The slogan “Die Juden sind unser
Unglück“ – i.e. “The Jews are our misfortune“ was popular in
Nazi propaganda. It appeared prominently on
displays of the weekly magazine “Der
Stürmer” and was regularly printed at the bottom of the
publication’s title page.
Quite obviously, this slogan could also
serve as a concise summary of the antisemitic world view: whatever is
wrong or bad in your life and in your world must somehow be the fault
of the Jews. The Hamas
Charter reflects this view perfectly in Article 22, illustrating
at the same time how the Nazi slogan was adapted for contemporary
politics with an updated version: “The Jewish state/Zionism is our
misfortune.” While the relevant paragraphs clearly echo popular
anti-Jewish stereotypes about scheming Jews with lots of money and
monstrously evil designs, they are also a bit evasive about who
exactly “the enemies” are, though the parts I emphasized (bold &
underlined) are clear enough:
“For a long time,
the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for
the achievement of what they have attained. They took into
consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They
strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they
devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they
took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing
houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they
stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of
achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were
behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of
the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their
money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs,
the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose
of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.
With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries
and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them
to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
You may speak as
much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind
World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate,
making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained
the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through
which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II,
through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments,
and paved the way for the establishment of their state.
It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations
with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to
rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere,
without having their finger in it.”
Indeed, a “Stürmer” cover from May
1934 that features a story about a murderous Jewish plan
targeting all non-Jews would make a good illustration for this
section of the Hamas Charter.
Even though it should be obvious enough
that the Nazi slogan has been updated to “The Jewish state/Zionism
is our misfortune,” there are endless debates about how to define
contemporary antisemitism, and the question what, if any, anti-Israel
activism should be regarded as antisemitic remains particularly
contentious. But as I have argued elsewhere,
there are countless examples that illustrate “that antisemitism is
not a bug, but a feature of BDS: if your mission is to mobilize
public opinion against the world’s only Jewish state in order to
bring about its elimination, you will inevitably end up producing new
versions of the Nazi slogan ‘The Jews are our misfortune.’”
Indeed, if one had to describe the
output of professional anti-Israel activists like Ali Abunimah or Max
Blumenthal and the sites they are associated with in one sentence,
the most fitting one would be: “The Jewish state/Zionism is our
misfortune.” And their audiences are certainly getting the message,
as illustrated nicely in one minor recent
example: in the wake of the coup attempt in Turkey, Twitter user
Hadi Syed saw an
article in Ha’aretz that emphasized that one of the
suspected coup leaders had served as Military Attaché to Israel from
1998 to 2000. So Syed promptly tweeted
the article and tagged Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah, because he
apparently knows full well that they are always interested in an
Israeli angle if anything untoward is going on anywhere in the world.
Syed made a good bet: even though he
has only 166 followers, his tweet got 95 re-tweets and 39 “Likes,”
doubtlessly boosted by a retweet from Max Blumenthal as well as Ali
Abunimah’s posting of the tweet together with the remark
“Interesting.”
While Blumenthal
and Abunimah may not find it worthwhile to promote this particular
conspiracy theory now that the Hamas-friendly Islamist government in
Turkey is mercilessly wiping out its opponents, they have often been
determined to promote even the most
absurd conspiracy theories in order to demonize Israel as the
cause of everyone’s misfortune. One notable example is their
promotion of utterly baseless claims that US police forces are brutal
and abusive because they are inspired and trained by Israel. This
particular subject is the specialty of their esteemed colleague
Rania Khalek, who has produced numerous articles for Abunimah’s
Electronic Intifada and other outlets implying that if it
wasn’t for the world’s only Jewish state, the US and the world at
large could be a much better place. The underlying message is indeed
always the same: “The Jewish state is our misfortune.” And this
lasting legacy of the “Stürmer” is by
no means confined to the far-right.
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