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*Weimar in Jerusalem*
Uri Avnery
23/10/10
IN BERLIN, an exhibition entitled "Hitler and the Germans" has just opened.
It examines the factors that caused the German people to bring Adolf Hitler
to power and follow him to the very end.
I am too busy with the problems of Israeli democracy to fly to Berlin. Pity.
Because since childhood, precisely this question has been troubling me. How
did it happen that a civilized nation, which saw itself as the "people of
poets and thinkers", followed this man, much as the children of Hamelin
followed the pied piper to their doom.
This troubles me not only as a historical phenomenon, but as a warning for
the future. If this happened to the Germans, can it happen to any people?
Can it happen here?
As a 9-year old boy I was an eye-witness to the collapse of German democracy
and the ascent of the Nazis to power. The pictures are engraved in my memory
– the election campaigns following each other, the uniforms in the street,
the debates around the table, the teacher who greeted us for the first time
with "Heil Hitler". I resurrected these memories in a book I wrote (in
Hebrew) during the Eichmann trial, and which ended with a chapter entitled:
"Can it happen here?" I am returning to them these days, as I write my
memoirs.
I don't know if the Berlin exhibition tries to answer these questions.
Perhaps not. Even now, 77 years later, there is no final answer to the
question: Why did the German republic collapse?
This is an all-important question, because now people in Israel are asking,
with growing concern: Is the Israeli republic collapsing?
FOR THE first time, this question is being asked in all seriousness.
Throughout the years, we were careful not to mention the word Fascism in
public discourse. It raises memories which are too monstrous. Now this taboo
has been broken.
Yitzhak Herzog, the Minister of Welfare in the Netanyahu government, a
member of the Labor party, the grandson of a Chief Rabbi and the son of a
President, said a few days ago that "fascism is touching the margins of our
society". He was wrong: fascism is not only touching the margins, it is
touching the government in which he is serving, and the Knesset, of which he
is a member.
Not a day – quite literally – passes without a group of Knesset members
tabling a new racist bill. The country is still divided by the amendment to
the law of citizenship, which will compel applicants to swear allegiance to
"Israel as a Jewish and democratic state". Now the ministers are discussing
whether this will be demanded only of non-Jews (which doesn't sound nice) or
of Jews, too – as if this would change the racist content one bit.
This week, a new bill was tabled. It would prohibit non-citizens from acting
as tourist guides in East Jerusalem. Non-citizens in this case means Arabs.
Because, when East Jerusalem was annexed by force to Israel after the 1967
war, its Arab inhabitants were not granted citizenship. They were accorded
only the status of "permanent residents", as if they were recent newcomers
and not scions of families that have lived in the city for centuries.
The bill is intended to deprive Arab Jerusalemites of the right to serve as
tourist guides at their holy places in their city, since they are apt to
deviate from the official propaganda line. Shocking? Incredible? Not in the
eyes of the proponents, which include members of the Kadima party. A Knesset
member of the Meretz party also signed, but retracted, claiming that he was
confused.
This proposal comes after dozens of bills of this kind have been tabled
recently, and before dozens of others which are already on their way. The
Knesset members act like sharks in a feeding frenzy. There is a wild
competition between them to see who can devise the most racist bill.
It pays. After each such bill, the initiators are invited to TV studios to
"explain" their purpose. Their pictures appear in the papers. For obscure
MKs, whose names we have never heard of, that poses an irresistible
temptation. The media are collaborating.
THIS IS not a uniquely Israeli phenomenon. All over Europe and America,
overt fascists are raising their heads. The purveyors of hate, who until now
have been spreading their poison at the margins of the political system, are
now arriving at the center.
In almost every country there are demagogues who build their careers on
incitement against the weak and helpless, who advocate the expulsion of
"foreigners" and the persecution of minorities. In the past they were easy
to dismiss, as was Hitler at the beginning of his career. Now they must be
taken seriously.
Only a few years ago, the world was shocked when Jörg Haider's party was
allowed Into the Austrian government coalition. Haider praised Hitler's
achievements. The Israeli government furiously recalled its ambassador to
Vienna. Now the new Dutch government is dependent on the support of a
declared racist, and fascist parties achieve impressive election gains in
many countries. The "Tea Party" movement, which is blooming in the US, has
some clearly fascist aspects. One of its candidates likes to go around
wearing the uniform of the murderous Nazi Waffen-SS.
So we are in good company. We are no worse than the others. If they can do
it, why not us?
BUT THERE is a big difference: Israel is not in the same situation as
Holland or Sweden. Unlike these countries, Israel's very existence is
threatened by fascism. It can lead our state to destruction.
Years ago. I believed that two miracles had occurred in Israel: the revival
of Hebrew language and Israeli democracy.
The resurrection of a "dead" language has never succeeded anywhere else.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, once asked contemptuously: "Will
people ask for a railway ticket in Hebrew?" (He wanted us to speak German.)
Today, the Hebrew language fares better than the Israeli railway.
But Israeli democracy is an even greater miracle. It did not grow from
below, as in Europe. The Jewish people never had a democracy. The Jewish
religion, like almost all religions, is totalitarian. The immigrants who
flowed to the country had also never experienced democracy before. They came
from Czarist or Bolshevik Russia, from Josef Pilsudski's authoritarian
Poland, from tyrannical Morocco and Iraq. Only an infinitesimal part came
from democratic countries. And yet: from its earliest beginnings, the
Zionist movement fostered an exemplary democracy in its ranks, and the State
of Israel continued this tradition (with one limitation: a full democracy
for Jews, a limited democracy for Arab citizens.)
I was always worried that this democracy was hanging by a thin thread, that
we must be on our guard every hour, every minute. Now it is facing an
unprecedented test.
THE GERMAN republic carried the name of Weimar, the town where the
constituent assembly adopted its constitution after World War I. The Weimar
of Bach and Goethe was one of the cradles of German culture.
It was a shiningly democratic constitution. Under its wings, Germany saw an
unprecedented intellectual and artistic bloom. So why did the republic
collapse?
Generally, two causes are identified: humiliation and unemployment. When the
republic was still in its infancy, it was forced to sign the Versailles
peace treaty with the victors of the First World War, a treaty that was but
a humiliating act of surrender. When the republic fell behind with the
payment of the huge indemnities levied on it, the French army invaded the
industrial heartland of Germany in 1923, precipitating a galloping inflation
– a trauma Germany has not recovered from to this day.
When the world economic crisis broke out in 1929, the German economy broke
down. Millions of despairing unemployed sank into abject poverty and cried
out for salvation. Hitler promised to wipe out both the humiliation of
defeat and the unemployment, and fulfilled both promises: he gave work to
the unemployed in the new arms industry and in public works, like the new
autobahns, in preparation for war.
And there was a third reason for the collapse of the republic: the growing
apathy of the democratic public. The political system of the republic just
became loathsome. While the people were sinking into misery, the politicians
went on playing their games. The public was longing for a strong leader, to
impose order. The Nazis did not overthrow the republic. The republic
imploded, the Nazis only filled the void.
IN ISRAEL there is no economic crisis. On the contrary, the economy is
flourishing. Israel did not sign any humiliating agreement, like the Treaty
of Versailles. On the contrary, it won all its wars. True, our fascists
speak about the "Oslo criminals", much as Hitler ranted against the
"November criminals", but the Oslo agreement was the opposite of the
Versailles treaty, which was signed in November 1919.
If so, what does the profound crisis of Israeli society stem from? What
causes millions of citizens to regard with complete apathy the doings of
their leaders, contenting themselves with shaking their heads in front of
the TV set? What causes them to ignore what's happening in the occupied
territories, half an hour's drive from their home? Why do so many declare
that they do not listen to the news or read newspapers anymore? What is the
origin of the depression and despair, which leave open the road to fascism?
The state has arrived at a crossroads: peace or eternal war. Peace means the
foundation of the Palestinian state and the evacuation of the settlements.
But the genetic code of the Zionist movement is pushing towards the
annexation of the whole of the historical country up to the Jordan River,
and – directly or indirectly - the transfer of the Arab population. The
majority of the people is evading a decision by claiming that "we have no
partner for peace" anyhow. We are condemned to eternal war.
Democracy is suffering from a growing paralysis, because the different
sectors of the people live in different worlds. The secular, the
national-religious and the orthodox receive totally different educations.
Common ground between them is shrinking. Other rifts are gaping between the
old Ashkenazi community, the Oriental Jews, the immigrants from the former
Soviet Union and Ethiopia, and the Arab citizens, whose separation from the
rest is increasing all the time.
For the second time in my life, I may have to witness the collapse of a
republic. But that is not predestined. Israel is not the goose-stepping
Germany of those days, 2010 is not 1933. The Israeli society can yet sober
up in time and mobilize the democratic forces within itself.
But for that to happen, it must awake from the coma, understand what is
happening and where it is leading to, protest and struggle by all available
means (as long as that is still possible), in order to arrest the fascist
wave that is threatening to engulf us.
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