The first reaction of Jews to Zionism was that it was nothing but a form of Jewish anti-Semitism. That is why the anti-Semites loved Zionism. Both groups believed that Jews did not belong in the countries they lived in but Palestine. The Zionists went on to accept that the anti-Semites were right. In ‘exile’ (Galut) the Jews had developed very unhealthy, asocial characteristics.
As Jacob Klatzkin,
the editor of the Zionist Organisation’s Die Welt (1909-11) and co-founder of Encyclopedia Judaica in 1924 argued :
 |
| A classical anti-Semitic cartoon – courtesy of the Samaria Regional Council |
we deny the rightfulness of our own nationalism… Instead of establishing
societies for defence against the anti-Semites who want to reduce our rights,
we should establish societies for defence against our friends, who desire to
defend our rights.’ B. Matovu, “The Zionist Wish
and the Nazi Deed’ Issue,
Winter 1966-7. Uri Davies, ‘Utopia Incorporated’ p. 17.
held that Jews were: ‘a
people disfigured in both body and soul – in a word, of a horror… some sort of
outlandish creature… in any case, not a pure national type…. some sort of
oddity among the peoples going by the name of Jew.’ [Arthur Herzberg, The Zionist
Idea, p. 322/323, Temple, Atheneum, New York 1981]
This settler video, funded by the Israeli state, is living proof of
it. Directed against Israeli Jews who
tell the truth about the Occupation it has all the steretypes of traditional anti-Semitism. The hook nosed Jew, willing to sell out his
own for a golden Euro coin, Mr Sturmer (Der Sturmer was the pornographic anti-Semitic newspaper
edited by Julius Streicher, a Nazi leader executed at Nuremberg in 1946 for
crimes against humanity).
Goebbels made in 1940. No matter what
the Jew remains the same, except on his national soil of course. The Zionist counterpart to the Eternal Jew being
Eternal anti-Semitism. Both are and were
lies but like a dog returning to its vomit, we see the settlers of the West
Bank returning to the crudest anti-Semitic tropes and steretypes.
By Dimi Reider
|Published February 14, 2015
WATCH: The most anti-Semitic Israeli cartoon ever made?
[This post has been updated]
The Samaria Settler Council — an organization representing Israeli
settlements in northern West Bank — has just uploaded a pretty
jaw-dropping piece of propaganda. It’s subtitled in English and really
needs to be seen to be believed. But in case you don’t want to do it to
yourselves, it shows a wealthy European named Herr Stürmer (get it?) tossing shiny Euro coins to a hook-nosed, vicious character referred to only as “ze Jew.”
“Ze Jew” is paid by his master (whose face is obscured by a newspaper parodying Haaretz
headlines on Israeli human rights abuses) to besmirch Israel, its
soldiers and its settlers. At the end, when Herr Stürmer has no further
use for him, “ze Jew” obligingly hangs himself (got that one?).
The depiction of the dissenting and/or diasporic Jew as identical to
the anti-Semitic caricature is a sadly familiar trope of Zionist
nationalism, dating all the way back to the earliest days of the
movement. The punchline is supposed to be that this is the same
hooked-nosed, money-grabbing, media-manipulator that European paymasters
have always seen in the Jews. But the cartoon was not drawn by
Europeans — it was conceived, drawn and paid for by Israelis, for
Israelis, about Israelis.
One can only wonder how right wingers, of all people, have the gall to call critics of Israeli policies ”self-hating Jews”.
UPDATE: The Samaria Settler Council is a non-profit, but most of its funds comes from the Samaria Regional Council, which is an elected local authority (confusing, I know). As Labor MK Stav Shaffir wrote
to her followers on Saturday night, “In case you were wondering who was
sponsoring that filth, the answer is: you” – some NIS 1.3 million of
taxpayer money in the last year alone, according to Shaffir.
Since going online, the video has been lambasted by just about
everyone, including settler leaders. Danny Dayan, one-time chair of
Yesha Council and number one advocate for the settlement movement, stressed
the Council does not represent him, while Naftali Bennett tried to
place some distance between himself and the video, albeit obliquely.
“I think the clip is inappropriate,” Bennet told Army Radio.
“The content, incidentally, is very true: Europe funds organizations
that harm IDF soldiers, and that’s a fact. I think this should be dealt with through legal means.
I’m generally against using Nazi allegories.” Later on Sunday, even the
Samaria Regional Council itself professed revulsion with the clip.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Samaria Settler Council, Benny
Katzover, doubled down behind the video, saying the uncut version was
even harsher. “It had much stronger imagery because the picture of
leftist organizations courting the greatest anti-Semites is an
outrageous one,” he said
to the same radio station. “But we knew that the Israeli public, which
isn’t really aware of what is going on, can’t really take overdoses all
at once [sic], so we softened it up.”
Morbid curiosity abounds.
The Samaria Settler Council — an organization representing Israeli
settlements in northern West Bank — has just uploaded a pretty
jaw-dropping piece of propaganda. It’s subtitled in English and really
needs to be seen to be believed. But in case you don’t want to do it to
yourselves, it shows a wealthy European named Herr Stürmer (get it?) tossing shiny Euro coins to a hook-nosed, vicious character referred to only as “ze Jew.”
“Ze Jew” is paid by his master (whose face is obscured by a newspaper parodying Haaretz
headlines on Israeli human rights abuses) to besmirch Israel, its
soldiers and its settlers. At the end, when Herr Stürmer has no further
use for him, “ze Jew” obligingly hangs himself (got that one?).
The depiction of the dissenting and/or diasporic Jew as identical to
the anti-Semitic caricature is a sadly familiar trope of Zionist
nationalism, dating all the way back to the earliest days of the
movement. The punchline is supposed to be that this is the same
hooked-nosed, money-grabbing, media-manipulator that European paymasters
have always seen in the Jews. But the cartoon was not drawn by
Europeans — it was conceived, drawn and paid for by Israelis, for
Israelis, about Israelis.
One can only wonder how right wingers, of all people, have the gall to call critics of Israeli policies ”self-hating Jews”.
UPDATE: The Samaria Settler Council is a non-profit, but most of its funds comes from the Samaria Regional Council, which is an elected local authority (confusing, I know). As Labor MK Stav Shaffir wrote
to her followers on Saturday night, “In case you were wondering who was
sponsoring that filth, the answer is: you” – some NIS 1.3 million of
taxpayer money in the last year alone, according to Shaffir.
Since going online, the video has been lambasted by just about
everyone, including settler leaders. Danny Dayan, one-time chair of
Yesha Council and number one advocate for the settlement movement, stressed
the Council does not represent him, while Naftali Bennett tried to
place some distance between himself and the video, albeit obliquely.
“I think the clip is inappropriate,” Bennet told Army Radio.
“The content, incidentally, is very true: Europe funds organizations
that harm IDF soldiers, and that’s a fact. I think this should be dealt with through legal means.
I’m generally against using Nazi allegories.” Later on Sunday, even the
Samaria Regional Council itself professed revulsion with the clip.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Samaria Settler Council, Benny
Katzover, doubled down behind the video, saying the uncut version was
even harsher. “It had much stronger imagery because the picture of
leftist organizations courting the greatest anti-Semites is an
outrageous one,” he said
to the same radio station. “But we knew that the Israeli public, which
isn’t really aware of what is going on, can’t really take overdoses all
at once [sic], so we softened it up.”
Morbid curiosity abounds.
Left-wing NGOs warn settler group’s video could incite to violence
Israeli organizations are calling for the Attorney General to investigate a
Jewish settler organization under Israel’s anti-incitement law for a video it shared on social media.
organization headed by veteran settler leader and Gush Emunim founder Benny
Katzover, uploaded the two-minute-long animated clip to YouTube on Saturday.
Its critics accuse it of being anti-Semitic and an incitement to violence
against the leaders, members and supporters of left-wing organizations.
video, which has been viewed close to 30,000 times in less than a day, is
indeed replete with anti-Semitic tropes and makes clear allusions to the Nazis.
the clip, an unseen character named “Mr. Stürmer” (Der Stürmer was the name of
a Nazi newspaper that spread anti-Semitic propaganda) sits behind a newspaper
titled, “Hasmol” (Hebrew for “The Left”). This unseen character orders a
hook-nosed Jew to dig up and bring him untruthful news items for his newspaper
about Israel and the IDF. Each time the obsequious Jew brings him this
“information,” he tosses a Euro coin at him. Eventually Mr. Stürmer has no more
use for the Jew and tells him to take care of himself.
video, titled “The Eternal Jew” (also the name of an infamous anti-Semitic
propaganda movie put out by the Nazis in 1940), ends with an image of the Jew
hanging from a tree. Next to him are the logos of 10 different left-wing
Israeli non-governmental organizations, including the New Israel Fund, Peace Now and B’Tselem and the following
sentence: “The Europeans maybe seem different to you today, but to them…you are
exactly the same.”
The
video is evidently an attack on European funding of Israeli NGOs working to
advance Israeli-Palestinian cooperation and protect Palestinians rights. A statement
issued to The Times of Israel by the Samaria Settlers’ Committee quoting
Katzover confirms that this was the intended message.
recent years, the support of foreign bodies and governments for extreme leftist
organizations in Israel has grown. We are talking about foreign governments
whose goal is to destroy the lives of Jews in the Land of Israel in general,
and in particular over the Green Line, and do so with funding of hundreds and
millions of Euros,” Katzover said.
purpose of the video is to show that even in the best case, Israeli leftist
organizations are acting like idiotic pawns of the swarm of modern
anti-Semitism. In the worst case, they are consciously acting to destroy the
State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.”
Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the video, saying in a
statement that he is “stridently against the comparison between organizations
or Israeli individuals — from any political stripe — and between Nazi Germany
and condemn any use of it for elections.”
right-wing Knesset members attempted to advance a bill that would limit
foreign funding for Israeli NGOs that support the prosecution of IDF officers
in international courts or campaign for boycotting Israeli institutions or
products.
morning, Peace Now posted on Facebook a letter that it sent to Israel’s Attorney General Yehuda
Weinstein calling on him to order a police investigation of the Samaria
Settlers’ Committee.
this case we are talking about a true breach of the law. We believe there is an
actual possibility that after watching a video like this, a person could carry
out an act, either planned or spontaneous, against these organizations and
activists, either in the Occupied Territories, or within Israel,” Peace Now
general secretary Yariv Oppenheimer wrote.
 |
| Peace Now general secretary Yariv Oppenheimer (photo credit: Kobi Gideon/Flash90) |
Oppenheimer
also pointed out that the video was made with public money.
budget of the Samaria Settlers’ Committee comes from the Samaria Regional
Council…this projects the message that this is not just a video by a
fly-by-night organization, but rather the official position of state
authorities,” he wrote.
MK Stav Shaffir posted on Facebook her disgust for the video, and shared
that NIS 1.3 million of public funds go to the Samaria Settlers’ Council every
year.
Misgav, writing in Haaretz, agreed that the fact that this video was made and
disseminated by the Samaria Settlers’ Committee raises the anti-left rhetoric
to a new level.
between left wingers and peace activists, human rights organizations and
journalists to Nazi collaborators are not a new thing. This phenomenon reached
its peak in the years around the time that the Oslo Accords were signed…But
until today it seemed that this was coming from the fringes of the right-wing.
The escalation of this new video is significant for two reasons. First, here we
see the Europeans—and not the Palestinians—portrayed as Nazis. And second, this
was produced and shared by a body that is completely part of the
establishment,” Misgav wrote.
Patrick, executive director of Yesh Din, an Israeli organization working to defend the
rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, issued a statement calling the video
an attempt at “incitement against civil society organizations.”
seems that after they failed to convince the public in other ways, they decided
turned to Nazi propaganda. I pity the person whose feverish mind conceived
those kind of images,” she said.
spokesman for the Justice Ministry told The Times of Israel he was aware of
complaints lodged with the Attorney General about the “Eternal Jew” video, but
that the ministry was not issuing any comment on the matter at this time.
