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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/europe-s-monster--palestine-s-nightmare">english.almayadeen.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Europe's monster, Palestine's nightmare</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Tariq Marzbaan</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">June 28, 2026</div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><p>"Israel": The colonial project, the victim narrative and the instrumentalisation of language</p><div><ul id="gmail-content-slick-0"><div aria-hidden="false"><li>
<a href="https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2026/6/28/28602a0f-6d1d-4872-943e-7b7fa7aab947.png?width=1000" tabindex="0"><img src="https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2026/6/28/28602a0f-6d1d-4872-943e-7b7fa7aab947.png?width=1000&preset=w700" alt="Today, the meaning of this phrase is clearer than ever:" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img"></a>
Today, the meaning of this phrase is clearer than ever:
"Never again" applies only to Zionist Jews. All others can be massacred
and exterminated with impunity. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by
Fatima Attieh)
</li></div></ul>
<p><span>Virtually everything that needs to be said, written and shown
to understand the origins of "Israel" and the suffering of the
Palestinians has already been covered. Yet many still ask: How did it
come to this? What went wrong?</span></p>
<p><span>The answer: <em>Nothing went wrong</em> \u2013 from the start, everything proceeded according to the Zionists' plan and worldview.</span><span> </span></p>
<h2>The Holocaust as a founding myth</h2>
<p><span>After the Second World War, the full extent of the European
genocide against the Jews gradually came to light. When "Israel" was
founded in 1948, its founders elevated the Holocaust to the founding
myth of the "Jewish state": "Israel" was to be the place where Jews
would be protected from future persecution.</span></p>
<p><span>Yet this myth did not merely serve as a moral façade to conceal
and justify the colonial, land-grabbing nature of European-Ashkenazi
Zionism. It also became a source of identity-forming indoctrination and a
propaganda tool for combating any criticism of "Israel" \u2013 Norman
Finkelstein aptly calls this the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry">"Holocaust Industry."</a></span></p>
<p><span>The Zionist movement's willingness to cooperate with so-called "<em>anti-Semites</em>"
when it suited its purposes was evident even before the state's
founding. The "Haavara Agreement" (1933\u20131939) between the Jewish Agency
and the Nazi regime enabled <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/refugees">60,000 German Jews to emigrate</a> to Palestine \u2013 with parts of their assets \u2013 while <a href="https://wwv.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206190.pdf">Jewish organisations worldwide</a> called for a boycott of Nazi Germany.</span></p>
<h2>Zionist ideology and its roots<span> </span></h2>
<p><span>The first generation of Zionists were mostly secular people of
various political stripes. Their era \u2013 the late 19th and early 20th
centuries \u2013 was the age of rising nationalisms, which fuelled
anti-colonial wars in colonised regions and culminated in Western
fascism and industrialised mass murder. The Zionist founding figures
were deeply influenced by these racist ideologies \u2013 and the
long-standing religious belief in Jewish supremacy made it all the
easier for them to adopt such ways of thinking.</span></p>
<p><span>Although Theodor Herzl and other Zionist thinkers invoke
European "anti-Semites", pogroms, and centuries of suffering, they adopt
the very same racist mindset of their persecutors as a model for their
own agenda. The difference is that their racism is directed not against
Jews, but against Arabs and especially against Muslim and Christian
Palestinians \u2013 those amongst whom Jews had lived in peace for centuries.
They want a state for Jews, but see themselves as white Europeans,
their allies and an extension of their power.</span></p>
<p><span>Only against this backdrop can one understand a remark such as that made by CDU leader Friedrich Merz (now German Chancellor): "<em>They </em>[the Israelis]<em> are doing the dirty work for us."</em>
This also explains the racism directed in "Israel" to this day against
Jewish immigrants from Africa and non-Western regions \u2013 against
Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.</span></p>
<p><span>That "Israel" was a colonial project became apparent immediately upon its founding. <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ethnic-Cleansing-of-Palestine/Ilan-Pappe/9781851685554">"Plan Dalet" (March 1948)</a>,
approved by David Ben-Gurion, was a military plan for the systematic
expulsion of Palestinians from strategic areas. Between December 1947
and autumn 1948, 531 Palestinian villages and <a href="https://www.zochrot.org/">towns were destroyed or depopulated</a>.
From the outset, "Israel" was planned as a Western colony \u2013 but sold
externally as a "secular state," the region's "only democracy," and "the
only safe place for Jews".</span><span> </span></p>
<p><span>Perceptive Jewish intellectuals saw through this early on. In a 1948 open letter signed by <a href="https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948/mode/2up">Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein and others</a>, published in the <em>New York Times</em>,
they warned of "fascism" within the Zionist movement and described
Menachem Begin's Cherut party as "terrorist" and "Nazi-like in its
structure."</span></p>
<h2>'Israel's' function for the West</h2>
<p><span>For the declining colonial powers, Britain and France, the
establishment of "Israel" provided an opportunity to withdraw from the
region without losing power or influence. For the heirs to the British
Empire, the USA, "Israel" is their extended arm and the largest military
base in the region \u2013 or, as US officials have repeatedly emphasised,
"America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East".</span></p>
<p><span>"Israel" is the only nuclear power in the region, with an estimated <a href="https://www.nti.org/countries/israel/">90 to 400 nuclear warheads</a>. T<a href="https://nuke.fas.org/guide/israel/nuke/">he USA and France helped build this arsenal</a>.
Germany supplied Dolphin-class submarines, allegedly capable of
carrying nuclear-capable cruise missiles \u2013 a direct German involvement
in Israeli nuclear deterrence. In 2024 alone, the German government
approved arms <a href="https://corruption-tracker.org/case/german-submarine-sales-to-israel"> exports to "Israel" worth over 300 million euros </a>\u2013 in the midst of the Gaza war.</span></p>
<p><span> </span><span>For the Germans and all other Western nations
that actively participated in Judeophobia, persecution, and ultimately
the systematic slaughter of Jews under German leadership, "Israel" was a
moral relief \u2013 for the Germans, the best detergent for their soiled
conscience.</span></p>
<p><span>For the surrounding states, "Israel" became a Damocles sword.
For the Palestinians, it became the Nakba \u2013 the catastrophe that has
continued unabated since the arrival of the first European Zionists and
continues to this day. We are all currently witnessing its ongoing
climax: the Genocide in Gaza.</span></p>
<h2>The narrative of self-defence and religious legitimation</h2>
<p><span>Given the atrocities suffered during the racist pogroms in
Christian Europe \u2013 particularly the crimes of the German Nazis and their
fascist allies \u2013 it is understandable that the survivors were
traumatised and distrustful. This applies also to those who went to
Palestine to establish what they believed to be a safe homeland.</span><span> </span></p>
<p><span>From this trauma arose the legend: anything Israelis do is
their natural right to self-defence. This narrative has been
successfully conveyed to the world's population, and most people have
accepted it to this day.</span><span> </span></p>
<p><span>Added to this is the religious narrative: God chose the Jews
and promised them that land. Thus, "Israel" possesses not only secular,
legal, historical, and moral legitimacy \u2013 derived from "anti-Semitism"
and the Holocaust \u2013 but also divine legitimacy. The framework of this
thinking is comparable to the "blood and soil" ideology, the "Aryan
superman," and Hitler's belief that he was chosen by "Providence" \u2013 the
Nazis' substitute for God.</span></p>
<p><span>This may sound crude and naïve. Yet that is exactly how
Zionists portray "Israel": recall Netanyahu at the UN, using a
comic-book drawing of an old-fashioned bomb to illustrate the alleged
Iranian nuclear threat; recall former Chancellor Scholz, who, even when
confronted with the genocidal massacre in Gaza, still invoked "<em>Israel's right to self-defence"</em>. On Holocaust Remembrance Day 2023, he wrote in <em>Die Zeit</em> that "<em>'Never again' is every day</em>",
even as the Israelis continued their Holocaust in Gaza. This phrase is
trotted out by German politicians whenever "Israel" is concerned; when
confronted with the Genocide in Gaza, they either remain silent or
resort to the cliché of "self-defence" \u2013 laying bare their dishonesty,
hypocrisy and double standards.</span></p>
<h2>From victim to perpetrator</h2>
<p><span>It is understandable that Holocaust survivors identified as
victims and were seen as such by others. Distrust, victimhood, and even
paranoia can be understood as psychological consequences of a Holocaust.
However, another equally logical consequence would have been the
rejection of all violence, persecution and oppression against all people
\u2013 expressed in a sincere "<em>Never again</em>", as some survivors and genuine anti-fascists have always advocated. But for "Israel", the first option was exploited.</span></p>
<p><span>How could a people who had suffered so much transform, within
such a short time, into a state that adopts and practises the ideology
and methods of its tormentors? Even former Zionists now ask: <em>"What went wrong?"</em></span><span> </span></p>
<p><span>The answer: <em>Nothing</em>. The founding fathers and mothers saw themselves from the very beginning as colonialist occupiers in foreign territory. <em>"A land without a people for a people without a land"</em> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/76499683/Palestine_in_Israeli_School_Books_Ideology_and_Propaganda_in_Education">"There is no such thing as Palestinians"</a> \u2013 these were their guiding principles.</span></p>
<p><span>The expulsion, disenfranchisement and physical extermination of
the local population were taken for granted. To carry this out, their
own people had to be indoctrinated into hardened fascists, while
Palestinians were declared subhuman. Any mention of Palestinians was
largely taboo; if they were spoken of, it was as Arabs, terrorists, or
since October 2023, "human-like animals" and <em>Amalek</em>.</span></p>
<h2>Indoctrination and racism \u2013 in society and in law</h2>
<p><span>The image that the Israeli state conveys of Palestinians in its
school textbooks differs little from what the Nazis taught Germans
about Jews. The Israeli scholar Nurit Peled-Elhanan has documented how
Palestinians are systematically portrayed as "primitive," "hostile," and
"culturally inferior" \u2013 if they are acknowledged as existing at all and
not <a href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8772">depicted exclusively as a terrorist threat</a>. The victims of yesteryear always had a sinister affinity for their racist tormentors.</span></p>
<p><span> </span><span>In the logic of this indoctrination, the world
outside "Israel" consists entirely of "anti-Semites" waiting to
annihilate the Jews. The main enemies are not the historically
entrenched "anti-Semites" of Christian Europe, but primarily
Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span>Thus, over more than 70 years of brainwashing, a fascist
society has been moulded in which up to 80 per cent of the population
advocates the total extermination of Palestinians.</span></p>
<p><span>Racism is also legally institutionalised. The "<a href="https://main.knesset.gov.il/EN/activity/documents/BasicLawsPDF/BasicLawNationState.pdf">Nation-State Law of 2018</a>"
declares "Israel" the "nation-state of the Jewish people," downgrades
Arabic from an official language to one of "special status," and
declares Jewish settlements a "national asset". Over 65 Israeli laws
directly or <a href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771">indirectly discriminate against Palestinian citizens</a>.</span></p>
<p><span> </span><span>Yet "Israel" and its Western protectors \u2013 the
real anti-Semites! \u2013 do everything to keep anti-Semitism alive in the
world and even encourage it. For no other means stifles criticism of
"Israel" or pro-Palestinian statements as reliably as the accusation of
anti-Semitism wielded as a weapon.</span></p>
<h2>The distortion of the concept of anti-semitism</h2>
<p><span> </span><span>How an already questionable term was further distorted and repurposed as a weapon against criticism of "Israel".</span></p>
<p><span> </span><span>Herzl wrote in <em>The Jewish State</em>: "<em>The
anti-Semites will be our closest friends ... because we will form a
bulwark against the barbarians [the Arabs] with the Jewish state ..."</em> By <em>"anti-Semites"</em>
he meant the true ones: the Christian-European racists who, in his era,
were shaping the destiny of humanity. In this sense, Zionism can be
understood as an extension of Christian-European racism \u2013 and its
proponents, from Herzl to Netanyahu, as racists. They regard
Palestinians in particular, and Arabs and Muslims in general, as
barbarians and inferior beings.</span></p>
<p><span>This thinking was moulded into a political tool. The IHRA's 2016 "<a href="https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism">Working Definition of Anti-Semitism</a>"
lists 11 examples \u2013 7 of which relate to "anti-Semitism" directed
against "Israel", including "questioning Israel's right to exist".
Prominent Jewish scholars, including Israeli historian Moshe Zimmermann,
warned that this definition <a href="https://pij.org/articles/1831/the-ihra-working-definition-of-antisemitism-a-legal-perspective">criminalises legitimate criticism of "Israel"</a> and suppresses pro-Palestinian expression.</span></p>
<p><span> </span><span>How this censorship works was shown in 2012, when
the German writer Günter Grass, in his poem "What Must Be Said,"
described "Israel" as a threat to world peace. "Israel" immediately
imposed an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-17650548">entry ban on the Nobel laureate</a>; in Germany, he was defamed as an "anti-Semite."</span></p>
<h2>"<em>Never Again</em>" \u2013 A perverted phrase</h2>
<p><span>The slogan "<em>Never again</em>" became established in
post-war Germany as the guiding principle of the "denazified" political
class, its backers, and the "liberated" population. With the student
movement of 1968, it became a political rallying cry and part of the
damaged national identity of post-war generations.</span></p>
<p><span>Whilst genuinely meant immediately after the German atrocities
came to light, over time it has been reinterpreted and transformed into a
tool that can be used at will. In 2008, Angela Merkel <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/newsletter-und-abos/bulletin/rede-von-bundeskanzlerin-dr-angela-merkel-796170">declared before the Knesset</a> that "Israel"'s security was "<em>part of Germany's raison d'état</em>"
\u2013 a formula never adopted by parliament or legally defined, yet which
has ever since bound German policy unconditionally to Israeli interests.
In 2023, <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/suche/regierungserklaerung-von-bundeskanzler-olaf-scholz-2230150">Olaf Scholz reiterated this</a>
in the context of the Gaza War \u2013 whilst Israeli ministers spoke
publicly of the "voluntary resettlement" of Palestinians from Gaza.[13]
As early as 1999, Green Party Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had
reduced the phrase to absurdity when he abused it to justify the German
invasion of Yugoslavia.</span></p>
<p><span>The German population, in particular, will at some point
confront the painful reality that they have been complicit in a genocide
for the second time within a century.</span></p>
<p><span>Today, in the face of the ongoing Genocide against Palestinians and Lebanese, the meaning of this phrase is clearer than ever: "<em>Never again</em>" applies only to Zionist Jews. All others can be massacred and exterminated with impunity.</span></p>
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