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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-mussolini-jabotinsky-connection-the-hidden-roots-of-israel-fascist-past/">http://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-mussolini-jabotinsky-connection-the-hidden-roots-of-israel-fascist-past/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The Mussolini-Jabotinsky Connection:
The Hidden Roots of Israel Fascist Past</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">February 4, 2020<br>
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<img
src="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Jabotinsky-678x455.jpg"
alt="" title="Jabotinsky">
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Vladimir Jabotinsky
(R) meeting with Betar leaders in Warsaw. (Photo:
File)</figcaption>
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<p><strong>By <a
href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud-romana-rubeo"
title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud &
Romana Rubeo">Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo</a></strong></p>
<p><span>It is hardly surprising that Italian opposition
leader, Matteo Salvini, has vowed that if he becomes
Italy’s next Prime Minister, he will recognize
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>Salvini heads Italy’s Lega Party, formerly known
as Lega Nord – Northern League – a party that has long
been perceived as a modern expression of the country’s
long-dormant fascist ideology.</span></p>
<p><span>Salvini’s track record of pro-Israel statements
and blind allegiance to Tel Aviv is as old as the
man’s political career. The fact that Salvini made his
political debut at a national level through an
announcement <a
href="http://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/politica/2016/03/30/la-prima-di-salvini-in-israelee-modello-sicurezza-_f3692753-52e0-4445-b2f3-787586db10b1.html"><span>made</span></a>,
not from Rome, but rather from Tel Aviv, is sufficient
to express the centrality of Israel in his political
discourse.</span></p>
<p><span>Moreover, Salvini is the golden child of Italy’s
far-right politics as a whole. Considering Lega’s <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/27/matteo-salvini-far-right-league-party-tops-italy-eu-election-polls"><span>performance</span></a> in
the May 2019 European elections, one could argue that
the Italian politician is Europe’s most important
far-right leader.</span></p>
<p><span>It is no secret that Israel has openly <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/union-israel-european-180716085952930.html"><span>aligned</span></a> its
politics with that of the ascending far-right
political movements everywhere, especially in the
West. This applies to the Israel-India alliance as
much as it applies to Israel’s disturbing ties to the
US Trump administration, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro’s
presidency, and the Tories-dominated British
government.</span></p>
<p><span>Israel’s links to Italy, however, deserve further
probing, and should not be lumped together with Tel
Aviv’s growing political intimacy with the global
far-right. The reason for that is that Italy was the
originator of the modern fascist ideologies, which are
linked directly to Israel’s Zionist ideology.</span></p>
<p><span>n the post-World War II era, Italy successfully
managed to suppress the fascist political strand from
within, starting with the last two years of the war
when Rome <a
href="https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/oct-13-1943-italy-switches-sides-in-world-war-ii/"><span>joined</span></a> the
global push against the Nazi-fascist alliance. Italy’s
post-war constitution has gone to great lengths to
confront any form of fascism that continued to lurk
within Italian society.</span></p>
<p><span>It was only natural, then, that on many
occasions, the revolutionary forces that had a
tremendous impact on shaping the Italian political
discourse after the war <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/19/world/2-allies-in-discord.html"><span>found</span></a> common
ground with the Palestinian quest for freedom and the
Palestinian people’s ongoing fight against Zionism and
its reactionary allies anywhere in the world.</span></p>
<p><span>Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. As the
truly radical left in Italy persists in its political
hibernation – a process that <a
href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45132554?seq=1"><span>began</span></a> soon
after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early
1990s – far-right forces have made great strides,
allowing in recent years, the likes of Salvini and his
racist hoards to return to the political arena.
Expectedly, Salvini’s ascendency began paving the road
for restoring a long-dormant neo-Zionist-fascist
alliance.</span></p>
<p><span>Concurrently, the rise of far-right forces in
Italy is forcing all political parties in the
country’s parliament to redefine their own political
agendas by inching closer to the right in a desperate
attempt to appeal to the emboldened far-right
constituency.</span></p>
<p><span>Pro-Israel Zionist groups, in Italy and
elsewhere, are now exploiting the country’s fractious
political scene to advance Tel Aviv’s global agenda.</span></p>
<p><span>On January 17, the Italian government
unanimously <a
href="https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Italy-adopts-IHRA-definition-of-antisemitism-614655"><span>adopted</span></a> the
erroneous and self-serving definition of antisemitism,
as envisaged by the pro-Israel International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance, which equates antisemitism with
anti-zionism.</span></p>
<p><span>The troubling “working definition” has little to
do with racism and everything with politics, since
Zionism is a modern political ideology, and is neither
a race nor a religion. An Italian equivalent of this
bizarre undertaking would be equating antifascism and
anti-Italian or anti-Catholic sentiment. If this
sounds odd in the Italian context, it should sound
equally strange in the Zionist-Israeli context.</span></p>
<p><span>However, this apparent oddity makes perfect sense
when analyzed within a historiographical context.</span></p>
<p><span>Anti-Zionism critics often describe the Zionist
movement as fascist. This seemingly haphazard analogy
is fully justifiable on historical grounds.</span></p>
<p><span>Indeed, what many are not aware of is that,
during their formative years, Zionist and Fascist
ideologies, had similar intellectual roots and
numerous overlappings in terms of their philosophical
and political structures. Some of the founding fathers
of Zionism, especially revisionist Zionists, regarded
themselves as ideological fascists, and their
progression from Fascism to Zionism was a logical one,
necessitated by political expediency only.</span></p>
<p><span>Before the opportunistic alliance between
Germany’s Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, and Italy’s
fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, in 1936, resulting
in Italy’s infamous racial laws, a degree of affinity
existed between Zionist and Fascist leaders in Rome.</span></p>
<p><span>Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist
Zionism, of which Israel’s current Likud party and
other right and far-right groups are the offspring,
saw in Italy “a spiritual homeland”.</span></p>
<p><span>“All my views on nationalism, the state, and
society were developed during those years under
Italian influence,” Jabotinsky wrote in his
autobiography, referring to his ideological <a
href="http://en.jabotinsky.org/zeev-jabotinsky/biography/"><span>formation
years</span></a> in Italy<b>.</b></span></p>
<p><span>In return, Mussolini had expressly spoken in
support of Zionism and of Jabotinsky in particular:
“For Zionism to succeed, you need to have a Jewish
State with a Jewish flag, and Jewish language. The
person who understands that is your fascist,
Jabotinsky,” Mussolini said during a private
conversation with Nahum Goldman, founder of the World
Jewish Congress, in November 1934, as <a
href="https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/agedict/ch10.htm#n19"><span>reported</span></a> by
Lenni Brenner in his volume ‘Zionism in the Age of
Dictators’.</span></p>
<p><span>Il Duce – the fascist reference to Mussolini,
which translates to “The Leader” – had already allied
with Jabotinsky’s Betar youth movement, which modeled
itself around fascist ideas and symbols.</span></p>
<p><span>“By 1934, Jabotinsky and his Betar youth movement
had allied with Il Duce, when the Betar established a
naval base north of Rome,” Steven Meyer wrote in his
article ‘Will Israel outlive its fascists?’, <a
href="https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2002/eirv29n23-20020614/eirv29n23-20020614_033-will_israel_outlive_its_fascists.pdf"><span>published</span></a> in
the Executive Intelligence Review in 2002.</span></p>
<p><span>Meyer elaborates: ‘L’Idea Sionistica, Betar’s
Italian-language magazine, described the dedication
ceremonies which launched the academy: ‘The
order-’Attention!’ A triple chant ordered by the
squad’s commanding officer – ‘Viva l’Italia, Viva Il
Re! Viva Il Duce!’, resounded, followed by the
benediction which rabbi Aldo Lattes invoked in Italian
and in Hebrew for God, for the King and for Il Duce…
‘Giovinezza’ [the fascist party’s anthem] was sung
with much enthusiasm by the Betarim.’</span></p>
<p><span>This account is confirmed in other sources,
including by Italian historian, Furio Biagini’s
Mussolini e il Sionismo – “Mussolini and Zionism”.
Biagini <a
href="http://www.freeebrei.com/anno-v-numero-2-luglio-dicembre-2016/livio-spinelli-il-sionismo-in-italia-e-la-politica-estera-fascista"><span>argues</span></a> that
“in principle, Mussolini wasn’t against Jews’
aspiration to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.”</span></p>
<p><span>Biagini also <a
href="http://www.tuttostoria.net/storia-contemporanea.aspx?code=1191"><span>explained</span></a> the
budding Fascist-Zionist alliance based on geostrategic
necessity,</span></p>
<p><span>“In its expansionistic design throughout the
Mediterranean region, fascist Italy was in direct
contrast with the British presence. The British fleet
dominated the Mediterranean region from Gibraltar to
Cyprus, unto Palestine. By supporting the Zionist
movement in its fight against British Mandatory power,
Italy wanted to weaken the British empire in the
Eastern Mediterranean, while increasing Italian
prestige at an international level.”</span></p>
<p><span>In truth, Jabotinsky was not Mussolini’s only
link to Zionism, but one of many important allies who
proved consequential in later years. Goldman <a
href="https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/agedict/ch14.htm#n12"><span>wrote</span></a> in
his autobiography “The Autobiography of Nahum Goldman:
Sixty Years of Jewish Life” that Mussolini was a
great admirer of Zionism.</span></p>
<p><span>“You must create a Jewish state. I am a Zionist,
and I told Dr. Weizmann so. You must have a real
country, not that ridiculous National Home that the
British have offered you. I will help you create a
Jewish state,” Goldmann wrote, conveying Mussolini’s
message to the Zionist leadership at the time.</span></p>
<p><span>Mussolini’s enthusiasm to establish a “Jewish
state” paralleled the British plot to turn the Balfour
Declaration of 1917, which committed the British crown
to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.</span></p>
<p><span>In October 1933, the head of the Jewish Agency in
Geneva, Victor Jacobson, <a
href="https://books.google.it/books?id=fOpdb3jmqsMC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=porte+della+Palestina+immigrazione+Mussolini&source=bl&ots=BxHC5y66hl&sig=ACfU3U1222a3kgK_QqgGOV7ovo7bjy5DXg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjErNzt6pfnAhXBDOwKHTz6CxAQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=porte%20della%20Palestina%20immigrazione%20Mussolini&f=false"><span>wrote</span></a> to
Chaim Weizmann, who served as the President of the
World Zionist Organization, and later as the first
President of Israel, that,<i> “</i>Mussolini is eager
to open even wider the doors of Palestine to Jewish
immigration, particularly to the refugees coming from
Germany”.</span></p>
<p><span>In his afterword to the book, “Stato e Libertà” –
State and Freedom – Italian diplomat Sergio Minerbi <a
href="https://books.google.it/books?id=fOpdb3jmqsMC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=porte+della+Palestina+immigrazione+Mussolini&source=bl&ots=BxHC5y66hl&sig=ACfU3U1222a3kgK_QqgGOV7ovo7bjy5DXg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjErNzt6pfnAhXBDOwKHTz6CxAQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=porte%20della%20Palestina%20immigrazione%20Mussolini&f=false"><span>wrote</span></a>:
“Mussolini thought that it was impossible to reconcile
Jews and Arabs and that they had to be politically
separated, so he floated the idea of the partition of
Palestine”.</span></p>
<p><span>All of this changed in 1936 when Mussolini’s
son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, was appointed as Italy’s
foreign minister. It was then that “Mussolini allied
Italy unequivocably with Hitler,” as Susan Zuccotti <a
href="https://www.amazon.com/Italians-Holocaust-Persecution-Rescue-Survival/dp/0803299117"><span>wrote</span></a> in
her book ‘The Italians and the Holocaust’. Italy’s
fascist party was then compelled to part ways with the
Zionist leadership, leading to Mussolini’s decision
not to meet with Jabotinsky.</span></p>
<p><span>Following the triumph of the Zionist movement,
crowned in the <a
href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel"><span>establishment</span></a> of
Israel on the ruins of historic Palestine in May 1948,
Zionists have, once again, successfully managed to
rebrand their movement as a progressive force, though
it never truly abandoned its fascist ideology.</span></p>
<p><span>The <a
href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nation-state-law-fascist-step-towards-apartheid"><span>Nation-state
law</span></a> of July 2018, which defines Israel
as an ethnic-racial state was one of many proofs that
Israel remains, until this day, fully committed to
Fascism.</span></p>
<p><span>To say that Zionism is a form of fascism is
neither an overstatement or a haphazard claim. Indeed,
the root causes of both ideologies should be apparent
to any astute student of history.</span></p>
<p><span>The fact that Salvini and Israeli Prime Minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, are now renewing or, at least,
openly embracing the old bond between these two
destructive ideologies, reflects two troubling
realities – on the one hand, it speaks of Italy’s
failure to uproot Fascism as a political model
following World War II, and, on the other hand, the
true ideological basis of Zionism, thus the State of
Israel itself.</span></p>
<p><i><span>– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor
of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five
books. His latest is “</span></i><a
href="https://www.amazon.com/These-Chains-Will-Broken-Palestinian/dp/1949762092"><i><span>These
Chains Will Be Broken</span></i></a><i><span>:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in
Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr.
Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at
the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA),
Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is </span></i><a
href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"><i><span>www.ramzybaroud.net</span></i></a></p>
<p><i><span> – Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and an
editor at</span></i><a
href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/"><i><span>
PalestineChronicle.com</span></i></a><i><span>.
Rubeo holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages
and Literature, and specializes in audio-visual and
journalism translation.</span></i></p>
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