[Salon] Fwd: 'No Innocents in Gaza': Reflecting on Israel's First Fascist War

The email I just sent is helpful to understand the U.S.' own "Kahanism," now in the process of taking control of the U.S., so I will become more reticent in my criticism with having National Conservatism as our U.S. ideology now, under the leadership of its most prominent advocate J.D. Vance.

I've been denounced here by Trump/Jeff Sessions/Yoram Hazony supporting Traditional Conservatives and National Conservatives for using the word "fascist" to describe the Americans who are the "extended ideological family" of Israeli fascists, doing so under the Law of Identity principle of Logic, as comparative political theory, as the aforesaid are. 

Just like Nazi Germany had many allies in the U.S. pre-WW II (and some, during, and after, WW II, such as Orwell identified Traditional Conservative James Burnham as, and his partner William Buckley, was), with many of them concealing their loyalties to their "ideology" (fascist political theory) as "America First" in working to keep the U.S. out of the war against Germany, notwithstanding some actually opposed war for what might be reasonable causes in light of WW I. But some in America First, like William Buckley's father seemed to be motivated by, were genuinely loyal to fascist ideology, as his son would later introduce it to the U.S. surreptitiously under "cover" of euphemistic "Conservatism."

So naturally Buckley would be sympathetic to his fellow fascist ideologue, Meir Kahane, revealing the roots of Kahanism as like-minded fascists, in U.S. Traditional Conservatism, which these links are reveling of:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1985/10/09/buckley-hears-national-review-lambasted-in-libel-trial-here/de970ad6-73b7-4908-b381-53b77213cdc1/


So, since this email list has been so much of a platform for disseminating National Conservative propaganda, we should hold a mirror up to ourselves to see how much this email list has been part of the "First Kahane War. . . . this is a war to establish a fascist state.

    "The State of Kahane has risen in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal spinelessness made it possible. It wasn't only the neo-Nazi right-wing parties: It was, above all, the prime minister's own Likud party that brought Kahanism to power."

    Here, Levy is incorrect: "When Meir Kahane emerged, he brought with him an Israeli-made neo-Nazi party that viewed Arabs as dogs, at best."

    No, "he brought with him an American-made neo-Nazi party," modeled after the Ku Klux Klan, and "Conservative Segregationists," such as those who founded the American Conservative Movement, as any reading of Willmoore Kendall shows. With Kendall so popular on this email list, as I've found out with the denunciations I've received here from Trumpite Traditional Conservatives and their fellow National Conservatives, for simply revealing the explicit fascist political theory contained in Kendall's writings. 

    One last point: in 2018, I did an oral history interview with Gideon Levy (which I haven't published), and when he finished describing the Israeli Right, I said they sound exactly like fascists. He wholeheartedly agreed! We didn't get into their American fellow ideologues as Hazony and his National Conservative American allies hadn't become ideologically formulaic yet, as they did in 2019, with The American Conservative magazine and Peter Thiel's enthusiastic support, to be joined slightly later with Quincy's promotion of the politicians who would adhere to them, such as Vance, DeSantis, Hawley, et al., all heavily promoted by Quincy's Responsible Statecraft and TAC magazine. 

    And we on this email list were part and parcel of that as National Conservatism/Kahanism was heartily welcomed here. Now it has just taken full-control of the USG.




    Begin forwarded message:

    From: 
    Subject: [Salon] 'No Innocents in Gaza': Reflecting on Israel's First Fascist War
    Date: January 19, 2025 at 7:11:16 AM MST
    To: @listserve.com
    Reply-To: 


    'No Innocents in Gaza': Reflecting on Israel's First Fascist War

    Gideon LevyJan 19, 2025

    The war that is supposed to end Sunday will go down in history as the First Kahane War. It is fundamentally different from all of Israel's previous wars. 

    The only war that resembled it was the 1948 war, that caused the Nakba, but the motivations behind that war were different. That was a war to establish a Jewish state; this is a war to establish a fascist state.

    The State of Kahane has risen in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal spinelessness made it possible. It wasn't only the neo-Nazi right-wing parties: It was, above all, the prime minister's own Likud party that brought Kahanism to power. 

    The profound change that has occurred in Israel is best exemplified by the war in Gaza. Almost everything about it was meant to appease the fascist, racist, pro-population-transfer far right; and the spirit of Kahanism seized control of its goals and conduct. It wasn't only the scale of the army's cruelty; it was, above all, the way in which cruelty was rendered into a value in Israeli society as a whole, into an opportunity, an asset, a miracle. Cruelty as something to be proud of, to aspire to, to boast of and to flaunt.

    In its previous wars, too, Israel committed heinous acts. Sometimes it tried to deny, conceal, and lie, and sometimes it even admitted and was ashamed of them. Not this time. 

    This time, the IDF spokesperson proudly presents the scale of the destruction and the killing, brandishing them as accomplishments in order to please the Kahanist right, which has become the mainstream. 

    Israel has become a state that aspires to the killing and destruction of Arabs solely for the sake of killing and destroying Arabs. It did not used to be like this, and it certainly did not take pride in it. This is a profound change, one that we will struggle to undo. It portends a pitch-black future.

    Palestinian detainees sitting on the back of a truck in Gaza, in 2023.
    Palestinian detainees sitting on the back of a truck in Gaza, in 2023.Credit: Moti Milrod

    When Meir Kahane emerged, he brought with him an Israeli-made neo-Nazi party that viewed Arabs as dogs, at best. Israel recoiled from him. The Mapai ethos of "shooting and crying" still prevailed here, alongside the nonpartisanship of Likud. Menachem Begin, and also the first Netanyahu government, preserved it. The collapse began with the second Netanyahu government and reached its peak in his current one. Of all his crimes, this is the greatest and most unforgivable. In the first stage, fascism was legitimized and whitewashed.

    Voices that were never before considered legitimate infiltrated politics and the media. Soon they were not only legitimate, they were the voice of the Israeli masses and also of the government and military. On radio and television, people said, "There are no innocents in Gaza" and spoke about the (happy) right and duty to kill everyone, with the same ease with which they discussed the weather. 

    Senior reporters revealed the opinions they once kept hidden when they realized that it was not only permissible, but also beneficial to them. From Amit Segal and Zvi Yehezkeli to Almog Boker, fascists were born. Such discourse simply didn't exist in Israel before, and has no place in any democracy. Meanwhile, anti-war voices were silenced; even compassion and humanity were forbidden. The takeover of the public conversation was completed.

    During the long months of the war, Kahanism became the dominant voice of Israel and its military. There was no longer any difference between the commanders who emerged from the rotten soil of the settlements and their counterparts from "beautiful" Israel: They all did everything in the spirit of Kahane, without exceptions and without dissenters. Pleasing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir was the goal. Just give them the endless measure of blood they crave. 

    A hostage deal was postponed for months, Gaza was destroyed completely, entire areas were cleansed of people and tens of thousands were killed, all to satisfy the spirit of Kahane and his earthly representatives in the cabinet.

    It's ironic that the First Kahane War is ending now with the withdrawal from the governing coalition of Otzma Yehudit, whose leader already promised to return when the genocide resumes. But the upheaval has been completed, there is no longer any need for Ben-Gvir and his ilk. Netanyahu and Likud are sufficiently Kahanist to continue to pursue Kahane's vision; there is no longer even a need to scribble "Kahane was right" on the walls.


    This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail (Mailman edition) and MHonArc.