The Road to Fascism and Atrocity is Paved With Adoption of a Siege Mentality
Some politicians cannot resist the temptation to draw on the inflammatory power of racist, xenophobic, or sectarian fear and blame. Unscrupulous politicians know that when enough people adopt a siege mentality, normative moral restraints get easily suspended.
In a recent interview with NPR radio host Brian Lehrer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand refused to refute the patently evidence-free allegation that the presumptive New York City mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, is a terrorist supporter. Despite his explicitly multiracial campaign in support of universal human rights, in the senator's view, he is guilty until proven innocent. She leaned heavily into the trope that critique of Israel stokes antisemitic fear among Jews and should be forbidden. That bipartisan political choice clears the path for continued starvation and slaughter of Palestinians. Islamophobia is, apparently, the fear-mongering choice of the moment for aspiring politicians rather than condemning candidates who prey on women or corruption.
Convinced that they are irreparable victims under siege or targets of conspiracy, it is relatively easy for power-hungry authoritarians to persuade people to sanction all manner of atrocity in the name of survival. Nazis employed that strategy in the 1930s to demonize Jews and get seemingly decent people to accept the genocide of the other. It's how Stalin got people to assent to the show trials and slaughter of those accused of being counterrevolutionary. It's how our nation accepted the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII and the persecution of accused communist sympathizers in U.S. show trials during the HUAC hearings in the 1950s. Once again, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on American soil, warmongers seized the opportunity to go to project power in the Middle East with trumped-up lies about so-called weapons of mass destruction. It continues today with dangerous and ineffective attacks by Israel and the United States on Iran, ignoring our history of overthrowing its elected leader in 1953 and the installation of the compliant Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a brutal dictator. As a result, Iranians saw the U.S. as the enemy of the Shah's overthrow and supporters of their oppression.
Before and after the Holocaust, too many Jews have come to believe that they will be a hated people forever, whose only recourse is to establish a garrison state, whatever the murderous cost to anyone in the way. Israeli has turned, ironically, to a Big Protector, the United States, whose only interest in a Jewish state has always been strategic: projecting power and oil rights in the Middle East.
The answer for the victims of dehumanization can never be the dehumanization of others.
I had a conversation recently with another Jew with whom I agree on most political and social issues. They conceded that Israel was guilty of genocide and that a cease-fire and halt to U.S. arms was vital and warranted. Yet, they clung to the under siege claim that Jews need the protection of an ethnocentric state.
"How's that working out?", I asked. Israel's 75-year reign of terror on Palestinians begat resistance to death and displacement and inevitably, terrorism. If anything, the conflation of antisemitism with a critique of Israel has provided an excuse for hatred of and attacks on Jews around the world.
We need to reject a siege mentality because isolated self-protection and/or omnipotent protectors is delusional immoral non-solution. Solidarity for human rights and mutual defense is our only answer.
Arthur taught and led science professional learning and curriculum and assessment development projects for 50 yrs. He writes about education and social justice. He loves spending time with friends and family, hiking, and gardening.
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