state’s right to defend itself.
New York Times Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jake Silverstein said that Hughes violated the company’s policy on public protest. Photographer Nan Goldin said she canceled a project for the New York Times Magazine, accusing it of bias in favor of Israel in its reporting on Gaza. Photographer Nan Goldin raised the slogan “Against the War on Gaza,” a slogan shared by a group of journalists, critics, and others who have committed to standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
What is the secret behind the fascist right’s merger with Zionism?
Christian extremists in America are uniting with Jewish extremists in Israel not because of religion, but because of shared fascism. American author Chris Hedges, former New York Times Middle East bureau chief, reveals fascinating details about the fascist right’s alliance with Zionism. According to the renowned author, Christian nationalists, who represent the mainstay of support for US President Donald Trump—80% of whom voted for him in the last election, according to an Associated Press poll—are forming an organized campaign calling on the White House to support Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.
This campaign includes visits to Israel by prominent leaders, including Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, and Mario Bramnick, petitions to the White House, lobbying Congress, and calls for annexation at Christian conferences, including the adoption of a resolution supporting Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). During its convention in Dallas in March, the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) collected more than 200 signatures from right-wing pastors and religious leaders from across the United States, calling for the annexation of “Judea and Samaria”—the alleged biblical name for the West Bank—and describing the two-state solution as a “failed experiment.” American Christian Leaders for Israel, which claims to represent a network of “more than 3,000 organizational leaders from across the country, including the NRB,” endorsed the resolution and sent it to Trump. Representative Claudia Tenney and five other members of the Congressional Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus also sent a letter to Trump urging him to “recognize Israel’s right” to declare sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories, arguing that doing so would strengthen “the Judeo-Christian heritage upon which our nation was founded.”
Trump, who rescinded an executive order issued by the Biden administration imposing sanctions on Jewish settlers in the West Bank for human rights violations, promised on February 4 to announce a decision on the potential annexation of the West Bank within the “next four weeks.” This follows his calls for ethnic cleansing in Gaza and his threat to kill Palestinians if they did not release Israeli hostages. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, he said of Gaza, “You’re talking about maybe a million and a half people, and we’re going to clean the whole place out.”
The agendas of Zionist extremists and Christian fascists, who occupy senior positions in the Trump administration, have long converged. The language, iconography, and symbolism used by Christian fascists and Jews are derived from the Bible, but the bonds that unite them are political, not religious. In his book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Hedges examines the history and ideology of our domestic fascism and its relationship to Jewish fascism. Trump nominated Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and Baptist minister, to be the US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee stated that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” and claimed that Palestinian identity is “a political tool aimed at seizing land from Israel.” He proposes that a Palestinian state be created outside of Israel in neighboring countries such as Egypt, Syria, or Jordan, describing the two-state solution as “illogical and unworkable.” Huckabee says, “I believe the Bible. Genesis 12: Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the side of blessing, not the side of cursing.”
John Ratcliffe, Trump’s appointee to head the CIA, called for assistance to Israel in what he described as its “foot on the throat” approach against Iran. Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who says that “Zionism and America are the first line of defense for Western civilization and freedom in our world today,” promotes the absurd claim that the Torah, written 4,000 years ago, can be used to draw the borders of modern states. He told Fox News last November: “Open your Bible. God gave this land to Abraham. The twelve tribes of Israel established a constitutional monarchy in 1000 BC. King David was their second king, and he made Jerusalem their capital. The Jews fought foreign occupiers for centuries and maintained a presence there.
Now, the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Muslims are trying to erase the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, just as we are doing now. I’ve been there many times. They’re trying to make it seem like the Jews were never there. And more importantly, the international community granted sovereignty to the Jews, to the Jewish state, after World War II, and ever since then, Israel has been fighting one defensive war after another against everyone who has tried to crush it, just to survive.”
Meanwhile, televangelist Paula White-Cain, a hardline Christian Zionist who says opposing Trump means “resisting the hand of God,” has become a senior adviser to the newly created White House Office of Faith. Chris Hedges says that Zionists accused American universities of allying with Hamas immediately after the October 7 attack inside Israel, weeks before the campus protests began. In response to criticism and the emergence of student protest camps, these universities banned protests and restricted freedom of expression. They also punished, suspended, or expelled student activists, and dismissed or placed on probation professors and administrators who spoke out against the genocide.
The campaign saw the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT prosecuted during congressional hearings led by Representative Elise Stefanik, in a McCarthy-like trial.
For their insufficient compliance, the presidents of Harvard and Penn were forced to resign. Stefanik issued a statement pledging to “continue exposing corruption at our most prestigious institutions of higher education and to bring accountability to the American people.” Stefanik, Trump’s nominee to be US ambassador to the United Nations, believes that “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.” Four months before the protest camp was held on campus, Columbia University banned the Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters. When the camp was held on campus, it authorized three police raids that resulted in the arrest of more than 100 students. It subsequently expelled four students, three from Barnard College and one from Columbia, and fired professors and administrators. Despite the strict measures taken by the Columbia administration, the Trump administration rescinded approximately $400 million in federal grants to the university, claiming “its continued failure to address the ongoing harassment of Jewish students.” The author argues that the campaign targeting universities and colleges has nothing to do with combating anti-Semitism. Columbia and others cannot satisfy their critics, no matter what they do. The goal is to criminalize dissent and force educational institutions to adhere to the dictates of far right and Christian fascist ideology, with anti-Semitism merely a pretext.
Christian fascists attempt to distort Christianity into a tool to justify white supremacy, American empire, and capitalism, while portraying those who oppose them as demonic. These heretics—and I say this as a seminary graduate—pervert the Gospels in the same way that Jewish fascists pervert the Torah. Indeed, according to their “end times” theory, Jews in Israel will either be forced to convert to Christianity or be exterminated, revealing their deep roots in antisemitism and their open embrace of the theories of Nazis like Carl Schmitt and sympathizers like Rosas John Rushdowney. Israel routinely violates diplomatic and moral norms, disregards humanitarian and international law, and commits genocide in violation of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. It makes a mockery of the concept of an open, democratic society, creating second-class citizens and an apartheid system dominated by those of European descent. They also practice indiscriminate, lethal violence to purge their society of what they describe as “human polluters” and “human animals.”
These extremists claim that their Jewish supremacy, like that of Christian fascists, is sanctified by God. The slaughter of Palestinians, whom Benjamin Netanyahu has compared to the biblical giants “Amalek,” is depicted as the embodiment of evil and deserving of extermination.
Euro-Americans in the American colonies used the same biblical text to justify the extermination of Native Americans. Violence and the threat of violence are the only means of communication within the magic circle of Jewish or Christian nationalism.
Jewish fascism is the model that Christian fascists seek to emulate. They, too, long to “purify” American society of its “human pollutants,” just as Israel does with the Palestinians.
The “Nation-State Law of the Jewish People,” passed by the Knesset in 2018, stipulates that the right to self-determination in Israel is “the exclusive right of the Jewish people.” This legal distinction is what American fascists plan to emulate for the benefit of white Christians.
The targets, as in Israel, will be journalists, human rights defenders, people of color, Muslim immigrants, intellectuals, artists, feminists, leftists, pacifists, and the poor.
The judiciary will become a tool to suppress dissent and protect the wealthy, public debate will wither, and civil society and the rule of law will collapse. Those deemed “disloyal” will be persecuted, as evidenced by the State Department’s AI-powered “Catch and Revoke” program, which aims to “revoke the visas of foreigners who appear to support Hamas or other terrorist groups.”
On March 8, federal immigration authorities detained activist Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student of Palestinian descent, despite his being a legal permanent resident. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Khalil was arrested “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”
The detention and possible deportation of a legal permanent resident is alarming.
Fascism has many forms, but its essential characteristics are the same. This is why Christian fascists work so enthusiastically on behalf of Israel. Fascism thrives on a sense of injustice. Masonic salvation will occur in Israel once the Palestinians, whom they condemn as the embodiment of evil, are expelled. Masonic salvation will occur in America when absolute power returns to a white Christian ethnostate, which eliminates civil rights legislation (the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has already been nullified by the Supreme Court), and cuts social services that “pamper” the poor, especially those of color. American author Chris Hedges offers a sad and pessimistic vision of the future, asserting that “the historical tide is against us, old alliances are crumbling in favor of authoritarian regimes, and the far right is on the rise across Europe, particularly in France and Germany. The radical left and the labor movement have been crushed. We have few defenses left. Neither a Democratic Party beholden to corporations nor subservient liberal institutions like Columbia University will protect us. Fascism can only be defeated through a militant counter-resistance, as communists, anarchists, and socialists did in the 1930s—a resistance that offers an alternative vision and does not compromise with authoritarian rule.”
Signs of the West’s Death
The West continues to lose its luster and is likely to lose its stability. Every day, new scandals are revealed about its involvement with the racist state of Israel in war crimes, its miserable attempts to stem the tsunami of sympathy for the Palestinians, and the historical movement toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The most dangerous phase in the history of the West and the Middle East has just begun. I think the world is holding its breath and waiting to see what will happen.