Reading about the current events got me looking into the history of Palestine and Israel, and I noticed a lot of Israel’s politicians (like Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin, and Ariel Sharon to name a few) were Zionist terrorists (using the word literally, not subjectively) since before the establishment of Israel. The groups they belonged to, like Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi have been designated terrorist organizations by the United Nations, British, and United States governments, and

Albert Einstein, in a letter to The New York Times in 1948, compared Irgun and its successor Herut party to “Nazi and Fascist parties” and described it as a “terrorist, right wing, chauvinist organization”.

The Zionists have explained their view as follows:

Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat. We are very far from having any moral qualms as far as our national war goes. We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world: “Ye shall blot them out to the last man.”

and

Late in 1940, Lehi, having identified a common interest between the intentions of the new German order and Jewish national aspirations, proposed forming an alliance in World War II with Nazi Germany.[22] The organization offered cooperation in the following terms: Lehi would rebel against the British, while Germany would recognize an independent Jewish state in Palestine/Eretz Israel, and all Jews leaving their homes in Europe, by their own will or because of government injunctions, could enter Palestine with no restriction of numbers.[32] Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik went to Beirut to meet German official Werner Otto von Hentig. The Lehi documents outlined that its rule would be authoritarian and indicated similarities between the organization and Nazis.

It just gets worse the more you look into it, but it does give important context to the current genocide in Gaza, and to the decades old conflict in general.

  • MxM111@kbin.social
    0·
    7 months ago

    You should have continued citing your sources to have complete picture and correct historical context, not picking and choosing since it creates distorted picture:

    Believing that Nazi Germany was a lesser enemy of the Jews than Britain, Lehi twice attempted to form an alliance with the Nazis, proposing a Jewish state based on “nationalist and totalitarian principles, and linked to the German Reich by an alliance”.[22][23] After Stern’s death in 1942, the new leadership of Lehi began to move towards support for Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union[17] and the ideology of National Bolshevism, which was considered an amalgam of both right and left.

    • Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      7 months ago

      ideology of National Bolshevism

      That’s just nazis calling themselves “socialists”, the same way nazis call themselves “national socialists” while actively killing actual socialists.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Abolishing private ownership of the means of production is definitionally left, so I don’t know who would consider it an “amalgam of both right and left” 😂

      Unlike in the UK where Jews were considered second-class citizens, or in Nazi Germany where they were being ethnically cleaned & genocided, the Soviet Union had Jews among the Communist party ranks, including the politburo. There were Jewish Bolsheviks in the Communist revolution, so they’d been there from the start.

    • bartolomeo@suppo.fiOP
      0·
      7 months ago

      I guess, yea.

      Lehi supported both Hitler and Stalin.

      You’re right, that does make the picture more complete!

      • tortillaPeanuts@lemmy.world
        0·
        7 months ago

        To add even more context, Lehi was an offshoot of Irgun which was an extremist offshoot of Haganah. They had less than 300 members compared to Haganah’s 20,000.

        Their ideology probably isn’t an accurate representation of all the politicians you mentioned except Yitzhak Shamir who was a leader of Lehi and became a prime minister of Israel 40 years later which is a bit weird.

        • bartolomeo@suppo.fiOP
          0·
          7 months ago

          Thanks for the additional context.

          Well, about Ariel Sharon (from Wikipedia)

          An official enquiry found that he bore “personal responsibility” for the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinian refugees, for which he became known as the “Butcher of Beirut” among Arabs. He was subsequently removed as defense minister.

          And Begin

          was described by the British government as the “leader of the notorious terrorist organisation”.

          And there was a famous open letter published (the one signed by Einstein, among others) that

          described Begin’s Herut party as “terrorist, right-wing chauvinist organization in Palestine,”[34] “closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties” and accused his group (along with the smaller, militant, Stern Gang) of preaching “racial superiority” and having “inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community”.

          And those guys held the highest government office of Israel! It might be weird but it’s not uncommon, especially if you look into other government posts too. Like I said, the more you look into it the worse it gets.

          Edit: another example

          In 1915, Pinhas Felix Rosenblüth, who rose to be Israel’s first Justice Minister, wrote in a field report on Ostjuden published in Der Jüdische Student that the great lesson for young Jewish Zionists fighting on the eastern front, on experiencing delusions at what they observe of Jewish life there, was that Palestine was one large “institute for the fumigation of (all) Jewish vermin” (Große Entlausungsanstalt für alles jüdische Ungeziefer).