I recently heard that someone, who
should have known better, referred to the settlers in Judea and Samaria as
"Fascists". This statement hit me like a ton of bricks. The most
restrained comment I can make is that name calling is a poor substitute for thinking.
I hope that person will deny saying it or say he was misunderstood, because if
he really thinks that whoever believes Jews should live in Eretz Israel is
a fascist then we are in big trouble.
In the 1930's, the Jewish leftists
called Jabotinsky a fascist. In fact, they went further and called him
"Vladimir Hitler".
His first sin was that he tried to organize
Jewish military forces to protect the
Jews in Palestine from Arab pogroms. For that, The British sentenced him to 15
years in Acre Prison. All the Jewish parties put him first on their lists in
the elections for the Vaad Leumi (pre-state parliament) and the worldwide
outcry forced the British to release him.
His second sin was to advocate aliya
of the masses of European Jews, not just members of Zionist socialist youth
movements. The "fine" people said he wanted to fill up Palestine with
the riff raff of Europe.
His third sin was to recognize the
looming annihilation of European Jewry "too early" in the 1930's. He
rushed from city to town, country to country calling on the Jews to flee. He
established his "Evacuation Program" and cooperated with the Polish
Government, which also wanted the Jews out because of their anti-Semitism. The
"fine" people saw this as another proof that he was a fascist.
His fourth sin was to encourage
illegal immigration to Palestine before and during WWII. (The Hagana only began
after the war.) "Fine" Jews like Rabbi Stephen Wise said he wanted to
bring the prostitutes and petty thieves of Vienna to poison the Zionist
experiment.
His fifth sin was to establish
Betar, which, in those days, wore brown shirts, as contrasted with the
socialist youth movement's blue shirts, absolute proof that he and they were
fascists.
His sixth sin was to try to
establish a Jewish army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews to fight on the side
of the allies against the Nazis in WWII. Why this was opposed by the
"fine" Jews, other than that he espoused it, I do not know. Only
toward the end of the war was the Jewish Brigade established and fought in
Europe as part of the British army.
His seventh sin was to realize that
we could never "buy" the Arabs with infirmaries, schools, jobs and universities
to forego their opposition to the Zionist enterprise and the Jewish State.
Since they would never agree, we had to build an "iron wall" to
protect ourselves against their depredations, and go ahead despite their
opposition.
Well, was Jabotinsky a fascist? If
so, I am a fascist, because the word has no real meaning. It is just a
"cussword" that certain people throw at others as a substitute for
thinking.
