Anders Breivik’s embrace of Israel is the latest sign of a shift among reactionaries in Europe—with fascism and Zionism going hand in hand, fueled by Islamophobia, says Michelle Goldberg.
Anders Breivik is a Christian nationalist terrorist obsessed with preserving the “Nordic/Germanic” people. He is also an ardent Zionist. Though he finds elements of Nazi ideology appealing, his 1,500-page manifesto condemns anti-Semitism. He argues that Hitler should have used his “military capabilities…to liberate Jerusalem and the nearby provinces from Islamic occupation” and give them to the Jews. Breivik calls on his imaginary comrades: “So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists.”
Coming from a Scandinavian fascist, this is a remarkable sentiment. The European far right has long been rooted in Nazism, and for decades, anti-Semitism was its hallmark. But Breivik’s embrace of Israel, far from being unique, is just the latest sign of a great shift among the continent's reactionaries. Indeed, in European politics, fascism and an aggressive sort of Zionism increasingly go together.
You can see it in country after country. While Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s ultraright Front National, is a Holocaust denier, his daughter and successor, Marine Le Pen, is working to cleanse the party of its reputation for Jew hatred, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that it “has always been Zionistic.” In the early 1990s, the British National Party organized a violent neo-Nazi gang called Combat 18. In 2009, the party’s leader, Nick Griffin, boasted that his was the only British party to support Israel’s war “against the terrorists” in Gaza.
Anders Behring Breivik, left, the suspect in the mass killing in Oslo on July 22, sits in an armored police vehicle after leaving the courthouse following a hearing on July 25., Jon-Are Berg-Jacobsen, Aftenposten / AP Photo
Earlier this year, Newsweek ran a story about this phenomenon titled “Europe’s Extreme Righteous: Far-right European politicians find love—and common cause—in Israel.” It opened with three politicians, “a Belgian politician known for his contacts with SS veterans, an Austrian with neo-Nazi ties, and a Swede whose political party has deep roots in Swedish fascism,” visiting the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. They met with members of the Knesset and signed something called the Jerusalem declaration, which affirmed, “We stand at the vanguard in the fight for the Western, democratic community” against the “totalitarian threat” of Islamic fundamentalism.
Obviously, Islamophobia is responsible for the bizarre alliance between Israel and European white nationalists. Muslims have come to occupy the place Jews once held in the reactionary European imagination; they’re seen as agents of an apocalyptic conspiracy that threatens Europe’s very survival. The specter of the coming caliphate has crowded out the old myth of the scheming elders of Zion. Naturally, the self-described agents of the counter-jihad see the enemy of their enemy as an ally. It’s the inverse of the anti-Semitic alliance between Hitler and Haj Amin el-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem.
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The specter of the coming caliphate has crowded out the old myth of the scheming elders of Zion.
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But alliances are necessarily two-way. If the European far right is increasingly cozy with Israel, it’s in part because Israel itself has lurched to the right and now shows increasing tolerance for fascism. Israeli politicians warmly welcomed the delegation that signed the Jerusalem Declaration. Last year, MK Aryeh Eldad of the far-right National Union party invited the Dutch anti-Islamist Geert Wilders, who lived in Israel as a teenager, back to the country. While there, he gave a speech urging Jews to take over all of Palestine and had a friendly meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. And, of course, Glenn Beck, who has a history of both anti-Semitism and wild anti-Muslim demagoguery, received a rapturous reception when he addressed the Israeli Knesset in June and is planning a huge rally in Jerusalem in August. (Incidentally, on his radio show on Monday, Beck compared Breivik’s victims to “Hitler youth.”)
There are even hints that some Israelis sympathize with Breivik. Wrote J.J. Goldberg in The Forward on Monday, “Judging by the comments sections on the main Hebrew websites, the main questions under debate seem to be whether Norwegians deserve any sympathy from Israelis given the country’s pro-Palestinian policies, whether the killer deserves any sympathy given his self-declared intention of fighting Islamic extremism and, perhaps ironically, whether calling attention to this debate is in itself an anti-Israel or anti-Semitic act.”
In response to the massacre, the Jerusalem Post ran a shocking column urging Norway to take the murder’s demands seriously. “Perhaps Breivik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere,” it said. “While there is absolutely no justification for the sort of heinous act perpetrated this weekend in Norway, discontent with multiculturalism’s failure must not be delegitimatized or mistakenly portrayed as an opinion held by only the most extremist elements of the Right.”
Like most of Israel’s new far-right friends, Breivik has nothing but contempt for the majority of Jewish people, who tend to be overwhelmingly liberal. Addressing his fellow violent European nationalists, he urges, “[P]lease learn the difference between a nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jew and a conservative Jew…Never target a Jew because he is a Jew, but rather because he is a category A or B traitor.” Nevertheless, he’s very clear that he views the Jewish right as a partner. “We expect the support of all cultural conservative Jews in our future consolidation efforts,” he writes. It’s not hard to see where he got this idea, or to suspect that the loss of the hatred of a man like Breivik is something to mourn.
Comments
Breivik: Zionist Fanatic
As usual, it takes the Israeli media to tell you the bald truth:
Re: The Norway Shooter’s Zionist Streak
Just fyi
this blog is claiming ABB is not pro Jewish or pro Zionist
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/07/25/anders-breivik-and-the-jews/
based on what is in his manifesto
Re: The Norway Shooter’s Zionist Streak
As of late, multi-culturalism has come under attack. So it is necessary to paint anyone who disagrees with this dogma as a crazed fascist, racist killer. All fascists are racists. All racists are killers. All white people are racists, so all white people are killers.
No more dispassionate discussion on certain banned subjects.
The trouble with the Internet is that you can create a fictional character by simply setting up websites. Posting on blogs in the name of... etc.
Now right-wingers have allied themselves with Israel. How comical! But everyone knows that the right is anti-semitic, right?
Anyone who knows anything about the Franklin School or just observes, knows that Jews have supported, indeed pushed multi-culturalism.
Fact is stranger than fiction, or maybe it is fiction.
http://hurryupharry.org is full of shit
Out of the entire manifesto, there are only a few sentances talking about forming an alliance with Muslims, the rest of the 1500 pages are anti-Muslim.
That is called Talmudic-thinking.
Re: The Norway Shooter’s Zionist Streak
Out of the entire manifesto, there are only a few sentances talking about forming an alliance with Muslims, the rest of the 1500 pages are anti-Muslim.
I know. What they are asserting is that ABB is not pro Zionist or pro Jewish.
ABB is both pro-Zionist and pro-Jewish
In his comments he admits to being pro-Israel, i.e. Zionist. All the European Nazis that I have ever met admitted that they are just as Zionist as the Adolf Hitler and the German NSDAP were, so his being a member of Nazi forums does not negate rather strengthen the fact of his being a Zionist. The link to the english translation was provided earlier. I shall paste some relevant portions.
Suspect in Norway attacks wrote manifesto espousing pro-Zionist
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=466
Suspect in Norway attacks wrote manifesto espousing pro-Zionist views
Anders Behring Breivik mentions Israel at least 300 times and praises Herzl in his hate-filled manifesto • He also urges Europeans to "stop stupid support for the Palestinians."
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Anders Behring Breivik, the main suspect in the attacks carried out on Friday in Norway, published a 1,500-page manifesto on the Internet that espouses a right-wing, anti-Muslim philosophy that also appears to be pro-Zionist.
Breivik is charged with detonating a bomb outside Oslo’s government headquarters, which houses the office of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, and of going on a shooting spree at a political summer camp on nearby Utoeya Island. The attacks left more than 90 people dead.
In the manifesto, titled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" and published under the name Andrew Berwick, Israel is mentioned no less than 300 times, always in a positive light. In his writings, Breivik appears to be an “ardent Zionist,” praising and exalting “The Jewish State” by Theodor Herzl. He attacks the European political establishment, led by the European Union, for not supporting Israel.
Breivik also praises Israel’s policies saying, “Throughout the years, [Israel] has not granted most of its Muslim residents civil rights -- in stark contrast to Europe, which opened its doors to Muslims and granted them exaggerated rights and citizenship."
Breivik also surprises the reader with his in-depth knowledge of Israel’s internal party politics. He praises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for creating his right-leaning coalition.
“It’s worth noting that Netanyahu has already found allies in right-wing Yisrael Beitenu and in the religious Shas, but has avoided creating a right-wing alliance because he knows it would collide with the U.S. Obama administration,” Breivik writes.
Breivik also demonstrates familiarity with Israeli academia and media, quoting such professors as Eyal Zisser and Itamar Rabinovich and mentioning Israel Hayom and Arutz Sheva (Channel 7). “Let’s end the stupid support for the Palestinians that the Eurabians have encouraged, and start supporting our cultural cousin, Israel,” he writes.
In his manifesto, Breivik also harshly criticizes his home country, Norway, for its decision to grant the Nobel Peace Prize to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat following the Oslo Accords in 1993.
SS: Zionists strictly racial concept with our official goodwill
Source : A. Rosenberg : "Die Spur des juden im Wandel der Zeiten". Munich 1937. p.153.
Reinhardt Heydrich, who was later to become "Protector" of Czechoslovakia, wrote in Das Schwarze Korps, the official organ of the S.S. in 1935, when he was head of the S.S. security. In an article entitled "The invisible enemy", he made a distinction between two kinds of Jews :
"We must separate the Jews into two categories, the Zionists and the partisans of assimilation. The Zionists profess a strictly racial concept and, through emigration to Palestine, they help to build their own Jewish State...our good wishes and our official goodwill go with them."
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/joeblow/myth-zionist-anti-fa...