The Zionist Tent has Room for Nazis
Sieg Heils and Heightened Contradictions
Elon Musk really did that. On inauguration day, he got on stage and gave an unambiguous, premeditated, belligerent Sieg Heil. If you think otherwise, take a look at these side-by-side videos.
Was it shocking? Not exactly. Since buying Twitter, Elon Musk has opened the floodgates for uncensored Nazi content, including Holocaust denial conspiracy theories. In 2023, Musk retweeted a post accusing Jews of inciting anti-white violence, spreading the antisemitic ‘great replacement theory.’ Musk has also endorsed fascist politicians around the globe from the German nationalist candidate Bjorn Hocke, to the British anti-immigrant party, Italian neo-fascist Giorgia Meloni and, of course, Donald Trump.
In the past, Musk’s espousal of far-right politics was under the guise of ‘conservative values,’ or ‘white rights,’ but this Nazi salute was no dog-whistle.
The ADL: Combatting antisemitism by commending fascism
One might think that the most resourced, powerful groups claiming to “combat antisemitism” would immediately disavow Musk. But that was not the case. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) posted a ridiculously backwards statement excusing Musk’s actions, saying:
This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.”
The ADL, who endorsed Trump and defends Israel’s war-crimes, derives its power from its perceived authority in declaring what is and isn’t antisemitic. This includes their annual study on antisemitic incidents in America. A recent audit of this study found that the ADL considers pro-Palestine chants antisemitic, while many instances of white-supremacist antisemitism were not counted. For the ADL, students protesting for Palestinian freedom is a hate crime, but the richest person in the world Sieg Heil-ing is totally permissible.
The ADL is not alone in their hypocrisy. On January 21st, the Combat Antisemitism Movement tweeted “Elon Musk is not a Nazi,” offering no explanation for his actions. Other groups remained silent, including Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which is particularly ironic given their insistence that “silence is violence.”
The Zionist-Fascist Alliance
The common denominator of these groups who are defending or ignoring Musk’s Nazi salute is their unequivocal support for Zionism. It may seem incongruous for Zionism, which claims to be a movement for “Jewish safety,” to align with fascism, but history proves otherwise. During Pinchoet’s fascist dictatorship, Israel provided the Chilean government with torture and civilian repression technology that was previously tested on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In the last year of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, Israel provided 98% of the weapons used by death squads that killed 50,000 Nicaraguans. Israel also had a long-standing alliance with apartheid South Africa, including signing the “Israel-South Africa Agreement,” which permitted Israel to bypass international arms embargoes and sell South Africa Israel’s signature firearms, the Uzi submachine gun and the Galil rifle. For those who think that Netanyahu is fascist blip in an otherwise historically democratic state: all of these atrocities occurred under prior Israel regimes.
Why would a “Jewish state” align with fascists around the world? Because they share a goal: ethno-supremacy. Israel in its conquest for ethnic domination over Palestinian land has much to gain from facilitating the expansion of fascist power. For one, they boast the largest surveillance industry globally, testing their technology on Palestinian civilians and then selling surveillance systems to nations who aspire for similar military security states. For example, Israeli weapons and surveillance company, Elbit Systems, has a $24 million contract with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to supply border patrol agents with AI surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Israel found a marketplace for its dystopian military technologies in far-right governments seeking the latest gadgets of oppression.
The relationship is not one-sided, it is reciprocal. White-supremacists like Musk and Trump see Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and imagine a model for what America could be. They see Israeli apartheid and think: we could do that here. They see Israel force Gazans into an open-air prison and think: we could do that here. They see Israel waging war on civilian populations and think: we could do that here. Musk and Trump share no love for Jewish people–their actions make that clear enough–but they do admire Israel for its fascist impulses.
As Trump takes office with neo-Nazis by his side, contractions are heightening. Groups like the ADL that fervently defend Israel are now brazenly siding with fascists. Their goal is not “combating antisemitism” or “ensuring Jewish safety,” it is to provide Israel an ideological shield by gatekeeping antisemitism. For Jews and non-Jews alike, the allegiance between Zionism and fascism makes it abundantly clear that Zionists are not the arbiters in defining antisemitism. Dismantling antisemitism is inextricable from fighting fascism, which Zionist institutions have no interest in doing.
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In the anarchy of international politics, you are either a masochist at the bottom or a sadist on the top. If the Israelis are not the ones doing the oppressing, they will naturally become the victims that are being oppressed. Here is a simple question: do you want to be the pig that is chained up to be slaughtered or do you want to be the butcher doing the slaughtering? The answer should be pretty obvious.