Israel’s Suicidal Passion for Tribal Nationalism


Whatever happened to liberal values?

A rally in support of Hungary’s rightwing Jobbik party in Budapest

Zev Sternhell writes in Haaretz:

Since the French Revolution, the fate of the Jews has been tied to the fate of liberal values. Wherever human rights and equality were preserved, life was better for the Jews. And wherever racist tribal nationalism, which began to develop in the late 19th century, arose, the danger for Jews increased. This nationalism became an inexhaustible source of vicious anti-Semitism and the greatest enemy the Jewish people had ever known. By the turn of the 20th century, the Jews understood (and they understand it today, too) that the politics of hate, hostility, fear and denial of the other advanced by the radical right poses a mortal danger.

It’s no coincidence that a majority of Jews in America vote Democratic and that most Jews in Europe vote for the liberal-conservative right, center and left. Bear in mind that in Israeli terms, the European conservative right is like the radical left in disguise: Who could imagine the conservatives in England, France or Germany passing laws like the nation-state law or the cultural loyalty law? Who there would call a political rival a “traitor”?

In Europe, Ayelet Shaked and Miri Regev would be considered much worse than Marine Le Pen, and they are. It’s hard to understand why we boycott the Austrian foreign minister when the aforementioned ministers serve in the Israeli cabinet and Bezalel Smotrich is the deputy speaker of the Knesset.

Unlike the Israelis who bask in their military power and their control of the apartheid colony they’ve set up in the territories, most of the world’s Jews understand that the politics of polarization, denying human rights and hatred for the other is a recipe for disaster. They know that it is in their supreme interest to always defend an open and pluralistic society.

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