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Israel had its first general election since 2022 on Tuesday. Israel is an experiment in ethnonationalism, but it is also an experiment in proportional representation. Every conceivable minority group or special interest has their own political party. There is a party for Russian immigrants, a party for Ashkenazi Haredim, and a separate party for Mizrahi Haredim. Arabs of course vote for entirely separate parties from Jews (by custom, not law).
Israel is the most right-wing democracy in the world. In Israel, you can vote for the racist party (Likud), the extremely racist party (Religious Zionism), or the racism über alles party (Otzma Yehudit, literally "Jewish Power"). You can even vote for the pro-racism but anti-Netanyahu party (Together), or the pretending-not-to-be-racist party (Yashar). If you feel like sticking it to the man, there is at least one viable actually-not-racist party (The Democrats). Some would argue the Arab parties (Joint List and Ra'am) are non-racist, but others would say that they are just as racist but in the opposite direction.
The Knesset has 120 seats, so 61 seats are needed for a majority to form a government. Most of the results are in, and it's looking like deadlock.
Estimated seats by bloc
Netanyahu Bloc - 53
"Change" Bloc - 48
Arab Bloc - 19
In European legislatures, is is customary to have a cordon sanitaire against parties perceived as far-right. In Israel, there is a cordon sanitaire against the Arab parties. The Netanyahu bloc has lost its majority, but there is no clear opposition bloc large enough to form a government. Israeli Arab turnout was through the roof.* Bedouin nomads rode into town on camels to vote. The conventional wisdom seems to be that forming a coalition with any of the Arab parties post-October 7th is political suicide. If no one can form a majority, there could be another election as soon as next year.
*Netanyahu is accusing the Arabs of voter fraud. I have no idea if this means anything.
Not that I am disputing this, but it is really bizarre as it is also one of the most ethnically diverse places in the World. Iraqis, Yemenis, and Polish people who somehow decided that they constitute one ethnicity.
You are using presentist definition of race according to modern US Culture war. This was not so in the past. Hitler himself defined Jews as a race, it was a "terminus technicus" inside the Third Reich - the so called Judenrasse. In fact this whole issue was behind the whole Holocaust was not about race controversy by Whoopi Goldberg - because she is correct. From modern US race relation system point of view, the Jewish Holocaust is just white-on-white violence, similar to let's say Yugoslav wars or black-on-black genocide in Rwanda - which were also not technically "racist" in modern parlance.
This of course only reveals the inherent racism of the modern system especially related to affirmative action and similar race laws. There are numerous jokes running in the same vein, pointing to the inherent progressive contradiction - they at the same time have racial based affirmative action, but also deny race as a scientific concept, but also deny race as a self-identification identity/category similar to let's say trans. As in all dialectical leftist schizoid conspiracy theories, they just declare belief in the power of Progress to resolve/abolish this nasty Hegelian contradiction, which by itself is a proof of a need to do more more
researchgrift into theirTheory™bankrupt religious theology. In the end, they leave it as temporarily unresolved candidate to abolish in further revolution, but also heavily punish anybody who looks into the topic too deeply, and in a way that makes them sound ridiculous.In the end they do implicitly endorse something like Nazi or Spanish colonial definition of "visible minority". So that Megan Markle - a wife of Prince Henry is considered as a minority, but it would be tougher to say so about her son Archie, who is technically a quadroon under Spanish colonial nomenclature.
I am not challenging your historical assertions, and correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think Hitler gave much thought to the question of if Yemeni Jews are a part of this Jewish race. I would be surprised if he considered them the same group as the Ashkenazi he was mainly concerned with.
One has to see it in light of development in 18th and 19th century and especially the birth of nationalism stemming from secular humanism. This was a movement where it was claimed by Hegel and his predecessors especially in French revolution, that there is such a thing as a nation. An entity that encompasses people who share culture, language, history. In his seminal work, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Hegel popularized Herders concept of the entity of as Volksgeist. A spirit that animates the population and that gives rise to the nation based on shared culture, language, history and political structure. With advent of Darwinism after Hegel's death this idea was appropriated and added blood/race into the structure.
This also gave rise to a new form of antisemitism that was distinct from the old religious forms. Jews were no longer just outsiders with different religious beliefs, they were people who were not part of the German Volksgeist, the historical force that was moving the German/Aryan Volk toward supremacy. They had their own Jewish Volkgeist that was in dialectical opposition to Germanic race. Also this theory was not exclusive to Jews, Hitler defined other races such as Slavs that also were disruptive elements opposing Germans. By the way, denigrating Slavs but also Africans and Native Americans was there back in Hegel, who defined them as Naturzustand nations - people in natural state, Engels who was a rabid racist later marked all these nations as geschichtslose Völker - nations without History. Where The History™ is this religious mystical force that drives progress as opposed to just "history" in form of having some monuments and the past. This is where the concept of Blut o blood was added to some nationalist projects alongside of language, culture, geography and The History.
It is all rooted in the eugenic/social darwinist ethos of of late 19th and early 20th century progressives, who saw evolution not only on the level of some bacteria or dinosaurs, but also as a struggle between different tribes and nations toward supremacy. The survival of the fittest had spiritual angle, the ability to dominate for millenium was attestation of right to rule. That the global arrangement is constant struggle between various Darwinian entities, these Volkgeists and that ability to dominate by force is at the same time proof of right to rule as well as the supremacy of given race embodied in superorganism of the state. That is why the totalitarian fascist state was so obsessed with power, as Mussolini defined it Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato or Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. And by everything, they meant everything: political power, culture, religion even family relations had to serve The State as this divine entity engaged in constant struggle over power. It is no accident that the Hitlers propagandist director Riefenstahl made a movie named Triumph of the Will. The Will here is in line of German continental philosophers like Shoppenhauer and Nietczhe - the Will to Power. The will is not just an individual grit, it is also not Augustinian Christian free will. It is specifically the secular will to dominate and enforce one's ideas upon the society - but not from an individual standpoint, this will is subject to the teleological mystical power of The History™ - they are just Great Men who embody the Ziegeist and move the society toward Progress.
It is no surprise that this idea stemmed from secular humanism or socialism, who also see collective as the ultimate God, the Marx's The New Socialist Man.
Also Hitler as many other totalitarians was concerned with purity. He did not care that Japanese Volk had their own interest in far east, or that there may have been some Yemeni Jews with their own schemes inside Middle-East. He wanted to create a 1000 year Reich, which would have "pure" Germanic foundation and fight with Arabs or Japanese was something to be hashed out in Darwianian sense after this internal purity was established.
The idea behind fascism is that the whole state is one superorganism and that individuals are serving the state in this Darwinian struggle. In fact Hitler himself despaired after crushing defeats in the east - how come that hordes of barbarian Slavs were able to defeat his nation? It could only be because of saboteurs and clandestine actions, because otherwise he would have to accept that the Slavic nations are superior to German nations which was a tough pill to swallow. Also that is why he was so suicidal, he saw defeat of Germany as defeat of these almost religious concepts.
Now this may have seen as some historical/philosophical tangent, but the very same ideas now animate current ideological battles and Culture War. Progressives are still worshiping power, they endlessly analyze systems of oppression and how power flows based on blood or culture not unlike progressive "humanists" from the past. It is the same underlying ethos and theology but in a new dress.
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