Strange bedfellows: Ideology trumps defense of ethnic, religious and minority rights
By James M. Dorsey
A global rise of nationalist and populist tendencies has not
only given anti-migrant, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and racist tendencies a new
lease on life, but opened the door to alliances between groups that once would
have had nothing to do with one another.
Developments in Israel, Indonesia and Germany suggest
renewed nationalism and populism is in some cases redefining how states
perceive concepts of national interest and purpose and how religious and ethnic
communities seek to shield themselves against discrimination, persecution
and/or extremism.
The redefinition was no more evident than when Israel,
founded as a safe haven for Jews irrespective of creed, sect or political
belief, sided against its own ambassador with authoritarian Hungarian President
Victor Orban, a proponent
of Christianity rather than multi-culturalism as the glue of European society,
in denouncing billionaire left-wing philanthropist George Soros, a survivor of
the Holocaust.
In doing so, Israel, founded on the belief that Jews needed
a state to shield themselves against discrimination and persecution rooted in
anti-Semitic prejudice and racism that has been endemic in Christian culture, sided
not only with a Christian nationalist leader in Hungary but with a global
right-wing trend that sees Mr. Soros as the mastermind of a globalist movement,
determined to subvert the established order and dilute the white, Christian
nature of societies through immigration.
Israel’s acknowledgement of the redefinition of its raison
d’etre came in response to a Facebook posting by Yossi Amrani, the Jewish
state’s representative in Hungary. Responding to anti-immigration billboards
depicting a smiling Mr. Soros with the slogan, ‘Let's not let Soros have the
last laugh,’ Mr. Amrani,
backed by Hungarian Jewish leaders, warned that they evoked "sad memories,
but also sow hatred and fear."
Israel’s foreign ministry, days before a visit to Hungary by
prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, rather than taking a firm stand on rising
anti-Semitism, effectively defined the Jewish state’s interest as joining Mr.
Orban in denouncing a Jew.
As a result, Israel, despite seeing itself as the fulfilment
of the Biblical prophecies of the
Ingathering of the Exiles and the protector of Jewish rights, opted
for denouncing a Jew together with a leader whose policies prompted
the European parliament to pursue unprecedented disciplinary action against
Hungary over alleged breaches of the European Union's core values,
including minority rights.
“In no way was the (ambassador’s) statement meant to
delegitimize criticism of George
Soros, who continuously undermines Israel’s democratically elected governments
by funding organizations that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the
right to defend itself,” the ministry said.
The implicit message, like Israel’s
decision to bar entry to its Jewish critics despite its law of
return that grants anyone who is Jewish a right to citizenship, was that Israel
rather than being the potential home of all Jews was a home only to those who
support the government’s policies.
Mr. Netanyahu’s alignment of Israel with right-wing
nationalist and populist forces like his support for ultra-orthodox Jewish groups
that deny equal rights for less stringent religious trends in Judaism on issues
such as marriage, divorce, conversion and prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall,
are likely to drive
a wedge between the Jewish state and world Jewry, particularly in
the United States.
The wedge, that puts Israel at odds with the Jewish
Diaspora, could be deepened by this week’s Democratic Party success in
regaining a majority in the US House of Representatives. Jews historically tend
to vote Democratic in the US, a stark contrast with Mr. Netanyahu’s growing
alliance with right-wing evangelists who support
Israel because they believe the Messiah will only return to a Holy Land
controlled by Jews.
Many evangelists, however, also believe that Jews will not
be saved on the Day of Judgement without first converting to
Christianity.
Israel’s divisive approach to World Jewry is not without its
supporters in the Jewish Diaspora. Anti-Muslim and anti-migration sentiments
have prompted some Jews to form their own group within Germany’s far-right
Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party.
The notion that bigotry and prejudice are the best defense
against rising anti-Semitism has meant that AfD
Jews have little compunction about joining a party whose members favour
abandoning Germany’s culture of remembrance and atonement for its Nazi past.
One AfD leader, Alexander Gauland, described Nazism
as a “speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.”
To be fair, the issue of rising prejudice and bigotry is not
the exclusive perch of right-wing nationalist and populists. Britain’s
Labour Party, traditionally a home for Jewish voters and activists, has been
plagued by charges of anti-Semitism and reluctance to put its own
house in order.
Moreover, the emergence of strange bedfellows in a world in
which ideological affinity replaces defense of a community’s minority rights is
not uniquely Israeli or Jewish.
Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Islamic movements with
some 94 million members in Indonesia, in a bid to reform Islam and counter all political
expressions of the faith, risks being tainted by its potential
tactical association with Islamophobes and Christian fundamentalists
who would project their alliance as Muslim justification of their perception of
the evils of Islam.
Nahdlatul Ulama is not alone in the Muslim world’s
opportunistic engagement with the Christian right.
Saudi rulers, who long aligned themselves with a
supremacist, intolerant interpretation of Islam that viewed
Christians as swine and Jews as apes have discovered that they share
with evangelists and fundamentalist Christians, a significant voting bloc in
the United States and part of President Donald J. Trump’s support base, conservative
family values as well as political interests.
In a first, Saudi crown prince Mohammed
bin Salman, last week met with a delegation of US evangelists that included
Reverend Johnnie Moore, Israel-based evangelical political
strategist-turned-novelist Joel Rosenberg, former congresswoman Michele
Bachmann; and prominent religious broadcasters.
The jury is out on whether the fallout of the rise of
nationalism, populism and extremism heralds a new world in which bigotry and
prejudice are legitimized as a defense strategy against discrimination, racism
and persecution and an anti-dote to radicalism – a world that would likely
prove to be far more divided and polarized and likely increasingly unsafe for
minorities on the receiving end.
Dr.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture,
and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast.
James is the author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored
volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and
the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting
Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
and just published China
and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom
George Soros is considered by many Israelis to be a traitor to the Jewish people. He was not a victim of Holocaust. He was, at best, forced to collaborate with Nazi's as a young man. He was, at worse, a willing collaborator. Soros has constantly promoted groups that are trying to destroy Israel and harm the Jewish people. He is "Jewish" in the same way that Karl Marx was Jewish. He is no lover of the Jewish people or the State of Israel. Siding against him with European leaders who in reality (not merely in vague talk) support Israel is a good thing, not a bad thing. Increasingly few Jews in Europe support Muslim immigration now that they have seen what it means for the Jews. Currently, most American Jews are more naive with respect to immigration of Jew-haters. While Evangelicals may have their own interpretation of "End Times," I will take that over the much more pressing interpretation of "Now Times" advocated by Muslims and Leftists who are hostile to Jews.
ReplyDeleteThe point is he is Jewish. That is the only legal criteria that counts
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