The German name Sternhell means bright as the stars. The name fits: The positions of Professor Ze’ev Sternhell indeed stand out sharply against the darkness of the sky. He warns against Israeli fascism. This week, Israeli fascists laid a pipe-bomb at the entrance of his apartment and he was lightly injured.
They did not attack the activists who demonstrate every week against the Separation Wall in Bil’in and Na’alin. They did not attack the leftists who mobilize every year to help the Palestinians pick their olives near the most dangerous settlements. They did not attack the “Women in Black” who demonstrate every Friday, or the women of “Machsom Watch”, who keep an eye on events at the army checkpoints. They attacked a person whose entire activity is in the academic field.
The field of Sternhell’s academic expertise is the origins of fascism. As a child, Sternhell saw the rise of Nazism in Poland, when, after the death of his father, he lost his mother and sister in the Holocaust.
Sternhell strives for exact definitions, without seeking popularity or avoiding provocation. In one of his articles years ago he asserted that the violent response of the Palestinians to the settlements is quite natural. By this he attracted the lasting wrath of the settlers and the extreme right, which made an effort to prevent him from receiving the Israel Prize, Israel’s highest distinction. Now the pipe-bombs are speaking.
WHO laid the bomb? These acts cannot simply be attributed to individuals or “rogue groups”. There exists a definite fascist fringe at the margin of Israel’s political society. In 1961 I, who as a child witnessed the rise of Nazism in Germany, wrote a book called “The Swastika” (which exists only in Hebrew), in which I posed the question: Can it happen in Israel? My unequivocal answer was: Yes, indeed. This fascist sector in Israel is concentrated in the “ideological” settlements. That does not mean that all settlers are fascists. But most fascists are settlers. During the last months, there has been a marked increase in the number of incidents in which settlers attack Palestinians, soldiers, policemen and “leftists”. These acts are committed openly, in order to terrorize and deter. Settlers riot in the Palestinian villages whose lands they covet, or for revenge. These are “pogroms” in the classical sense of the term: Riots by an armed mob intoxicated with hatred against helpless people, while the police and the army look on. The Pogromchiks destroy, injure and kill. These days it is happening more and more frequently.
They do whatever they want, knowing full well that no harm will befall them. The police do not interfere, since anyhow the courts will not mete out meaningful punishment.
Anybody who knows the history of Nazism is familiar with the shameful role played by the courts and the other law-enforcement agencies in the German republic vis-à-vis the law-breakers whose declared purpose was to put an end to the democratic system. Now we are experiencing this phenomenon here. Does the increase in the number and severity of such incidents testify to the increasing power of Israeli fascism? At first sight, one might get this impression. However, on second thought I think that the opposite is true.
The fanatical settlers know that they have lost the support of public opinion in Israel, and that ordinary people consider them dangerous thugs. Their actions, as seen on television, arouse distaste, even abhorrence. The vision of “All of Eretz-Israel” has not only lost altitude — it has crashed on the ground of reality. The zealots are acting out of weakness and frustration.
Much as the Nazis hated the German republic, these fanatics are starting to hate the State of Israel. And with good reason. They see that they have no place in a national consensus that is solidifying around the concept of “Two States for Two peoples”, whether it is being accepted for negative reasons, such as demographic fears or the burdens of occupation, or for positive reasons, such as the hope for peace and prosperity after the withdrawal from the occupied territories. The discussion about the borders is still going on, but the majority sees the Separation Wall as the future border. (As we made clear right from the beginning, the wall was not really being constructed in order to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers, as was claimed, but as a future border between the two states.) The great majority of the extreme settlers, those motivated by a religious-fascist ideology, live in the small settlements east of the wall, which must be dismantled when peace comes. This is a small minority even among the settlers, supported by a radical minority on the extreme right. That is where violent Israeli fascism is growing.
Once upon a time it seemed that a Red Line ran parallel to the Green Line — that nationalist-religious terrorism would hurt “only” Palestinians, not Israelis. Even Rabbi Meir Kahane, a born fascist, said so.
That illusion was shattered with the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Israeli fascism was found to be like any other classical fascism, which thunders against the “foreign enemy” but directs its terrorism against the “enemy within”. The pipe-bomb at the entrance of Sternhell’s home must turn on all the red lights, as it joins the murder of Emil Gruenzweig and the threats on the lives of other conspicuous peace activists. The decisive battle, the battle for Israel, is entering a new phase — much more violent, much more dangerous.
But more serious than any danger to individuals is the danger to Israeli society as a whole. Especially if it does not mobilize all its resources — government, police, Security Service, the law, the courts, the media and the educational system — for an all-out battle against this danger.
I do not believe that fascism will win in our society. I believe in the strength of Israel democracy. But if I am pushed into a corner and asked: “Can it happen here?” I am bound to answer: “Yes, it can.”
