At the world's peril

How do racist leaders come to power? That question is particularly important as our unapologetically racist President Trump readies himself for another run for office. 

A look at Trump's international "best friends" reveals some striking similarities. Many of these leaders came to power by unleashing racial and ethnic prejudices against vulnerable populations. In the US, Trump has attacked Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks, and immigrants while supporting white supremacists who want to rid our country of all people of color. 

Bolsonaro in Brazil, Netanyahu in Israel, Modi in India, and even Johnson in Great Britain have risen to power by stoking similar hatred towards minority groups. 

Bolsonaro spews his venom towards indigenous peoples: “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.” 

Netanyahu treats the five million Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the same way. Speaking about Israel's apartheid wall, he said that it was necessary to “defend ourselves against the wild beasts."

Modi, a fervent Hindu Nationalist, has encouraged violence against millions of Muslims. Johnson has a long record of winning elections on hatred, having described Black English subjects as "flag-waving piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles."

The goal of all this populist nationalism is to get rid of the "other," and to restore "greatness" to the dominant ethnic population. Of course a virulent misogyny and homophobia usually accompanies all these "patriotic" efforts.

Openly racist leaders in the 1930s led their willing citizenry to genocide. Today we tolerate such leaders at the world's peril. 

Fred Nagel

White supremacists want to send everyone "home"

One might wonder why the most racist president in our nation's history is supposedly outlawing "antisemitism" on US campuses. 

Trump plans to intimidate the nation's colleges and universities into banning any discussion of Palestinian human rights. In effect, he has defined the limits of free speech for all of higher education, as he has defined the meaning of "antisemitism" for all Jewish Americans.

Yet his power base is white supremacist: Christian men, the type who march through the streets chanting "Jews won't replace us." Could anything be as contradictory?

Trump is certainly protecting Israel, the US colony, by obliterating freedom of speech on campuses. The fact that most US Jews do not want their religion or ethnicity defined by an apartheid state in the Middle East means nothing to him.   

But white nationalism is more complex. Conservative evangelicals in the US have been advocating for the creation of an Israeli state for over a century. According to their doctrine, Jesus is to reappear when all Jews are returned to the Holy Land. But something else would happen as well; Jews would no longer be part of a Christian America. For white supremacists, an ascendent Israel represents the hope of ethnically cleansing this country of all Jews.

A featured evangelical leader at Trump's recent Hanukkah party, the Rev. John Hagee, once said that the "Holocaust was part of God's plan to return the Jews to Israel." In fact, white supremacists want to send everyone "home," be they Black, Latino, Muslim or Jew.

Fred Nagel

Dear President Bradley (signed by 57 community members)

Middle East Crisis Response

PO Box 614

Shady, NY 12409

December 3, 2019

Elizabeth H. Bradley, President

Vassar College

124 Raymond Ave.

Poughkeepsie, NY 12604

Dear President Bradley,

As a community organization, Middle East Crisis Response has been active in protecting human rights, both here in the Hudson Valley and abroad. We were founded sixteen years ago by Joel Kovel, noted environmentalist and professor at Bard College. His seminal book, "Overcoming Zionism" was dropped by his American publisher and he was forced to retire from the college. Things were different back then. Any mention of Palestinian rights ended a writer's academic career, even if he was Jewish. 

Human rights have made some impressive gains since then. Black Lives, Immigrant Defense, LGBTQ and Muslim rights have begun to assert themselves locally. The same is true with Palestinian rights. We now have a Hudson Valley Jewish Voice for Peace (in Westchester, Kingston and Albany), a Palestinian Support Project, and a J Street all acting locally, along with strong organizations at several colleges. 

None of these human rights organizations confuse a fair criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Jewish Voice for Peace, while strongly condemning antisemitism, rejects that charge when used to cover up ethnic cleansing and apartheid in Palestine. 

Your recent statements branding a Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine action as antisemitic is a good example. You have decided that the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is an antisemitic declaration, a threat to the Jewish community on campus. 

Left out of your analysis is the fact that Jewish students are members of SJP and JVP. Are you deciding for Jewish students what is antisemitic? Maybe young Jews don't want you to define what their Jewishness means. That was the message of JVP's National Director of JVP, Rebecca Vilkomerson, when she spoke at Vassar in 2011. She strongly refuted the idea that all Jewish people support Zionism, and stated that many young Jews do not want to have their ethnic identity or religion tied to a racist and apartheid state in the Middle East.  

The chant lends itself to simplistic assumptions. According to a story about Vassar in the New York Daily News (Dahl, Ziva. "Vassar’s education on anti-Semitism" 20 Nov. 2019), "This rallying cry, first used by the terrorist group Hamas, calls for the annihilation of Israel. It is as racist as was the 'Jews will not replace us' chant by white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017."  

The New York Times had a different and more nuanced take on these words. "David Kimche, who was director general of Israel's foreign ministry in the 1980's, noted: 'The old Zionist nationalists' anthem was a state on the two banks of the River Jordan.' When that became impractical, we talked about 'greater Israel,' from the Jordan to the sea. But people now realize that this, too, is something we won't be able to achieve.' " (Bronner, Ethan. "Why 'Greater Israel' Never Came to Be" 14 Aug. 2005)

It looks like your interpretation of the chant follows the reasoning of the Daily News article, written by an employee of the Haym Salomon Center, a Zionist propaganda organization with a troubling Islamophobic reputation. 

We are asking you not to discipline any students for chanting about freedom for Palestinians, whether it be from the Jordan to the sea, or anywhere else. We know there are risks to be faced in siding with human rights for Palestinians. But Vassar is a highly respected college, and should be free from the influences of Zionist donors, tabloid newspapers and rightwing hate groups. 

Adding nationalism to a religion

Does adding nationalism to a religion make it more compelling or immune to criticism? 

It is an old trick, of course. The Byzantines attacked the the Zoroastrian Persians in 629, all in the name of defending Christianity. 

Soon after, Mohammad, the great warrior who founded Islam, experienced a vision that he was the last prophet. His armies swept all before them, including Persians, Jews, Christians, and Turks. 

The Crusades were organized on the same concept, sending Christian soldiers to fight the heathens. For hundreds of years starting in 1096, armies from Europe were sent to recapture the Holy Land from the followers of Islam. 

The fourteen-hundreds saw the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain as well as the conquest of the New World, where fifty-five million indigenous people would eventually be sacrificed to the Lamb of God. 

Zionists added nationalism to Judaism in the early years of the twentieth century. Ever since that marriage of convenience, we have been told that criticizing Israel's military expansion and occupation is antisemitic, no matter how many millions of Palestinians have been dislocated or murdered. 

In truth, all religions have been used at some point in history to justify slaughter and territorial expansion. That doesn't make it right. And beginning with the Enlightenment, we have come to question some of the more malevolent of religious dogmas. 

"The arc of the moral universe is long," said Martin Luther King, "but it bends toward justice." Justice for all peoples facing oppression. Even the Palestinians.  

Fred Nagel

The Real Assault on Democracy

The New York Times quotes Alexander Hamilton to support the impeachment of Donald Trump. Hamilton wrote that a president who fosters “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils” is betraying our trust. First is was Trump colluding with Russia, and now it is with Ukraine. 

Yet there is one country that has gained almost unlimited power in the U.S. government, and that country is Israel. Its extraordinary influence hardly ever makes it onto the pages of the NYT. 

There is little written about links between Trump and his largest campaign donor, the Israeli/American and radical Zionist, Sheldon Adelson. Trump benefited greatly from the 100 million Adelson gave to the Republicans in 2016, and quickly rewarded Israel by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli, and pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement. 

In fact, Israel has dominated American foreign policy since its lobby funded Truman's famous whistle-stop tour. Once elected, Truman recognized the state of Israel just minutes after it was declared in 1948. 

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in their groundbreaking book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" cites the lobby as a major factor in the invasion of Iraq, a misadventure that has cost taxpayers over a trillion dollars. Now Israel insists that we spend another trillion attacking Iran.

When will Americans start seeing this insidious Israeli influence for what it is, a well planned and funded assault on our democracy.

Fred Nagel

The wrong side of history

Germany has come out swinging in its recent support of Israel, condemning the boycott of Israeli products and cultural events as antisemitic. Criticizing antisemitism would have changed the course of history 90 years ago. Is this just a case of bad timing?

Today, it is not Israeli Jews facing racism, violence and the systematic erasure of their culture; it is the Palestinians. Jews in Israel don't need protection any more than the Nazis did during the Third Reich. What the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is almost exactly what was done to Jews in the 1930's.

Maybe Germany just doesn't get that human rights are for all people, not just for those in power. In the years up to WW II, all the Germans could talk about was racial purity and how they needed other people's lands, about the same things being demanded by Israelis today. 

In fact, Germany and Israel have agreed on human rights issues before. Both countries opposed the boycott of apartheid South Africa, and both considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Human rights for Black South Africans was about the last thing that either country cared about when it mattered the most.

Germans may think that aligning with Israel will somehow erase the horrors of the Holocaust. It's a cheap fix. Germany is abandoning the Palestinians now for short term commercial and geopolitical gain. Once again, the Germans are on the wrong side of history; they have learned so very little.

Fred Nagel

My right and my moral responsibility

Now that the House of Representatives has decided that boycotting Israel is antisemitic, it is time that I confess my various crimes. 

I have indeed been boycotting products. I refuse to do business with Airbnb because the company makes money renting apartments and houses in the illegal settlements. Palestinian homes get demolished and Jewish only settlement blocks are built, then rented out by Airbnb. 

I also would never buy or sell my house using RE/MAX, another company profiting from the settlements. RE/MAX buys and sells apartments and homes there, but of course not to everyone. Only to those with the right ethnic and religious backgrounds need apply.

I refuse to buy a Volvo because the car company makes heavy equipment used to destroy Palestinian homes. HP will never get my business because of the work they do computerizing the checkpoints and surveillance systems in the West Bank. I wouldn't use HSBC Bank because it loans money to companies that arm the occupation. 

If I were a gambler, I would boycott the Sands Hotels because they are owned by Israeli/American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who buys support for Israel by donating tens of millions to Trump and the Republican Party. If I had young children, I wouldn't let them watch Fox Kids or Power Rangers because they belong to Israeli/American billionaire Haim Saban, who ensures support for the occupation by paying millions in bribes to the Democratic Party. 

Boycotting is both my right and my moral responsibility. 

Fred Nagel