Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart columnist says we should accept that Jews run the banks and the media 

Jewish demonstration outside the Zionist Organisation of America dinner where Bannon was due to speak – in the end he did a no-show!

It must have been a shock to the signatories of a 175 strong
letter, including
21 members of the Jewish Labour Movement, [JLM] that the President of the Board
of Deputies, Jonathan Arkush, ‘publicly congratulated Donald Trump on his election win’.  After all these young things have grown up to
believe that anti-Semitism is a left-wing phenomenon that only exists in Jeremy
Corbyn’s Labour Party.  Most of them probably
subscribe to the notion common among Zionists that anti-Semitism equals
anti-Zionism. [See for
example Sir Mick Davies, Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, in his evidence to the House of Commons Select
Committee on Anti-Semitism].

“an
American leader who showed the commentators and the skeptics that we are in a
new era of change and replacing the old elitist regimes!… the defense and
financial alliance with our strongest and most powerful ally will continue with
a vengeance under your presidency.”

Those who imagine there is
anything radical or progressive in the Israeli Labour Party should have their
eyes opened to this nakedly racist and anti-Arab party.  

In America there has been a
massive backlash among Jews at the election of Trump and outrage at the
Zionist Organisation of America [ZOA] which has supported Trump’s appointment
of Steve Bannon, the former CEO of Breitbart News, as Trump’s Strategic
Advisor.  Indeed the ZOA has gone one
step further:

 ‘The ZOA’s ardent
defense of Bannon was shortly followed by the announcement that Bannon would be a featured speaker at the
organization’s annual Brandeis Award Dinner.’  Stephen Bannon’s Inclusion at ZOA Dinner Opens Rift
Among American Jewish Groups.  If Not Now, a left-wing Jewish group has announced it
is going to picket the ZOA’s dinner.

Libby Lenkinski of the liberal
Zionist New Israel Fund declared that ‘We
did not survive the Holocaust, we did not found the State of Israel, just so
that less than two generations later we could cozy up to neo-Nazis” .  Some
may ask where Ms Lenkinski has been all these years.  Has she not seen the growth of a Jewish
neo-Nazi movement in Israel with Lehava and the mobs that cry ‘Death to the
Arabs’?  Or those who put signs in shops
boasting that they don’t employ Arabs?  Zionist Organization of America
Flooded With ‘Dozens of Calls’ Amid Backlash Over Bannon Support

Was she unaware of the military
support that the Israeli government gave to the neo-Nazi Junta in Argentina
between 1976-1983 when they tortured and murdered up to 3,000 young Jewish
leftists, up to 12.5% of the Disappeared? 
Surely she recalls the statement in the Knesset of Yossi Sarid of
Meretz, that

 ‘the
government of Israel never once lifted a finger and co-operated with the
Argentine murderers because of their interest in arms deals….In Argentina,
Israel sold even the Jews for the price of its immediate interests.’ [“Yes,
I Accuse,” Ha’aretz, 31 August 1989, p. 7]

This junta was the only neo-Nazi
regime to take power in the post-war period yet Israel’s attitude to it was no
different from the historic relationship of Zionism to
anti-Semitism.  

What we are seeing with the
election of Trump and the enthusiastic support for him in Israel, is a cleavage
between the interests of the Israeli state and the Zionist movement on the one
hand and the interests of the Jewish diaspora on the other.  Although this contradiction has rarely
surfaced, it has always been there. 
Zionism was founded on a rejection of the Jewish diaspora which represented
everything that it was fighting against. 
Zionists spoke of diaspora Jews in much the same way as anti-Semites did.

Negation of the Diaspora was the ideological foundation
stone of Zionism.  When Arthur Ruppin,
the Father of Land Settlement in Israel and a member of the Zionist Executive,
was called an anti-Semite by a friend he responded that ‘He was not at all put off by the epithet … “I have already
established here [in his diary] that
I despise the cancers of Judaism more than does the worst anti-Semite.”
[Diaries 4.8.93., Doron p. 186]

Such was
the vehemence with which Zionists spoke about diaspora Jewry that Doron writes
that ‘a perusal of the Zionist sources reveals
a wealth of charges against the Diaspora Jew, some of which are so scathing
that the generation that witnessed Auschwitz has difficulty comprehending
them.’

This is
not just a historical footnote.  Zionists
accuse anti-Zionist Jews of ‘self-hatred’
But if anyone is guilty of ‘self-hatred’ it is the Zionists.  Israeli novelist, A B Yehoshua, in a talk to
the Zionist Youth Council spoke of the diaspora as the ‘cancer connected to the main tissue of the Jewish people.’  Yehoshua described diaspora Jews as ‘using other people’s countries like
hotels.’ [Jewish Chronicle 22.12.1989.
‘Diaspora: A Cancer’]  In other words, Jews outside
Israel are guests who don’t belong in the countries where they live.  Which chimes exactly with the views of anti-Semites.

Theodor
Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism, pioneered Zionist anti-Semitism.  His essay Mauschel
is a text-book example. [Zionist Writings.  Essays and Addresses, Vol. 1:  January 1896-June 1898.  Trans. 
Harry Zohn, Herzl Press, NY, 1973] The title of the
essay was a German epithet for a haggling Jewish trader, or a Jew generally;
since the 17th century. Herzl saw anti-Semitism as a positive
asset in helping encourage Jews to move to Palestine.  Herzl wrote that ‘anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow and so do I.’ [Diaries
of Theodor Herzl, ed. Ralph Patai, p.7, Thomas Yosseloff and Herzl Press,
London, 1960] and he drew the
conclusion that ‘the anti-Semites will
become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies.’ [Complete
Diaries, pp. 83/84.] 

What we are seeing is a
continuation of the historic policy of Zionism towards anti-Semitism from Herzl
to the Holocaust.  Zionism is and always
has been concerned with what is in the interest of the Jewish State not the
Jews.  Yithak Mualem  wrote of
Argentina that:

‘While the Jewish factor has an effect on Israeli
foreign policy, it is not a decisive one. It is not the only consideration…
The heritage of David Ben-Gurion determined that “in our relations (with foreign countries) we should be guided by one
criteria…and that is whether it is good for the Jews.”  … 
According to Ben-Gurion’s national approach, the state constitutes the
highest goal of Zionism and the Jewish people. He did not ignore the problems
of the Jews in the diaspora, but nevertheless saw the goals of the diaspora as
secondary to the goals of the state, whose mere existence serves the needs of
the diaspora.’  [Between a Jewish and an Israeli Foreign
Policy: Israel-Argentina Relations and the Issue of Jewish Disappeared Persons
and Detainees under the Military Junta, 1976-1983 Jewish
Political Studies Review 16:1-2 (Spring 2004):

The idea that what is good for
the Jewish State is good for the Jews since ‘the state constitutes the highest goal of Zionism and the Jewish
people.’  is a fascist idea. 

Shabtai Teveth, Ben Gurion’s
official biographer, wrote, that:

‘In spite
of the certainty that genocide was being carried out, the Jewish Agency Executive
did not deviate appreciably from its routine … Two facts can be definitely
stated:   Ben-Gurion did not put the rescue effort above Zionist
politics …. he never saw fit to explain why, then or later.  Instead he
devoted his effort to rallying the Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine] and
Zionism around the Biltmore Program and to the preparations for its
implementation. ‘[The Burning Ground 1886-1948, Houghton Miflin,
Boston, 1987 p.848]. 

Teveth explained that ‘Ben-Gurion
was more concerned for the fate of the Yishuv than for that of European
Jewry.  Ben-Gurion repeatedly stressed that the importance of the Yishuv
went far beyond the individual Jews of Palestine.’  Why?  Because ‘the Yishuv was a  “great and
invaluable security, a security for the hope of the Jewish people.’ 
[849]   Teveth concluded that ‘If
there was a line in Ben-Gurion’s mind between the beneficial disaster and an
all-destroying catastrophe, it must have been a very fine one.’  [851] 

It is therefore entirely
consistent that Zionist leaders, in Israel and the United States, have been supportive,
not only of Trump but Bannon too.  The Israeli ambassador to the United States made the
government’s position clear when he praised Trump as a “true
friend of Israel” ‘extending a
specific mention to incoming top White House adviser Steve Bannon.’

Alan Dershowitz, who has attacked
Black Lives Matter as anti-Semitic, because of their support for BDS, displayed
unusual reticence when it came to Bannon. 
‘I think we have to be very
careful before we accuse any particular individual of being an anti-Semite. The
evidence certainly suggests that Mr. Bannon has very good relationships with
individual Jews.’  Of course it is
quite possible to be friendly to Jews on a personal level and yet anti-Semitic
politically.  Providing a media platform
for anti-Semitic and white supremacist articles is racist and anti-Semitic.  Enoch Powell, the English Tory MP who argued
for repatriation of Black people, was never accused of being a racist on a
personal level,.

Robert Mackey describes how
the leaders of anti-Muslim racism and chauvinism in the United States have
rallied to the cause of Steven Bannon [Steve Bannon
Made Breitbart a Space for Pro-Israel Writers and Anti-Semitic Readers]  This includes David Horowitz, a key figure and founder of
Frontpagemag.com and Pamela Geller, who has been ‘championed by Breitbart’ and ‘barred from travel to Britain in 2013, because of her virulent  Islamaphobia.

Under Andrew
Breibart, who died in 2012, Breitbart was focused on “calling out the left, but especially American Jews who were
insufficiently loyal to Israel.”  In
other words there was nothing these bigots loved more than attacking
anti-racist Jews.  For Breitbart “the left is the enemy, but Jews on the left are
worse because they are traitors” who are “selling out Israel.”  The
idea that Jews in the diaspora owe Israel any loyalty is itself anti-Semitic.

Mackey notes
that ‘Breitbart’s right-wing Jewish
writers were willing to use anti-Semitic tropes to attack their left-wing
Jewish enemies as “self-hating” enemies of Israel.’  ‘Self-hatred’ was the term the Nazis applied
to anti-fascist Germans. 

All of this has
caused anguish amongst liberal Zionists. 
Forward’s Jane Eisner wrote:

‘For many years now, American
Jews have been told to worry about anti-Semitism from the left… So obsessed
are we with looking for threats from one direction that we have missed the
growing danger from another.’

Despite Israel’s support for the
new administration, including Bannon, the liberal Zionists still fool
themselves that ‘there is a coherent
threat from the right as well as from the left,”  Eisner quotes Yehuda Kurtzer of the Shalom
Hartman Institute of North America, “I don’t know why there isn’t a coherent
response to the right.”

Eisner, Kurtzner and The Forward demonstrate the muddle and
confusion at the heart of liberal Zionism. 
A muddle represented by the signatories to the letter to the Board of
Deputies.  They wonder why there is no ‘coherent response’ to the anti-Semitism
of the Right as there is to ‘left anti-Semitism’.  The answer is of course obvious.  Zionism and Israel have never have been
interested in fighting the anti-Semitism of the Right.   Their only interest is in branding anti-Zionism
as anti-Semitism because the former is a direct challenge to Israel as a Jewish
supremacist state.  These liberals have
turned a blind eye to Israel’s anti-Arab racism for so long that they cannot
see that the Israeli state also has no principled objection to anti-Jewish
racism.

Chami Shalev in Steve
Bannon Signals Coming Storm for Jews in Age of Donald Trump quotes
Deborah Lipstadt,
the Zionist Holocaust historian “We need
to do a serious reckoning.  It’s been so
convenient for people to beat up on the left, but you can’t ignore what’s
coming from the right.”  These
hypocrites who turned a blind eye to Israel’s murderous carnage in Gaza, its
systematic denial of rights to Palestinians, are now dumbstruck at how Israel
and the Zionist movement has no objection to the anti-Semites in the new Trump
administration.  Shalev describes how
Bannon is ‘the poster child’ for
right-wing Zionists such as Mort Klein, ‘the
very hawkish head of the Zionist Organization of America’

It is amusing to read liberal
Zionists like Jane Eisner discovering that ‘it’s possible to be Zionist and anti-Semitic at the same time.’  Zionist ideologues have long argued that if
you are pro-Zionist then you can’t be anti-Semitic.  No one pursued this more avidly than the
editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard.  Pollard defended the anti-Semitic Polish MEP
Michal Kaminski, who had attacked any Polish apology for the burning alive of up
to 900 Jews in Jedwabne in 1941 by fellow Poles.  Pollard wrote that ‘I worked in Brussels. It is not a place associated with friendliness
towards Israel…. One of that rare group is Michal Kaminski. .. It would be
harder to find a greater friend in Brussels. That is why the accusation of
antisemitism is so vile.’ [Kaminski is our friend – this is a smear campaign]

Unsurprisingly Pollard has been one of the main
leaders of the campaign to smear Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the Labour Party
as ‘anti-Semitic’.  Eisner notes that ‘according
to this logic, as long as you support certain policies of the current Israeli
government, it’s okay to pal around with people who hate Jews.’ 
Liberal Zionists are having to go through a steep learning curve!  Similarly Naomi Zeveloff writes about how although ‘it would seem impossible to hate Jews but
love the Jewish state, these two viewpoints are not as contradictory as they
appear.’

Breitbart News has embraced the anti-Semitic
white supremacist movement. “We’re the
platform for the alt-right,” Bannon proudly told Mother
Jones last
summer.  It is the alt-Right supporters
of Trump who are the
ones who have
been sending anti-Semitic messages laden with Holocaust imagery to Jewish
journalists around the country.

As Eisner notes, ‘some, like Bannon, see in Israel a (white)
nationalist, anti-Arab country worth supporting — over there. Here, in America,
they may accept, even respect, individual Jews, but their ideological aim is to
cleanse the country of its multiculturalism and restore privilege to white
Christian males.’  What Eisner does
not do is explain why the American and European far-Right see Israel as a
country worth supporting.

Eisner, and not only her, are in
a state of shock at discovering that supporting Israel and supporting
anti-Semitism are entirely compatible whereas opposing racism, be it in America
or Israel, is going to get you labelled as an ‘anti-Semite’ by the
anti-Semites!  Zeveloff notes
how ‘Breitbart News… is also
brazenly Zionist, albeit peddling an exclusively right wing perspective on
Israel.’  

What we are seeing is a great
awakening among some Zionists.  How long
it lasts is another matter.  Zeveloff even
quotes Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist
at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion that ‘There is actually “little correlation”
between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, … To be sure, anti-Semitism is found
among the anti-Zionist left. But it is also found among the Zionist right.’  Groping towards an understanding of the
present confusing situation, Zeveloff cites Cohen as saying that “Many people who dislike Jews like Israel and
many people who are critical toward Israel are affectionate toward Jews.”

As
Trump’s administration embraces the politics of the alt-Right and Israel’s
supporters embrace them too, liberal Zionists are going to find it difficult
coming to terms with the fact that all their comfortable nostrums about a
‘different’ Zionism have gone out of the window.  We live in interesting times!

Tony
Greenstein