Risk and Extortion XVIII: The Lessons That Have Never Been Learned

The conceit with which politicians, journalists and commentators – not just but especially in Germany – shamelessly dismiss any public expression of concern over the war crimes and crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the State of Israel “defending itself” through genocidal tactics, let alone any reference to the ethnocratic modes of governmentality by which this state establishes itself as a “Jewish State”, while defiling the core principles of Judaism, exposes at once, the extremely poorly conceived “lessons of the Holocaust” as well as the more generic and not specifically German arrogance of the Professional Managerial Class.

In Germany (as well as in most of the rest of the world), the main and often only Lesson from the Holocaust is that the genocide of Jewish people was the culmination of centuries of anti-Semitism festering in the hearts of (Christian?) Europeans. The systemic nature of it, its legal anchoring, its industrial operationalization, its bureaucratic administration, and the ideological commodification of its perceived necessity seem to be mere expressions of this collective hatred (that was exacerbated by a mimetic desire derived from propaganda). They are completely disconnected from nationalism, capitalism and Staatsräson. It is this disarticulation that prevents any usefulness lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. This refusal to critically analyse the infrastructures of fascism has helped many Nazi war criminals disappear into the networks of secret services whose reason d’être was the fight against Communism, which started even before the Second World War was officially declared over.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that fascism is becoming en vogue again as a “necessary evil” to stop the “radical communist, Marxist extremists”. Ironically, it is the fascism deeply rooted in the Israeli colonial state that has been the avant-garde of this revival. By supporting Israel, global fascism exhibits exactly the false lesson learned from th Holocaust. It is now OK to pursue the interests of Staatsäson, capitalism and nationalism through the deployment of propaganda (Hasbara) for the mobilization of collective mimetic desire steeped in hatred, as long as you hate the right people. That this hatred does not exclude Jews, as long as they are called self-hating Jews, should serve as a red flag. What we are dealing with here is a kakistocratic reformation of the libidinal economy of self-loathing, through projection, and it manifests itself conveniently as identity politics.

By writing this as a Jew, I would immediately be rebranded as a self-hating Jew, and be added to the SHIT (Self-Hating Intellectual Traitors) List (yes that list exists, the State of Israel has a very long standing concern about its critics from the Diaspora). If I were not Jewish, I would be rebranded as supporter Hamas. In this identity-political framework, there are only three identities. First, there are the Righteous (who deny that there are any war crimes or genocidal acts being performed by the State of Israel and would always find a way to dismiss evidence of such crimes as either Hamas Propaganda, or acts of self-defence (e.g. necessary evil), or – when everything else fails – operational errors). The Righteous are right because they support the right cause (the interests of the State of Israel), which automatically identifies them as friends. Second, there are the Terrorists. These are those that – by stating that the acts of the Israeli State are acts of genocide – show their support for “Hamas” and the radical, Islamist, Marxist, Communist, anti-Western ideology it embodies. Everything these Terrorists say and show as to be dismissed a-priori as anti-Semitic. The logic is symmetrical: as the Righteous proclaim that the actions of the State of Israel are ALWAYS in pursuit of the exceptional interests of the Jewish People, that is a Jewish State for the Jewish People, criticizing any action performed as part of this effort, can only point to its opposite: one criticizes the State of Israel because it is Jewish. That is the foundation of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. That is why the Righteous always shout out that anti-Zionism is the same as anti-Semitism. The Third Identity, however, causes a bit of problem. The majority of Jews in the world do not live in Israel and are referred to as the Diaspora. Within this Diaspora there are many Jewish Voices who are critical of the State of Israel performing its actions in the name of the Jewish People. These are often the same people, who argue, that under Jewish Law not everything is permitted to pursue one’s earthly interests. Indeed, that is why there are – for example – the Ten Commandments.

	Normativity  – The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 NKJV)	Normality
1	“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.	Zionism violates the first commandment as the State of Israel is worshipped instead of God
2	“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.	By worshipping the symbols of nationhood, the iniquity of the fathers of Zionism is demonstrated as violations of other commandments.
3	“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.	By invoking God as the God of the Jewish People but deploying it to justify the acts of Staatsräson and Zionism, the name of God has been taken in vain.
4	“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.	It is well-known that the early Zionists and early founders of the State of Israel were not observant but secular Jews. Of course, the IDF also kills on the Day of Sabbath
5	“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.	By “forgetting” the European roots of their forefathers, Zionists fail to honour them
6	“You shall not murder.	IDF murders civilians. Blackmail and extortion also operate with threats to murder – either physically or symbolically
7	“You shall not commit adultery.	There is a growing concern about the interweavings of the Israeli State and its representatives (e.g Netanyahu) with global organized crime, tax evasion, whitewashing, corruption, narcotics and the use of (often nopn-consensual) sex and statutory rape as a means for blackmail. Reports have emerged suggesting links between the Jeffrey Epstein network, Mossad and arms trade as well as overlapping interests that have surfaced with the ongoing investigations into possible crimes committed by the rapper Sean Combs.
8	“You shall not steal.	Before the attacks by Hamas on October 7th 2023, Netanyahu was facing potential indictments for crimes related to corruption; entire networks of whitewashing and tax evasion for personal gain surround his government.
9	“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.	The Hasbara financed and performed by the Israeli State and its supporters has been exposed on multiple occasions as peddling a huge arsenal of lies and misinformation
10	“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”	The never-ceasing expansion of settlements in the West-Bank and the Golan Heights, together with the publicly announced desire for Greater Israel, exposes that Zionism is indeed not just steeped in murder, adultery, theft  and lies, but also in jealousy; constantly expanding their claims on what is not theirs, and this includes the legacy and religious laws of Judaism itself

So observant as well as secular Jews who consider the Ten Commandments as the core of their moral framework, setting aide the 603 others for simplicity’s sake, and on that basis criticize the State of Israel. It is logical, that those seriously supportive of Judaism as a religion, are likely to insist on the separation between Zionism and Judaism. They point out, that Jewish exceptionalism is itself contrary to Jewish Law.

These voices are of course a huge problem for the State of Israel. The identity-political ordering would have them identified as Jews, but as they oppose this very ordering, they are being relabelled as self-hating Jews and thereby become “the Enemy Within”. Needless to say perhaps, this is exactly how Nazi Propaganda portrayed Germans who were Jewish. This is indeed the archetypical anti-Semitic trope.

So the identity political framing of the “Israel-Palestine Conflict” (a term which – contrary to what has been claimed – is itself far from neutral) as a an Agonistique between three groups: The Righteous (friends), The Anti-Semites or Terrorists (foes) and the Traitors (enemies within) only requires its protagonists to categorize their interlocutors under one of these three labels. Everything else follows from it: Do You Condemn Hamas? Do You Believe That Israel Has A Right To Exist? Are therefore not just stupid questions asked by stupid journalists, but instead, immutable mobiles. Opposing these questions or refusing the answer them, makes one automatically an enemy or an enemy-within.

Those protesting the actions of the State of Israel are constantly being attacked with the accusation of anti-Semitism. Every powerful utterance will be reframed as anti-Semitic. For example, stating the fact that the Israeli army has killed babies, is magically associated with the early anti-Semitic notions of Blood Libel that were circulating throughout Europe in the late Middle Ages. This shifts attention away from a statement of fact, to an assumption of bad faith, against which it is very difficult to defend itself, as the only reasonable defence is that the plaintiff itself is acting in bad faith.

And this is what I am now asserting: From its inception, Zionism has been an ideology cultivated in Bad Faith. However, it is not exceptional in this sense, as all European nationalisms were cultivated in Bad Faith.

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