MWC Special Features,

Israel A Totalitarian State

The Israeli military invasion of Gaza brings to a head many of the issues that have been fermenting for many years.  This invasion is the culmination of the Colonising of the peoples of the area begun in 1948.  1948 began the process of clearing the  territory for Jewish immigration.  This process  has continued ever since. And inexorably, as the Palestinian people have resisted, so the levels of domination have increased.

It is now clear that Israel’s Colonisation, is as a Totalitarian State.  As the Palestinians refuse to go, to leave their homes and become Refugees, so the screws of domination have  been tightened.  The most recent bombings of power stations, attack the very foundation of modern urban life and threaten massive  famine, cholera attacks  and death from starvation,  etc.

As a very young man I learnt the art of radical politics from a Kibbuztnik, in Zikim.  At the time , like so many I believed in the Desert blooming by the hard work of the pioneers.  I believed in the need for a home for a people destroyed by the Holocaust. I believed in a word in the Ideology that had justified the creation of the Israeli State.  I believed in the need for a Land for the Jewish People who had suffered so terribly over such a long period of time.

It took me many years to realise that this was so much hog wash, with just that tad of truth that keeps so many  non Israeli  Jews in thrall to the founding myth.  Ask many non Israeli Jew, and they will repeat to you the myths of 50 years ago, and they will book no counter argument, no discussion. It is as if they they read nothing, thought nothing since the founding of Israel.

Israel has always been sold as a country for all Jewish peoples, a land of refugees in a an alien world,   which they would  never allow to be destroyed again.  The tragedy unfolding in front of us,  made clear , symbolically by the invasion of Gaza, is that while these remain noble aims, they  are doomed to failure.  Fine goals, cannot succeed  in the end by deeply amoral  means.   

The military forces of Israel has twice  ethnically cleansed Palestinians, forcing them from their homes.  Palestinians friends  in London, New York and  Jordan have told me harrowing tales. Educated and less educated Palestinians have stories that should make your hair stand on end, forthe cruelty involved.

We don't need to take the personal and individual stories that are everywhere across the Palestinian Diaspora as gospel.  We also  know from the research work of Israeli historians of conscience, of which Ilan Pappe is the best known.  They confirm that there has been conscious and intentional violence of the  Israeli military  to destroy Palestinian villages on a permanent basis.

In the last few years  the outright theft of land and water resources  through the erection of the Wall  is a continuing an attempt to redraw the temporary boundaries of the Israeli State.  Now we have the siege of Gaza.   All  these actions are amoral means, which serve the  imperative which birthed the nation of Israel.

It is now clear that Israel’s Colonisation, is as a Totalitarian State.  As the Palestinians refuse to go, to leave their homes and become Refugees, so the screws of domination have  been tightened. 

My psychoanalytical friends of Freudian persuasion  tell me the chilling lesson  that people who have been oppressed identify with the aggressor, have an inability to come to terms with what happened to them, and do unto others what has been done to them.  And the evidence does point to the fact that Israel seem to be reproducing the Nazi horror all over again.   I think we must question whether we are facing a brutality in Israel, that is likely to lead to a new genocide.

To raise this suggestion is clearly deeply unpopular in many circles.  But the issue is now so grave, that I feel it much be opened.  The evidence is in front of us if we wish to see it.
 
The Palestinian Question

The Palestinians have resisted the original invasion of 1948 and ever since.  The  surrounding Middle eastern countries are dotted with permanent Palestinian Refugee camps .  The refugee problem has never been resolved by the invading party, and remains a running sore.   The Israeli State is obviously hugely powerful in comparison with the refuges, the surrounding territories, and the Palestinian people.

Israel has never attempted  to resolve the problem on their door step.  Some would point to the never ending Peace initiatives, and both sides point the finger at the failure to come to any conclusion. The facts on the ground are simple enough. Israel has continuously increased its settlements on Palestinian territory over the 65 year period, and has continuously reduced the opportunities for a successful Palestinian economy.

The point at issue, how can Israel produce a safe land for its people on a permanent basis, while  so closely surrounded by an antagonistic people? Israel’s answer is by military force.  By increasing the levels of oppression, by terrorising  its subject peoples .  This answer can only be made by a Totalitarian society.

Nazi Germany  also wished to get rid its minority populations, people who did not fits its racial definition  of its core population.  Between 1932, when it took power, and 1941, when it began its final solution, Germany made every effort to expels its Jews.  During that period, the Western powers refused to take German Jews. Likewise today,  Israel is making every effort to expel its Palestinian.