In what way is it wrong? They certainly murder their othered aliens with impunity, just like the Nazis did the Jews. They gained power through a propaganda of fears and lies from a minority position in a disorganized parliament just like the Nazis. Their leader is even a criminal.
Comparing the Israeli occupation (a brutal repressive occupation like many in human history, and quite a few in current events) to the Holocaust is a classic antisemitic trope.
Compare Israel to Mussolini in Africa if you really want to justify the fascist label.
They aren’t fascists?
I mean, fascism is a thing with an actual definition, beyond a loosely slung pejorative term as you seen to be using it.
Do you seriously require me to go into the differentiations between Israel’s government and a fascist state?
Do you count the fact that they are a very small country surrounded by enemies?
That’s quite the sentiment.
fas·cism | \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi- \
A political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized [autocratic] government headed by a [dictatorial] leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Of course that wouldn’t be Mussolini’s definition. But here we have:
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the exaltation of nationality and race over others – check
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a dictatorial leader – iffy, but Netanyahu is a thug who is undermining Israeli democracy, much like the classic fascist leaders did in their countries before eliminating democracy completely.
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economic regimentation – not so much for Israeli Jews, but Israeli Arabs and Palestinian refugees are forced into poverty, and Gaza refugees are essentially prisoners without recourse to due process, free trade, or for most of them, paying work.
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social regimentation – again extreme oppression of non-Jews, casual unjudicial murder or unarmed protesters including many children by snipers, lynch mobs murdering innocent arab and palestinians, illegal but government-sponsored destruction and seizing of their property, and also plenty of lesser but still highly problematic oppression of non-Orthodox and non-European Jews just for spice.
So maybe it’s not entirely spot-on – but if you think what the Israelis have is a regular parliamentary democracy, then parliamentary democracy evidently includes some truly monstrous behavior by the government. I’d say Israel looks a lot like Italy or Germany prior to their dictators finalizing their hold on power, while there was still a pretense of democracy.
It’s not even close.
Stop.
Fine; the Israeli system is evil, their leaders are monsters, and they commit crimes against humanity almost every day, but they’re not fascists. I guess the problem is with parliamentary democracy.
Maybe they are Maoists.
Sure, you can criticize them for all kinds of things, but they are indeed a functional liberal democracy. (7.79 on the EIU Democracy index)
Being a democracy doesn’t mean you only do good things, but it means you are not an autocratic authoritarian regime, which is a fundamental aspect of any fascist state.
Apartheid state is more appropiate, and Netanyahu’s allies in the Knesset include parties that are as theocratic as the Mullahs in Iran.
If Israel was an Islamic state doing what Israel does to Palestianians that were non-Muslim, we’d sanction the country at a minimum.
It’s not quite an apartheid state either.
Most of the Palestinians are not Israeli citizens. They never were.
However, about 20% of Israel is Arab, and they have full rights under the law. The only real difference is that only Jews have mandatory military service in the IDF, although non Jews are still allowed to join the IDF if they choose, and are not excluded.
Fair comment. I guess I was just surprised that he was struggling to even make a connection to anti-Semitism
Not in the West Bank or Gaza they’re not.
It is in the West Bank.
AZ has a chance to be represented by two Democrats. The times, the are a changin.
The West Bank isn’t part of Israel. Those people aren’t Israelis. That is Palestinian territory, occupied by Israel.
Occupying a territory doesn’t make you less of a democracy.
Again, I’ve already linked to the EIU ranking. Israel is a liberal democracy. It’s not an authoritarian autocracy. This is not something that reasonable people dispute. You may not like their currently elected government, but their government is in fact elected through fair elections.
Mark Kelly seems like he could have a shot.
Tell it to the residents. The Israelís who live in the West Bank get to vote for the government which rules the West Bank. The Palestinians in the West Bank do not get to vote for the government which rules the West Bank. You can torture yourself all day with rationalizations for that, but it is not democracy, and the best word to describe it is apartheid.
I mean, it should not be difficult to understand the problems with a democracy can hold and rule some territory in which the residents have no representation in government and are systematically repressed and yet still be a democracy. How could such a judgment go wrong?
They don’t get to vote for the given of Israel because… They aren’t Israelis. They don’t want to be Israelis.
They get to vote for the Palestinian government, which has largely been ineffective and corrupt. That’s their government.
Israel occupies that region because the Palestinian government cannot be trusted to prevent terrorists from attacking Israeli civilian population centers.
Ultimately though, there’s a thread for Israel. If you want to try and pretend they are a fascist state, you can do so there.