It’s a bit inaccurate to equate things like annexation of disputed territories, autocratic behavior, and mistreatment of subgroups as distinctly “Nazi” or link them to Hitler. Those are things that too many governments do, and have done long before the NSDAP reared its ugly head. “Fascism” is a more flexible term, if you go back to the roots of it in the 1920s and basic philosophy; that you can apply to a number of people/governments. The peculiar circumstances of Germany, Hitler, and the Third Reich though were rather unique, so unless you have a government with a set ideology documented in one or more canonical political texts, a mono-party system controlled by a single, ideologically rigid belief system, and a set of core beliefs that are both essential to the state’s existence as such and which depend on the utter destruction of a whole group or groups of “others,” you can’t really call a state “Nazi” in any meaningful sense.
The Israeli government under Netanyahu has become arrogant, makes use of some interpretations of Jewish and Israeli history for discriminatory and oppressive purposes, and presides over a system of internal and semi-external domination of Palestinians that is at best repressive and at worst oppressive and probably illegal. Israel itself, however, is much more complex. There is no one vision of Israel, no one set of beliefs, even (or especially) in terms of religion, no core text that everyone refers to, no one party that excludes all other political participation, and no widespread acceptance of everything the government does. Doesn’t mean we can’t criticize Israel for its actions, some of which are again arguably pretty unsavory. But to liken the country to a bunch of Nazis is not terribly helpful.
Now, likening Netanyahu and his cronies to bad imitations of mendacious little fascists, that I can buy.
ShivaX
4242
Pretty much.
People just tend to incorrectly use Nazi and fascist interchangeably. They forget you can also be Mussolini or Franco.
Oghier
4243
PW Botha may be a better comparison.
Hitler and the nazi party were almost uniquely evil, and most comparisons involving them will fail for that reason.
Sure, but Jimmy Carter pointed out that Israel was making itself into an Apartheid state 13 years ago, and got pilloried for being an anti-Semite.
Oghier
4245
Anybody criticizing Israel for any reason will be called an Anti-Semite. It’s a reflex for some people.
ShivaX
4246
Yeah but no one is going to know that reference. Hell, no one is going to know Franco.
Mussolini is at least a decent bet without going over the line into Nazism.
Also this. Which I’ve railed against a lot in my life.
Looks like Netanyahu will lose, but be able to form a coalition and remain in power:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections
Doesn’t the winner get first dibs on forming a coalition government?
From reading the article, any coalition with 60 or more seats will win (120 total seats).
Oghier
4250
Sounds like the parliamentary equivalent to losing the popular vote, but winning the electoral college. Sorta.
I said this elsewhere but Israel comes across as the Ur-Quan Kor-ah
Yes, but who gets the first shot at forming a coalition? In the Netherlands and in England, I am pretty sure that party that won the plurality it’s the first crack at trying to get form a coalition. If they can’t get 60 members it goes to the next highest winner and so on.
Menzo
4253
Yeah, why even bother with an election if any party can just scramble together 60 seats and form a majority?
People complain (rightly) about US (and UK) First Past the Post elections, but Israel with its proportional party representation goes to the other extreme and it brings about all sorts of problems. It’s necessary to incorporate small, single-issue parties into a ruling coalition, and it gives these parties policy influence far beyond their share of the electorate.
Oh, there is no doubt that there is a lot of misplaced over-reaction whenever people criticize Israeli actions. A lot of that comes from people with very clear political motives, who do not necessarily give a rat’s ass about Israelis, and some of it comes from people who are understandably sensitive but perhaps too inflexible when it comes to the Jewish state–I know it is hard as a Jew to sit by when people accuse Israel of being apartheid or Nazi or whatever, even if there is some merit to the substance of the complaints. Personally, as a Jew I really do not like the knee-jerk accusations of anti-Semitism that get thrown around, as it devalues the term in a time period when we have real anti-Semites out there killing Jews for being Jewish. Someone making a political accusation against the Israeli government is just politics as far as I am concerned.
Bingo. It’s chaos at its worst.
ShivaX
4257
It’s pretty shitty. The upside of major parties not having to incorporate shitty small party positions like you see in the US is drowned out by those minor parties being able to hold the larger parties hostage for not supporting their shitty positions.
SlyFrog
4258
Or because they see parallels with that part of history, it is a much better known part of history than most others (in part because of the efforts of the Israelis), and people really don’t want to dig around for parallels to Rhodesia. Or because they are surprised in particular that a group that was badly abused in certain ways is now perpetrating some of that abuse onto others, and pointing out that particular parallel should be meaningful.
Son: “Dad, you told me that your dad abused you when you were growing up, and how horrible that was, and now you’re hitting me.”
Dad: “Why do you keep talking about my dad? Why aren’t you talking about Johnny down the street - his parents drink heavily just like I do. Why aren’t you talking about that? There’s plenty of other examples of abuse, so why is it always about my dad!”
Here’s something anti-fascist for you - stop trying to censor people by falsely attributing antisemitic malice. Or just keep going full Orwell, and let everyone know that the double-plus-bad thoughts language must stop. There, see? That wasn’t even a Nazi reference. I did it just for you.
This is nonsense. If a group of parties can come to an agreement to form an coalition then there is a de facto majority of voters supporting it.
And yes, it’s fully possible that a lot of voters who voted for party X are pissed off because said party X came to a coalition agreement with heinous single-issue party Y—but that doesn’t matter. Voters gave their vote to X so they supported this coalition no matter if they like it or not.
antlers
4260
I don’t see how what I said is “nonsense”, since it sounds, from your second paragraph, that you completely agree with me. Or are you arguing that, for example, the ultra-Orthodox in Israel don’t have disproportionate control over the country’s marriage law?
