Yisrael Beiteinu

[Comrade B]

Can any pro-Israel people out there tell me what makes the Yisrael Beiteinu not fascist?
I don't understand why people are not calling these people out for what they are, Nazis. It does not matter that they are Jewish, they still believe in nationalism, a strong military, and superiority to Arabs by birth.

[Dimentio]

Are they anti-democrats?

[Rjevan]

I don't think so and somehow other right wing parties seem to dislike them, too, because Lieberman said something about building an autonomous Palestinian state. But they seem to tend strongly towards fascism and it's one thing to say something and an other thing to do it.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Aren't these the people who are forcing all immigrants into Israel to swear an oath, or at least wanted to?

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I don't think so and somehow other right wing parties seem to dislike them, too, because Lieberman said something about building an autonomous Palestinian state. But they seem to tend strongly towards fascism and it's one thing to say something and an other thing to do it.

Usually that kind of talk about a Pal-state from the Israeli right is followed by: As long as the Egyptians will give them Sinai so we get all of Israel.

I am not the rabid Israeli-hater type, but yeah they're like the Israeli Taliban.

[Yehuda Stern]

A few clarifications:

1. Israel Beiteinu is an extreme right party headed by Avigdor Lieberman, an ex-Kahanist (Zionist fascist) and Russian immigrant. Its hardcore base is mostly among Russian Jewish immigrants who have arrived in the country since the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc. This is the most reactionary section of the Israeli Jewish population - although from my experience, this has also had the effect of sending a handful to the far left. Many anarchist groups in Israel are made up of Russian Jews.

2. Lieberman has been blamed for being an anti-democrat and a fascist by people from all across the political spectrum. This is due to his open endorsement of said 'loyalty test' not for immigrants, but for Arab citizens of Israel, his attempts to ban Arab parties from the parliament, and his shameless racist conduct.

However, in reality these accusations levelled at Lieberman are hypocritic - both Kadima and Labor were with him and his party in the last coalition government, as Labor and Likud are now. All are responsible for Israel's policies of ethnic cleansing, as well as having taken part in the attempt to ban Arab parties or jail their individual leaders. And they all support the persecution of "mishtamtim" - a pejorative for those who have dodged army service for whatever reason.

No Zionist party is really less 'extreme' than Lieberman - he's just putting his barbarism out in the open while the others prefer to be more diplomatic, most of the time. Was it not Tzipi Livni who said that a Palestinian state "would have to solve the problems not only of Palestinian Arabs, but also of Israeli Arabs"? Was it not "extreme leftist" Beilin who said "what, am I any less patriotic than Lieberman"?

As usual, the Zionist parties' differences are pure fiction. They all have different approaches to the movement's main task of the expropriation of the Palestinian people.

3. As for the loyalty tests - as said, they are to be given to people who are already citizens (Arabs specifically), not immigrants.

[Dimentio]

A few clarifications:

1. Israel Beiteinu is an extreme right party headed by Avigdor Lieberman, an ex-Kahanist (Zionist fascist) and Russian immigrant. Its hardcore base is mostly among Russian Jewish immigrants who have arrived in the country since the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc. This is the most reactionary section of the Israeli Jewish population - although from my experience, this has also had the effect of sending a handful to the far left. Many anarchist groups in Israel are made up of Russian Jews.

2. Lieberman has been blamed for being an anti-democrat and a fascist by people from all across the political spectrum. This is due to his open endorsement of said 'loyalty test' not for immigrants, but for Arab citizens of Israel, his attempts to ban Arab parties from the parliament, and his shameless racist conduct.

However, in reality these accusations levelled at Lieberman are hypocritic - both Kadima and Labor were with him and his party in the last coalition government, as Labor and Likud are now. All are responsible for Israel's policies of ethnic cleansing, as well as having taken part in the attempt to ban Arab parties or jail their individual leaders. And they all support the persecution of "mishtamtim" - a pejorative for those who have dodged army service for whatever reason.

No Zionist party is really less 'extreme' than Lieberman - he's just putting his barbarism out in the open while the others prefer to be more diplomatic, most of the time. Was it not Tzipi Livni who said that a Palestinian state "would have to solve the problems not only of Palestinian Arabs, but also of Israeli Arabs"? Was it not "extreme leftist" Beilin who said "what, am I any less patriotic than Lieberman"?

As usual, the Zionist parties' differences are pure fiction. They all have different approaches to the movement's main task of the expropriation of the Palestinian people.

3. As for the loyalty tests - as said, they are to be given to people who are already citizens (Arabs specifically), not immigrants.

Lieberman actually seems to be a typical Russian politician from today's standards. Just think Zhirinovsky.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Speaking of which, it seems that the Russian immigrants in Israel are the most rabid Likudniks or whatnot on the right. That is, generally of course.

[Rjevan]

Why are many Russian immigrants that far right in Israel? A friend of mine ,who is a Jew, lived two years in Israel and she said that there are Russian Jewish immigrants who dress like Nazis, paint swastikas on synagogues and attack people. How stupid is this? :blink:

[benhur]

Why are many Russian immigrants that far right in Israel? A friend of mine ,who is a Jew, lived two years in Israel and she said that there are Russian Jewish immigrants who dress like Nazis, paint swastikas on synagogues and attack people. How stupid is this? :blink:

I don't think this is surprising at all. Not only Russians but also Eastern Europeans and Slavs in general are considered to be the 'black sheep' of the white family. This is the view held by most white supremacists. That's why Hitler tried to gas them as well, stating they're not pure, they haven't accomplished as much as the western Europeans, and so on.

Maybe, this is why they feel inferior and start proving to others they're more nazi than the nazis. Nothing surprising, this is how the human mind works, it goes to extremes when pushed too far. Nor is it surprising that Russia, despite suffering at the hands of nazis, have more nazis in their country than the rest. But why would Jews do this? Because they've become the very enemy that they were once fighting, so much so the nazi ideology has become important than their original Jewish identity.

[Sasha]

nah your confusing some things here..
a lot of the rusian jews where completly non religious/aware of them being jewish back in russia.
some kids where even in nazi' groups when the oppertunity arose for their parents too emigrate too a better economical future in israel based on either some jewish great grandma or on outreight fabricated lies.
they just never dropped their secular xenofobia they just either traded in their pan-russia nationalism for zionist nationalism (liebermans party is secualar not religious) or in the extreme case of blood&honour tel aviv (sic) stayed/became hardcore nazi's.

[Phalanx]

Why are many Russian immigrants that far right in Israel? A friend of mine ,who is a Jew, lived two years in Israel and she said that there are Russian Jewish immigrants who dress like Nazis, paint swastikas on synagogues and attack people. How stupid is this? :blink:

Due to the law of return, people with a very distant connection to Judaism can become citizens. If you're married to a Jewish person, or even a person with a single Jewish grandparent, you can become a citizen.

There was a case a few months ago in Petah Tikva I believe where authorities broke up a neo nazi gang that would beat up the elderly and write graffiti on synagogues.

edit: Well, it looks like someone beat me to it.

[Rjevan]

Maybe, this is why they feel inferior and start proving to others they're more nazi than the nazis. Nothing surprising, this is how the human mind works, it goes to extremes when pushed too far. Nor is it surprising that Russia, despite suffering at the hands of nazis, have more nazis in their country than the rest.
Very strange attitude. I always couldn't believe my eyes if I saw pictures of Russian neo-nazis worshipping Hitler.
I mean, if they would just take the NS ideology for Russia, well, besides that it's the crappiest ideology on earth, I could understand that they are turned on by nazi uniforms but admiring a man, who claimed that they are the lowest inferiors and should all be liquidated to make room for the master race is unbelievable to me. This only prooves that they never got any further than page 1 of "Mein Kampf".


a lot of the rusian jews where completly non religious/aware of them being jewish back in russia.
some kids where even in nazi' groups when the oppertunity arose for their parents too emigrate too a better economical future in israel based on either some jewish great grandma or on outreight fabricated lies.


Due to the law of return, people with a very distant connection to Judaism can become citizens. If you're married to a Jewish person, or even a person with a single Jewish grandparent, you can become a citizen.
So everyone who had even very distant Jewish ancestors or relatives can get citizen? I didn't knew this, but I guess that explains why people live there who obviously don't feel like belonging to Israel and would love nothing more than leaving this country.

[Dean]

No Zionist party is really less 'extreme' than Lieberman - he's just putting his barbarism out in the open while the others prefer to be more diplomatic, most of the time. Was it not Tzipi Livni who said that a Palestinian state "would have to solve the problems not only of Palestinian Arabs, but also of Israeli Arabs"? Was it not "extreme leftist" Beilin who said "what, am I any less patriotic than Lieberman"?

I've felt this way for a long time. Thanks for articulating it so clearly.

[Yehuda Stern]

Speaking of which, it seems that the Russian immigrants in Israel are the most rabid Likudniks or whatnot on the right. That is, generally of course.

Usually even worse - the more moderate Russians are Likudniks.


Why are many Russian immigrants that far right in Israel? A friend of mine ,who is a Jew, lived two years in Israel and she said that there are Russian Jewish immigrants who dress like Nazis, paint swastikas on synagogues and attack people.

You're confusing two things here - the ultra-nationalist Jewish Russians and the non-Jewish Russians who have come to Israel and have become anti-Semitic fascists. The former's attitudes are influenced by their unstable status as immigrants combined with Israelis' general aristocratic nature towards the Palestinians. The latter are usually people who have suffered to some extent from the state's discrimination towards non-Jews and, failing to find a revolutionary alternative, turned to Nazism.

This, of course, shows that benhur's psychological-liberal analysis is absolute nonsense.

[Demogorgon]

I don't think so and somehow other right wing parties seem to dislike them, too, because Lieberman said something about building an autonomous Palestinian state.
That's called a Bantustan. It is the sort of thing the Israeli right in general isn't that bothered with. Netanyahu was talking about his proposals for "peace" the other day and it was something along the lines of Palestine being "independent" in all ways that would not conflict with Israeli security. That is pretty naked code for being autonomous in areas where it is convenient for Israel not to involve itself. Combine that with the fact that the Palestinian "State" in its proposed for exists only to keep Palestinians squeazed iunto the worst land and out of Israel proper in order that Jews retain a demographic majority and the ridiculous borders imposed on it, so that Israel can continue to directly control whatever parts are of value and you can hear the voice of Verwoerd echoing from the fifties and sixties.

The proposal is so close to the Bantustans in South Africa in fact that it would be almost comical if real lives were not being destroyed in the process.

[h0m0revolutionary]

Leiberman's rhetoric of a viable Palestinian state arn't to be taken with any sincereity at all, this again is just popularist-nationalism. His advocation of an autonomous Palestine is completely undermined by his pro-settler stance. Yisrael Beiteinu do not merely consist of idiots, they know full well a Palestinian State isn't viable unless, at the very least, settlements and are removed from occupied Palestine - they talk of an autonomous Palestinian State because that is a nice sounding idea to their Kahanist allies - expel the arabs, move them to their own state and thus preserve a Jewish state with special rights and privildges for Jews.

I don't think it's necessarily helpful to call Leiberman nor his party fascist. There are certainly fascists within his party, we know that as many of them are quite open about them being former Kach members and have open links to the Jewish Defence League. But I think fascism is a coherent political philosophy and while we might find it abhorrent, it is based on some form of logic. This can't be said of anything that comes from Yisrael Beiteinu, they adovocate popularism, their policies are explicity racist and advocate jewish supremecy percisely because such sentiments are popular within Israel

So no, Leiberman and his ilk aren't fascist, they're just a reaction to popular mood within Israel. And such a mood of racism isn't surprising, after all only by dehumanising the Palestinians (and arabs) can they justify the existence of a settler-colonial state.

[Sasha]

oh yeah, forgot one important thing; these recent non-religous eastereuropean imigrants are almost at the bottom of the pecking order.
and like in so many of these cases, those who are disriminated themselfs love nothing more than too kick down on those they consider even lower in status than themselfs (in this case the arabs).
so their extreme anti-arab racism is a way too cope with their own inferiorty complex.

[graffic]

As usual, the Zionist parties' differences are pure fiction. .

???

[Hoxhaist]

Zionism is a reactionary nationalistic anti-Marxist philosophy. Yisrael Beiteinu is particulary virulent in its crypto-fascism in the governance of Israel and neo-colonialist in Palestine and disgustingly xenophobic to the Arabs. Zionists offered to collaborate with the Nazis and are generally committed to bourgeois democracy so long as the voters are in lockstep with the party's racist philosophy. Kudos to Comrade B for pointing out this terrifying party's ascent in Israeli politics!!

[BobKKKindle$]

Zionism is a reactionary nationalistic anti-Marxist philosophySo anti-Marxist, in fact, that the Soviet Union under Stalin was the first country in the world to recognize Israel as a state, having voted in favour of the UN partition plan, and thereafter supported Israel's right to be represented in the UN.

[Hoxhaist]

Stalin supported Israel initially in order to strengthen the Communist-leaning parties that built the kibbutzim. After realizing the true nature of Israel, Stalin supported the foundation of a true socialist Jewish homeland in the Autonomous Jewish Oblast in the Soviet Far East. The revisionist Khruschevites supported the Arabs in their struggles against Israeli colonialism and were pressured by the US to permit emigration to Israel in exchange for grain. The Zionism present today is just as I described it an anti-Marxist philosophy of colonialism and imperialism based on Jewish religion and oppressive to the non-Jewish people in Palestine.

[Yehuda Stern]

Stalin supported Israel initially in order to strengthen the Communist-leaning parties that built the kibbutzim.

You mean, those communist-leaning parties that expropriated the Arabs before the state was set up, and were instrumental in their murder and expulsion during 1948?

[BobKKKindle$]

The Zionism present today is just as I described it an anti-Marxist philosophy of colonialism and imperialism based on Jewish religion and oppressive to the non-Jewish people in Palestine.If Zionism present today is reactionary and colonialist in nature, but it was correct for Stalin to support the foundation of Israel, then that seems to imply that the Zionism in existence just prior to and during the creation of Israel was somehow progressive, or at least significantly less reactionary than it is today, such that the political character of Zionism has changed. This is, of course, wrong - as an ideology and political movement that seeks to create a state based on the interests of one ethnic group in particular, Zionism has always been inherently racist, because the only way such a state could come into being and then maintain its character as a Jewish state was through the systematic oppression and disenfranchisement of non-Jewish peoples, which, in the context of Palestine, meant Arabs, and the Bedouin. This manifested itself very early in Israel's history in the form of the Naqba, and since then these groups have continued to suffer oppression, despite Israel's reputation as the Middle East's only bourgeois-democratic state. Stalin's decision to support Israel was not the result of a failure to acknowledge the true nature of Zionism, but a form of Soviet imperialism, and a reflection of the interests of the ruling bureaucracy, as Israeli initially represented a means to challenge the hegemony of the British in the Levant and transform that region into part of the Soviet sphere.

It's also factually incorrect to characterize Zionism as a movement based on religion. Although any adherent of the Jewish faith can gain automatic Israeli citizenship, the Zionist movement itself emerged out of the ethnic oppression of Jewish people on the European continent. Ethnic oppression is a more accurate term here because political and economic discrimination was imposed on all Jewish people regardless of whether they were active religious believers or not, such that, during the Nazi period, many Jewish atheists were forced to flee, including Albert Einstein, and Herbert Marcuse, member of the Frankfurt School. It's also worth pointing out that there has always been a strong anti-Zionist constituency within the international Jewish community, and many of those who would classify themselves as part of this constituency are Orthodox Jews, who oppose Zionism on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the Torah.

[Patchd]

Why are many Russian immigrants that far right in Israel? A friend of mine ,who is a Jew, lived two years in Israel and she said that there are Russian Jewish immigrants who dress like Nazis, paint swastikas on synagogues and attack people. How stupid is this? :blink:

Not only is it ridiculous, but it also shows the blatant hypocrisy of the state of Israel, which is supposedly meant to be a state for all Jews, somewhat misleading when we consider anti-semitic East Europeans being allowed in on the basis of their appearance and possible "Jewishness", yet at the same time, many Ethiopian and Somalian Jews, along with a number of Moroccan Jews are not permitted into Israel on the basis of their foreskin having grown back (as a ritual of their specific Jewish denomination), and colour.

In addition to that, I doubt many would even like to move to Israel, I'm sure they consider the possibility of a racist attack because others might consider them as Arabs, Muslims or Palestinian. The Moroccan Jewish community came out in defiance of Israel's actions with regards to the most recent Invasion of Gaza.