alternative reader no. 139
The Persistence of
Fascism
By Ghali Hassan
AxisofLogic.com
Posted by Bulatlat
A Lebanese boy walks among the ruins of
a building which was demolished in an air strike during the conflict
between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah in Deirkanoonannahar village
near Tyre (Soure), south of Beirut, Aug. 19 |
Most
people associate German Fascism with crimes against Jews and powerful
German army. What they forget are the death of millions of non-Jews, the
repression of minorities, and the premeditated wars of aggression and
occupation of sovereign nations. All of it seems reminiscent today.
Common in
today’s parlance is that Fascism ended with the end of World War II (WW
II). The reality is that Fascism did not end, but it was replaced by
another variant of Fascism; one that is much more powerful and violent.
Fascism violence and racial philosophy remain unaffected and were put into
practice elsewhere against different nations.
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Today, the U.S.
and its allies control an array of world organisations, including the UN,
and army of NGOs, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
These organisations are used as political tools to intimidate smaller and
defenceless nations, and to legitimise war of aggression and in the
process advance Western interests.
The recent
shameful and racist UN Resolution – drafted by the U.S., Israel and France
– to justify Israel’s aggression and war crimes against Lebanon is just a
case in point. In fact history shows that the UN either sided with the
aggressor or outright ignored the aggressor’s violations of international
law and UN own resolutions, including Resolution 242 calling on Israel to
withdraw from occupied Arab land.
In addition,
although German Fascism was known for its war propaganda and war rhetoric,
it was nothing when it is compared with the today’s manipulative
propaganda machines of Fox News, CNN, the BBC and other Western corporate
media. Today’s Western propaganda is a formidable force minus the weapons.
It spreads disinformation and distorts facts in order to manipulate public
opinion and promote war and hatred.
If comparison
is made today between the war rhetoric of the Nazis and those leaders who
are perpetuating the current war of aggression, the commonalities are
staggering. Today Western leaders speak in ordinary language – often
deliberately mumbling – in order to manipulate and deceive the public.
They pretend to strive for “peace” and “human rights”, and the spread of
“democracy” and “liberty”– a collection of euphemisms for imposing Western
ideology and domination. However, what they pretend to do have no
resemblance to their ideology and real goal.
In order to
mask their ideology and demonise their victims, leaders and advocates of
today’s Fascism argued with audacity that the enemies are “Jihadists”,
“insurgents” and “Islamic fascists”. Extremist such as Bin-Laden and al-Zarqawi
(‘al-Qaeda’) – wearing traditional dress and beards –, were created and
financed by the U.S. and its agents and used as label to distort the
images of Islam and Muslims. The root causes of violence today are not “Islamo-Fascism”,
but Israel-U.S. Fascism that intended on world-domination.
Pretexts such
as the non-existence of “threat” of acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD), and “terrorism” are instantly created to justify violence and
distort the images of people resisting violence. We know that Israel and
the U.S. Pose serious threat to world peace. Indeed, the governments of
the U.S. and Israel hold a virtual monopoly on violence and terrorism to
enforce their ideology. As Philip Cannistraro, a professor of History at
Florida State University rightly wrote; “Violence as a creative force is
an important aspect of Fascism philosophy” and political ideology.
The so-called
“War on Terror” is just a smokescreen to instil fear and justify violence
and repression. It is fuelling anti-Muslims hatred and spreading
Islamophobia throughout the World, particularly in the West. As it was
during Fascism, fear is used to scare the public and justify new
repressive “anti-terror” laws, specifically targeting Muslims. As a
result, harassment of Muslims has increased dramatically and racism has
reached an appalling scale. In addition, the “War on Terror” and its
ongoing seasonal “terror alerts” are used to
obfuscate and distract
public attention from the atrocities committed against innocent civilians
in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan.
Before the rise
of Fascism, Germany and Italy were liberal democracies preaching
“tolerance” and “free speech”. However, once the promotion of false
patriotism, negative nationalism and blind submission to authority were
promoted, things started to change and rapid descent into Fascism took
place. Hatred for Arabs and Muslims is quickly replacing Hitler’s hatred
for communists and Jews.
The war on
Muslim nations and the ongoing threat directed against Syria and Iran is
part of an Israeli-U.S. war. Israel, supported by U.S. Zionist ideologues
(the “Neo-cons”), has embarked on a permanent war of domination in the
Middle East. Although the U.S. shares Israel’s Zionist ideology and
provides Israel with weapons, money and political support, Israel must be
held responsible for violating international law and perpetuating war
crimes.
It is
counterproductive branding any criticism of Israel’s terror as
“anti-Semitism” and trying to shield Israel and deflect the main
responsibility of Israel’s war crimes on the U.S. If Israel is just a U.S.
proxy force, as most U.S. intellectuals and pundits allege, why are Turkey
and Egypt not playing this lucrative role? Israel can choose to renounce
violence and pursue its own peaceful coexistence.
It all started
in 1947-1948, when some 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed, thousands
of Palestinians were murdered and more than 750,000 Palestinians were
forced to flee their homes to neighbouring countries. This
well-orchestrated ethnic cleansing often referred to by Jewish Zionists
and their Western supporters as the “war for independence”. In reality, it
was not a war, but one defenceless nation was wiped off the map, and a
Zionist entity of European Jews was established on its foundation. “Israel
would not exist today had it not been for its systematic massacres of the
Palestinian population in 1948”, writes Azmi Bishara, the Palestinian
author and member of the Israeli Knesset.
In the
first-half of 1948, terrorist organizations like the “Haganah committed 24
massacres, in some cases four or five people were executed, in others the
numbers were 70, 80, and 100 … There are cases such as the village of
Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village
with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved”, said Benny Morris,
Israeli revisionist historian. “The worst cases were Saliha (70-80
killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps
Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre
at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a
massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same [happened]
at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were
part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha,
Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In
Operation Hiram there was a[n] unusually high concentration of executions
of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion”, added
Benny Morris (Ha’aretz,
January 09, 2004). The Palestinians were considered “Barbarians” and they
were targeted for extermination.
In 1948, Israel
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said: “We must use terror, assassination,
intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to
rid the Galilee of its Arab population”. Nothing has changed; Ben-Gurion’s
terror and ethnic cleansing have been used all over Palestine.
In 1967, Israel
expelled more than 500,000 Palestinians. The same racist ideology is
currently used to de-Arabise entire Palestine, masquerading as the
“demographic threat”, and accompanied by ongoing massacres of innocent
Palestinian civilians not because Palestinians are powerful and
threatening the lives of Jews, but because what Jews called the
“demographic threat”. In other words, to maintain Israel’s Jewish
character, Palestinians must be reduced to a small number by extermination
and explosion. Since 1948, Israel has been implementing Fascism ideology
in Palestine, with great accuracy and with tacit support of major Western
powers.
Now, six
decades after the end of WW II, we can see the results. Israel continues
to expand, annexing Palestinian agricultural land and water sources. What
remains of Palestine today is under Fascist occupation. The Palestinian
people were ethnically cleansed and those who remained under Israel’s
military occupation are confined into large concentration camps. Their
movement is controlled by military checkpoints, identity cards and the
Apartheid wall. They are subjected to a Nazi-like racism, their houses are
continuously demolished and their land is confiscated and they are
enduring a slow genocide.
Gaza, the
largest concentration camp in history, is under permanent siege and
constantly bombed by Israeli forces. For the last six months, Gaza’s 1.5
million Palestinians are forced to endure starvation and chronic diseases
as a result of Israel’s blockade only because the people chose to elect
their own representatives. Comparing Israelis living in secure anti-bomb
shelters in Haifa after the Lebanese Resistance Movement (Hizbullah) fired
few rockets on the town, the Israeli journalist Amira Hass writes; “Take
what the northern residents have been going through for a month, multiply
it by 1,000, [and] add an economic blockade, power and water cuts, and no
wages. This is how the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been ‘living’
for the past six years”.
In June 2006,
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) invaded and occupied Gaza after they
bombed and destroyed Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including Gaza's main
power station, leaving households, and hospitals across the camp without
electricity and water, while sanitation systems have collapsed. Since
then, the IOF have killed at least 200 Palestinians, including 56
children, leaving over 800 injured, including 300 children. The
Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports at least 210 Palestinians were
killed by the IOF in Gaza and the West Bank between 01 July and 07 August
2006. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reveals that at least
163 Palestinians killed in July in Gaza alone.
It is also
reported that ‘Israel is using a new kind of weaponry that burns the
bodies, cuts like a knife. It enters the body and rips organs apart’,
Samir Judah, an emergency room manager in An-Najar Hospital in Rafah
refugee camp told the Egyptian weekly, Al-Ahram. “One might think
they were burnt, but their colour is dark, they're inflated, and they have
a terrible smell. All this, and the hair is not burnt nor do the bodies
bleed”, said Dr. Bashir Sham, a member of the French Association of
Cardiovascular Surgeons.
On 20 May 2004,
Yosef Lapid, an Israeli cabinet minister and a holocaust survivor, said
the demolition of Palestinian homes in the
Rafah
Refugee Camp
reminded him of his grandmother in the holocaust, adding that there “is no
forgiveness for people who treat an old woman this way”, referring to a
grandmother who lost her family home to Israeli bulldozers. It should be
note that the most effective tool of Israel’s terror is that the crimes of
the Nazis are often invoked to justify Israel’s crimes against
Palestinians.
Today, Israel
constitutes the most militarised, extremist and racist society on the
planet. Violence against defenceless women and children has become part of
the “Jewish State” shared values. As the Israeli poet Ilan Shenfeld summed
it up: “March on Lebanon and also on Gaza with ploughs and salt. Destroy
them to the last inhabitant …”Save your people and make bombs, and rain
them on villages and towns and houses till they collapse. Kill them, shed
their blood, terrify their lives, lest they try again to destroy us, until
we hear from tops of exploding mountains, Ridden down by your heels,
sounds of supplication and lamentation. And your pits will cover them.
Whoever scorns a day of bloodshed, He should be scorned. Save your people,
and make war”. (Ynet, 30 July 2006). And this is the Israeli “Left”
attitude, those who pray for “peace”.
Although
Israel’s terror is the most brutal and the longest in history,
other nations
who oppose today’s Fascism are enduring similar violence. Iraq and Lebanon
have been defenceless targets for years, with
horrendous
magnitude of destruction and civilian deaths.
Iraq has been
systematically destroyed and its people humiliated in the same way many
European nations were destroyed by Fascism. After more than a decade of
genocidal economic sanctions, Iraq was illegally invaded and occupied.
Baghdad and many other Iraqi cities – from Fallujah and Ramadi to al-Qaim
and Haditha – were indiscriminately and deliberately bombed and destroyed.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed and
many more have been wounded. The entire country was taken hostage and the
civilian population are subjected to daily grisly massacres, arbitrary
arrests and imprisonment, sadistic torture and rape by occupying U.S.
forces and mercenaries. Large U.S. corporations are looting Iraq’s wealth
and national resources while the
living conditions
for Iraqis continue to deteriorate.
Like Iraq,
Lebanon has been systematically and indiscriminately destroyed. Over many
years, Israel routinely bombed and invaded Lebanon. Israeli Mossad agents
and assassins carried out countless acts of terrorism on Lebanon territory
assassinating, and kidnapping Lebanese and Palestinian citizens. In
1978-1982 Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and occupied the country for two
decades. At least 20,000 Lebanese civilians have been murdered by Israeli
forces. Another 2000 Palestinian women and children refugees in Sabre and
Chatila refugee camps were massacred by the criminal Ariel Sharon and his
proxy thugs. Lebanon was completely destroyed before the Israelis were
defeated and forced to leave by the heroic Lebanese Resistance.
Today Israel is
avenging its defeat and using its war crimes in Lebanon to coerce the
Lebanese people against their popular Resistance, blackmail other nations
and use the crimes as a rehearsal for an Israeli-U.S. wider war in the
region. The Israeli-U.S. violence failed to achieve its goal as much as
the Nazis failed to coerce the Russian people during Fascism attacks on
Russia.
Since the
Israeli premeditated aggression against Lebanon and the indiscriminate and
systematic destruction of the country, more than 1200 innocent civilians
have been killed in a cowardly and Nazi-like fashion, a third of the dead
were children under the age of 12-years old. At least 5000 civilians have
been wounded, and more than a million Lebanese are homeless, displaced
from their towns and villages. It is estimated that some 100,000 Lebanese
– out of an original population of 913,000 – are still in southern
villages – no one knows their fate –, cut off from the rest of the country
and subjected to daily Israeli artillery shelling and aerial bombing.
Israel is intended to ethnically cleanse the population from the area
south of the Litani River and annexed their land, crimes used during the
Nazis’ occupation of Europe.
With the
blessing of the UN, the U.S. and its allies, Israel is not only allowed to
drop tonnage of banned cluster bombs and white phosphorous bombs –
conducted with U.S. weapons and paid for by billions of American taxpayers
– on densely populated areas killing hundreds of innocent civilians and
destroying their homes but also Israel is allowed to get away with
horrendous war crimes. Furthermore, Israel is using the already biased and
anti-Muslim corporate media to distort reality and plays victim.
As in Iraq,
Lebanon entire civilian infrastructure is deliberately destroyed; a
flagrant violation of international law and war crimes by any standard.
Knowing that the U.S. is on his side, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
said openly that; “We are destroying Lebanon and forcing the civilian
population to turn against Hizbullah”. With deafening silence to mass
atrocities, the persistence of Fascism seemed to have been accepted by
most Western citizens.
Rejected the
world’s call for an immediate cease-fire to halt the massacres of innocent
Lebanese civilians by Israeli forces, the U.S. showed its full complicity
in the violence. Just few days into the mass atrocity, U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, said: “They’ve [Lebanese] been through a very
difficult war”. The aim was to give Israel more time to destroy Lebanon
and kill more innocent civilians. Note also the moral bankruptcy and the
“difficult war” that Israel and the U.S. have orchestrated and perpetuated
for more than three decades against virtually a defenceless nation. Since
the 1970s, Israel-U.S. policy has been to coerce Lebanon and the civilian
population to surrender to Israeli-U.S. dictate.
It is important
not to forget that in April 2002 during the Israeli aggression on the West
Bank city of Jenin, the U.S. refused to call for an immediate cease-fire
and encouraged the massacre of innocent Palestinian civilians. Israeli
forces indiscriminately attacked the Jenin Refugee Camp, with bulldozers
levelling Palestinian homes and U.S.-supplied Apache and Cobra helicopter
gunships and tanks bombed the 15,000 besieged civilian population (For
more see the
Jenin Inquiry Report).
The U.S.-based Human Right Watch (HRW) reported that Israeli occupation
forces on the ground used Palestinians as human shields to conduct their
terror. The entire community was destroyed in a Nazi-like fashion. At the
time the UN produced a seriously flawed report to shield Israel from war
crimes responsibility.
Sadly, with
deafening silence of Western citizens, the persistence of Fascism
continues today. The differences today are in the desire of today’s
Fascism to conduct war of aggression against defenceless populations, and
in the deliberate destruction of the social and economic structure to
sustain and to provide the majority of the civilian population with their
means of livelihood.
The systematic
and random mass bombing of civilian population in the cities of Iraq,
Lebanon Palestine and Afghanistan, indiscriminately killing and wounding
innocent civilians and destroying homes, cultural heritages, health care
services and educational system, including libraries, universities,
schools and archives will not coerce the people to surrender.
Finally, the
premeditated and illegal wars of aggression against Muslim nations are
what the Nuremberg Tribunal called ‘Supreme International Crime’. The
Tribunal tried Nazi leaders and most of them were found guilty and were
hanged for their crimes. Thus, in a “civilised” world and under the same
Nuremberg Charter, Western and Israeli leaders, and their accomplices have
committed war crimes.
From time
immemorial, wars of aggression and occupation nurture legitimate
resistance. Therefore, the only way to defeat Fascism, old and new, is
persistence mass resistance to its repression, wars of aggression, and
occupation.
Ghali Hassan
lives in Perth, Western Australia
Aug 17, 2006
Posted by
Bulatlat
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