“The U.S. white nationalist movement’s admiration for the Jewish state’s supremacist values fits comfortably with its deep antisemitism.”
“As thousands gathered in Washington on Jan. 6 for the fateful Donald Trump rally that would end in the storming of the U.S. Capitol, an Israeli flag was spotted in the crowd, flying alongside flags championing the QAnon conspiracy, the III% militia movement, and other popular right-wing causes. “The Bible says, if you bless Israel, you should be blessed,” explained the protestor waving the flag, repeating a Bible verse beloved by the Christian Zionist movement. “So, we’re a nation that supports Israel.” Later, the flag was spotted directly outside the Capitol building during the siege, while another masked protestor sported a black-and-white Israeli flag sown onto his paramilitary vest, beside a pro-police “Thin Blue Line” flag.”
“This is hardly the first time the Israeli flag has appeared at a right-wing rally in the United States that has seemingly little to do with Middle East politics. The flag has flown alongside the Confederate flag at an Arkansas neo-Confederate rally, and outside apartment units from Manhattan to Jerusalem; it has been spotted at a “Straight Pride” parade in Boston, and a pro-Trump car caravan.”
“For the ascendant forces of right-wing populism in the United States and around the world, however, support for Israel takes on a special intensity. Israel is celebrated as a front-line defender of Western civilization in its crusade against radical Islam. It is viewed as a nation that embodies the strong arm of xenophobic nationalism and militarized masculinity, unapologetically pushing back invading ethno-religious Others, expanding its territory, and protecting its heritage in bold defiance of a chorus of liberal outcry.”
“In revolt against a “globalist” world order of open borders and international homogenization, the idea of Israel signifies, for many across the global far-right, the insistence that strong nations shall retain their sovereignty, police their borders, preserve their identities and reject the “meddling” of international bodies and human rights standards.”
“This right-wing Zionism fits comfortably alongside simmering currents of antisemitism. Far-right leaders — from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his son Yair, to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the U.S.’s Donald Trump — demonize named enemies like George Soros and “globalists” with the well-worn tropes of modern antisemitism, as embodying a subversive liberal agenda of open borders, cosmopolitanism and racial justice.”
“Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer has referred to himself on Israeli television as “a white Zionist,” and has described his longed-for white ethnostate as “an Altneuland — an old, new country,” borrowing the phrase of Theodor Herzl, considered the founder of modern political Zionism. […] The alt-right writer Bronze Age Pervert, in a discussion of the European nationalist influences of the early Zionist project, noted sympathetically that Israel is “a state founded for the sake of racial survival…its spiritual foundation and reason for existence is national socialist through and through…Israeli nationalism and white nationalism are the same thing.””
Read more: How the Israeli flag became a symbol for white nationalists
2021-week12
