Zionism and fascism

The reactions to Prime Minister Erdoğan's characterization, at the Alliance of Civilizations meeting held in Vienna, of anti-Semitism, fascism and Zionism as "crimes against humanity" in the same category are quite interesting. Looking at these reactions, it turns out that Zionism is spotless, nothing more than an innocent nationalism that cannot be told apart from its counterparts.

Even the mildest reactions to the Prime Minister's words, while conceding that Zionism is a form of nationalism that has brought catastrophe upon the Islamic world and indeed the whole world today, nevertheless say that it cannot be equated with either fascism or anti-Semitism. Why? What does Zionism's performance so far lack that fascism or anti-Semitism has, such that equating it with them touches such a raw nerve in so many quarters?

If it is a matter of racism, Zionism in its essence has no weaker an emphasis than racism. Does it not regard Jewishness as a race and place all of humanity in a relation of friend and enemy according to its relationship with this race? Does it not try to gather those it thinks carry the blood of this race, wherever in the world it finds them, and assemble them in Zion? And does this gathering not come at the cost of disturbing the people who have lived there for thousands of years, driving them from their homeland, and threatening their lives and property?

The State of Israel is a product of the nationalist ideology called Zionism, and this state has owed its existence from the very beginning to occupation, massacre and the disturbance of those living in these lands. Under normal conditions, the people living on Palestinian land had no quarrel whatsoever with the Jews. The Palestinians are a people who have lived in peace with both Jews and Christians for centuries. They have never been people who minded having a Jewish neighbor. That is to say, the Palestinians cannot in essence be regarded as enemies of the Jews. So which ideology is responsible for the expulsion from these lands of millions of Palestinians who never minded living together with Jews, and for forcing those who could not be expelled to live in conditions no different from a concentration camp?

Israel continues to put down roots in the lands it occupied in 1967. In spite of all the UN resolutions, it continues its expansionist policies. Meanwhile it massacres people who for centuries had no problem with the Jews, never attacked them and never harmed them, seizes their lands by force, throws those who resist into its dungeons, and displays every kind of hostility. And it does this in the name of Zionism.

What is Zionism supposed to be? It is the idea that the members of this race, which they believe to be superior and at the center of the world, lived in these lands 2,500 years ago and must sooner or later return to these lands. What about such an idea could be innocent? What else can come out of such an ideology other than racism, hatred, war and massacre? And what more does fascism or anti-Semitism contain than this, that Zionism should be more innocent than they are?

A total of 89 members from both the Republican and Democratic wings of the American Congress have written a letter to Prime Minister Erdoğan, inviting him to retract the words he spoke about Zionism in Vienna. This is not at all surprising. As elections approach in America, the great majority of candidates for both Congress and the Senate openly enter into relations with the Jewish lobby organization AIPAC and promise to support Israel in all of their politics. Many candidates regard obtaining a promise to support Israel on every issue, regardless of whether Israel is right or not, as one of the most important conditions for being elected.

Just take a look at senators' websites: the declaration each of them has made from the outset on foreign policy regarding the Middle East and Israel openly expresses this submission. Many of them display this submission not because they truly believe in Israel but because they fear the wrath of the Zionists.

In fact, beyond a certain point, this has become a matter of American urban legend. Ordinary politicians who do not dare to stand against the Jewish lobbies surrender to them from the outset, and thereby narrow their own political field as much as possible. Thus every unjust, racist, occupying, murderous, tyrannical and colonialist policy of Israel acquires a guarantee of support from Congress and the Senate.

From this angle alone, American politics has become a captive of the Jewish lobbies, and is in a pitiable state. It is quite clear that these lobbying activities, which dominate the workings of Congress and the Senate, do not make the US more democratic; on the contrary, just as C. Wright Mills named it years ago, they reduce it to a lie governed by oligarchic power elites beneath a very heavy make-up of democracy. The Zionists, whom Mills did not include among these elites, work today to plunge not only the US but the whole world into corruption.

The political theology behind the occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan and the shedding of the blood of millions of people there is none other than Zionism. Here is Aleppo, here is the throne of God; let whoever wishes compare this with fascism or anti-Semitism.