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Commentary. As an admirer of Trump and someone who considers Orban and the Visegrad countries as his best allies, it was only natural for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Salvini to praise Bibi as one of the greats.

Salvini the Zionist

The figure of the gentile Zionist who is far from being a gentleman—an uncritical supporter of Israel’s Reasons of State, whatever these may be—has undergone an impressive and extraordinary transformation over the years.

The first such figure, right after the Jewish state came into existence, was the diminutive Soviet father figure Jossip Vissarionovich Djugasvili, better known as Stalin, who was the first powerful leader to wholly support Israel, arming it and supporting it before international bodies.

The latest of the gentile Zionists—last but not least—is our gallivanting Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, who has already explained to everyone, without needing to actually visit the Holy Land first, that the blame lies entirely with the Palestinians, and particularly with the “Nazis” from Hamas, who are threatening millions of people. His statements clearly imply that the Israelis are the victims.

He is thus the perfect spokesperson for Bibi Netanyahu.

Bibi will be happy with these developments, because the future composition of the European Parliament will see a strengthening of populist, reactionary and fascist-like parties, which will make already-timid Europe even more appeasing Israel’s demands: it won’t say anything against the occupation, colonization and expansion of settlements.

In its infancy, Zionism was supported by progressive forces, including socialists, communists, anarchists and progressives of all sorts. Zionism was considered a decidedly leftist movement, and this reputation caused many problems for Zionism at various points, such as under McCarthyism, which considered a Zionist and a Communist to be the same thing, and not entirely without reason. During the first two years of the existence of the Jewish state, the cinemas in its cities would play the Israeli anthem Hatikva (Hope) after each movie screening, and immediately afterward the theaters would resound with the notes of the International, followed by the Soviet anthem. The story of red sympathies came to an abrupt halt in 1949, when Stalin unleashed a deadly anti-Semitic campaign that only ended with his death in March 1953.

Nonetheless, under Stalin’s reign Jews had occupied important posts in the cultural industry, in the Party and even in the army. Some of the closest collaborators of the Georgian dictator were Jews, one of whom was Commisar Kaganovich, who organized the gulags. However, as is well known, anti-Semitism had its left-wing current, which Lenin used to call “the socialism of fools.”

Despite Stalin’s late anti-Semitic turn, Israel remained for years the land of the Kibbutzim, which were naively seen as structures within a socialist project. This reputation began to falter with the Six-Day War, and, after the takeover of government by the right wing after the Yom Kippur War, Israel began to be consistently ruled (with only a few interruptions) by an ultra-Zionist reactionary right allied with religious fanaticism, which has progressively transformed it into the segregationist, colonialist and racist nation it is nowadays. As a paradigm for policies of violence and repression, Israel has found more and more friends among former fascists, neo-fascists, and the worst kind of populists.

How could Salvini have failed to seize that opportunity?

As a race demagogue, a politician with an instinctive sense of timing and a talented opportunist, he sniffed out the current zeitgeist, easily realized how far the necrosis of the left had advanced, and started to ride the wave. Of course, as an admirer of Trump and someone who considers Orban and the Visegrad countries as his best allies, it was only natural for him to praise Bibi as one of the greats.

Our “green crusader” is in perfect harmony with the oxymoronic political hybrid of the new ideology, which can be given the paradoxical name of anti-Semitic Zionism. Just think how happy all the Nazi scum, the white supremacists and the whole racist International must be to be able to be fiercely anti-Semitic while being given impeccable credentials as “friends of Israel.” This masterpiece of manipulation is the fruit of the partnership between The Donald & The Bibi.

Meanwhile, we who are unshakeable in our devotion to democratic ideals are reduced to asking ourselves a disturbing question: if the Jews of Hitler’s time had been like the Netanyahu-supporting Israelis of nowadays, would the Nazis have even plotted the Final Solution at all? My own answer is: I don’t think so. What the Nazis hated was the ubiquitous Jew: not tied to a particular homeland, cosmopolitan, with a critical intellect, a protagonist of revolutions, and a destroyer of idolatry of every kind.

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