Nakba, Netanyahu the Elder, and the Rotting Apple of Zionism

There’s a danger in relegating the genocide in Gaza — orchestrated by arguably the most savage government in the history of the Zionist entity, marked by calls for extermination, nuking, and starvation — as an exception, as one-off extremism, shall we say.

Contents

Netanyahu the Elder Revisionist Zionism celebrated ideological fascism Jewish Legion → Haganah → Irgun Irgun killed many European diplomats!Not only Revisionist Zionism to blame The IDF is born All Zionist thinking based on ethnic cleansing My great-grandfather was among the executed To be complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine From the river to the sea Israeli political party used similar phrase in the 70s Benzion’s paradoxical expertise in Jewish history of Spain The golden era of Jewish culture Arabs a “nation of half-savages”Netanyahu not just “a bad apple”Also read

In fact, the genocide in Gaza is the product of a longstanding historical continuum of fascism deeply embedded within the founding web of Zionism, leading up to the Nakba of 1948 and beyond.

Within that context, in this article we aim the spotlight on Netanyahu’s father, Benzion, and the poisonous tree from which his delinquent son has fallen.

Such a light will show that Netanyahu Junior, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and their associates are anything but outliers or political aberrations.

Netanyahu the Elder

Benzion Netanyahu, born in Poland as Benzion Mileikowsky on 25 March 1910, was an Israeli historian, encyclopaedist, and medievalist.

After immigrating to Palestine in 1920, he adopted the name “Netanyahu”, which means “God has given”. [1]

Like many European colonial settlers, name-changing was part of a series of measures used to feign Hebrew ancestry and to hide their non-Middle-Eastern descent.

Look at the founder of the Zionist State: he was not born David “Ben-Gurion”, he was named David Grün. [2]

Benzion Mileikowsky held hawkish, racist, and supremacist views, soon to brush off on his son.

Indeed, he famously stated that,

“…the vast majority of Israeli Arabs would choose to exterminate us, if they had the option to do so.” [3]

Revisionist Zionism celebrated ideological fascism

Benzion was entrenched in Revisionist Zionism, advocating for what is termed territorial maximalism.

This is, in other words, militant Jewish domination over Eretz Yisrael or the Biblical concept of Greater Israel, including all of what remains Palestinian territory, as well as Transjordan (encompassing modern-day Jordan) and Sinai.

Jewish Legion → Haganah → Irgun

The above view was inspired by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who founded various violent, terrorist organisations, stemming from the WWI British-aligned Jewish Legion into more aggressive renderings such as the Haganah, and eventually the anti-British Irgun, which spearheaded much of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. [4]

The Irgun — a birthchild of Zionist Revisionism — carried out unspeakable acts of terrorism, including the bombing of the centre of the British Mandatory administration in Palestine, the King David Hotel, which killed 91 British servicemen and civilians.

This was the worst terrorist attack ever committed against Britain. And the order for the bombing came from a man who would later become the sixth Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin — another product, like the Netanyahus, of Revisionism.

The Irgun also orchestrated the heinous Deir Yassin massacre of April 1948, systematically butchering over 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children. [5] [6]

The “Lehi”, a further offshoot of the Irgun, and yet another creation of Revisionist Zionism, also partook in the massacre.

The Lehi, vehemently anti-British, twice attempted to form an alliance with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the 1940s, seeing both as lesser enemies of the Jews than Britain. [7]

Irgun killed many European diplomats!

Due to its repeated assassinations of European diplomats, the Zionist government felt coerced to declare the Lehi a terrorist organisation.

Unsurprisingly, in January 1949, the government swiftly issued a broad pardon for Lehi members. [8]

In 1980, after the dust had settled, the Zionist government introduced the “Lehi Ribbon”, a military honour designed to recognise the group’s contribution to the establishment of Israel. Yitzhak Shamir, a former leader of the terrorist group, assumed the role of seventh Prime Minister of Israel in 1983.

An article proudly titled Terror in the Lehi newspaper He Khazit (The Front) argued the following:

“Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.

“We are very far from having any moral qualms as far as our national war goes. We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world: ‘Ye shall blot them out to the last man.'” [9]

Not only Revisionist Zionism to blame

The massacres that ensued after Deir Yassin, such as those in the Palestinian villages of Qalunya, Saris, Beit Surik, and Biddu, were swift and brutal.

Lasting only an hour or so in each village, Haganah units demolished homes and forcibly expelled residents. This was part of Plan D, also known as “Dalet”, which aimed for ethnic cleansing and the systematic destruction of both rural and urban areas in Palestine.

The IDF is born

Despite this, Deir Yassin and subsequent massacres are often downplayed as the actions of fringe groups like the Irgun and Lehi.

Both occurred under the auspices of the primary organisation, the Haganah. This group later merged with others to form the present-day IDF.

As Professor Ilan Pappé aptly puts it:

“The systematic nature of Plan Dalet is manifested in Deir Yassin, a pastoral and cordial village that had reached a non-aggression pact with the Haganah in Jerusalem, but was doomed to be wiped out because it was within the areas designated in Plan Dalet to be cleansed.

“The Haganah decided to send the Irgun and Stern Gang troops, so as to absolve themselves from any official accountability.

“In the subsequent cleansings of ‘friendly’ villages, even this ploy would no longer be deemed necessary.” [10]

All Zionist thinking based on ethnic cleansing

The ideology of the whole Zionist apparatus is rooted in ethnic cleansing, not unique to the Netanyahus, who are but its most rotten progeny.

Yitzhak Rabin, who was of the more “centrist” Labor Party is most commonly remembered for his efforts toward peace, most notably the Oslo Accords, and his eventual assassination by a rightwing extremist opposed to his peace initiatives.

But on 10 July 1948, David Ben-Gurion appointed Yitzhak Rabin as Deputy Commander to Yigal Allon, ordering al-Lydd (modern day Lod) to be bombarded from the air, becoming the first city to be attacked in this way.

My great-grandfather was among the executed

Deserted by both the volunteers and the Legionnaires, the men of Lydd, armed with old single-shot bolt action rifles, took shelter in the Dahmash Mosque in the city centre.

After a few hours of fighting they surrendered, only to be massacred inside the mosque by the Zionist forces. The murderous rampage left 426 men, women, and children dead. Around 176 bodies were found in the Dahmash Mosque alone, where some had taken refuge.

My grandfather often recounted these events in precisely the detail recorded by Professor Ilan Pappé. [11]

My great-grandfather was destined to be one of the 176 bodies later discovered.

On 14 July, Jewish soldiers expelled the remaining population of Lydd, going from house to house and marching about 50,000 on the great “Snake Trail” towards the West Bank. [12]

My late grandfather himself was one of those who were forced out.

To be complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine

It appears that what sets Revisionist Zionists apart is their unapologetic articulation of genocidal aspirations in their manifestos.

However, one doesn’t necessarily have to identify as a “Revisionist Zionist” to have been (or to be) complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, as this ideology permeates all strands of Zionism.

Indeed, even David Ben-Gurion, the very architect of the Nakba who headed the Pan D command, was categorised as a “Practical Zionist”.

From the river to the sea

Zionist Revisionism openly espoused Jewish expansionism beyond the river and the sea.

Ironically, the phrase — when used by Palestinians who were once indigenous to the lands “between the river and the sea” — is being outlawed in some of Europe’s most recent draconian reactions to anti-Zionist activism. [13]

A Haaretz journalist Ravit Hecht went as far as to brand the slogan a call “for ethnic cleansing, similar to the one that took place in the Gaza ‘envelope’.” [14]

One would wonder what could be said of the even wider ambitions of Benzion, not espoused by the displaced inhabitants of the land or Hamas for that matter, but by a foreign colonial settler.

Israeli political party used similar phrase in the 70s

The Israeli Likud party, in their 1977 election platform, employed the seemingly very powerful phrase in a more trendy rendering:

“Judea and Samaria will not be placed under foreign rule; Israeli sovereignty will extend from the Sea to the Jordan River.”

Menachem Begin reiterated this slogan during that time.

But, of course, even this, coupled with conscious genocidal rhetoric of inflicting “Nakba 2023” on the Gaza of “human animals” goes unabated by pro-Zionists excited by the phrase. [15]

Benzion’s paradoxical expertise in Jewish history of Spain

Ironically, Benzion focused some of his studies on the golden age of Jewish culture during Muslim rule.

In that age, Jews experienced an unsurpassed period of remarkable achievement and flourishing.

Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life thrived, making significant contributions to various fields, including philosophy, science, medicine, literature, and linguistics at a time when Christian Europe was sending them to pogroms until the early 20^th century.

The golden era of Jewish culture

The golden Jewish period is usually dated from the reign of Amir ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Dākhil (890–961) until 1066, when the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba ended.

Notably, this Jewish period of ascension — as Benzion would have known well — was under the auspices of not only a Muslim but Arab dynasty, making it rather rich of Europe to claim to be the protectorates of the Jews or the saviours of the Jews from entrenched Arab anti-Semitism.

The 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Christian Spain saw more than 130,000 move to Muslim lands. [16]

Discourteous to this past, in a 2009 interview with Maariv, Benzion stated,

“The tendency to conflict is the essence of the Arab.

“He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him to compromise. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay.

“His existence is one of perpetual war.” [17]

Arabs a “nation of half-savages”

Benzion regarded Joseph Klausner as his intellectual mentor and wholeheartedly adopted Klausner’s view of Arabs as a “nation of half-savages”, whom he believed needed to be dealt with in kind. [18]

Such views no doubt infused the attitudes and policies of his son, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Benzion also maintained associations with figures like Abba Ahimeir, whose ideologies influenced groups such as Irgun and Lehi. Ahimeir described himself as a fascist during the late 1920s and authored a series of eight articles in the Hebrew Do’ar ha-yom newspaper in 1928 entitled From the Notebook of a Fascist. [19]

Due to Benzion’s association with a self-declared fascist, in a 1998 article titled The Iron Wall, New Atheist author Christopher Hitchens argued that fascism was the guiding ideology of Benzion, a disciple of Ahimeir, influencing his son who continues the legacy to father a genocide in Gaza.

Netanyahu not just “a bad apple”

Though the adage “The apple never falls far from the tree” is ominously significant in this context, it fails to capture the rot setting into the apple, as Netanyahu drives the Zionist project to its ethical and political demise.

Today, this entity intensifies the darkest aspects of Zionism’s legacy upon the indigenous Palestinians.

Netanyahu isn’t merely an apple under the fascist tree which designed the Nakba — he is its historical continuum, now rotting in its shadows.