David Myatt On Jews And JudaismThere was a time – and I wish it was a very very long time ago and so might be excused as youthful stupidity – when I used to rant and rave, in a prejudiced and hateful way, about Jews and, occasionally, about Judaism. Whether neo-nazi or radical Muslim, it made little difference, except perhaps that the terms Zionism and Zionists were latterly and euphemistically used to propagate the conspiracy theory that not only did ‘the Jews’ have too much power (over the Media, governments, America, and so on) but also that there was some secret long-standing plot by them to undermine ‘the Aryan race’/Islam and establish some sort of tyrannical ‘world government’ (whose centre would be Israel) where the Jews would be the power behind-the-scenes, and in which establishment of such a super-government – and in which undermining of ‘the Aryan race’/Islam – ‘propaganda about the holocaust’ played a significant role. For a fundamental axiom of this irrational conspiracy theory was the despicable canard that the Shoah was modern myth invented by ‘devilish and cunning Jews’ in order to bring to fruition some sort of messianic dream of theirs to rule over the goyim.
Thus would people such as the neo-nazi extremist I was go around belittling or ignoring the atrocious inhuman inexcusable treatment that the Jews especially suffered because of the hubriatic National-Socialist doctrine of Adolf Hitler, tyrannos par excellence.
Thus would people such as the neo-nazi extremist I was gleefully regale others with facts such as the seemingly disproportionate number of Jews who were involved in anti-racist causes, in fighting oppression, and in supporting the rights of ethnic and other minorities (such as gays) – for the prejudiced assumption here was that this was part of their ‘cunning plan’ to undermine, to weaken, ‘the Aryan race’. Of course hatred and prejudice obscured the obvious truth of the matter, which was essentially two-fold: that the experience born of centuries of persecution and hatred had engendered in many Jews a natural sympathy with the oppressed, with other minorities; and that Judaism itself enshrined the obligation to try and make the world a better, more noble, more just, place; an obligation which (according to my limited and fallible understanding) the reform and progressive movements within Judaism saw as compatible with liberalism and social justice. Hence, and to their credit, the involvement of Jews in liberalism, in socialist politics, in civil rights, in feminism, in campaigns for social justice and equality. Indeed, one could regard Jews as important contributors to, if not in some cases instrumental in the creation and/or the development of, liberalism, modern socialism, civil rights, feminism, and campaigns for social justice and equality.
The prejudice, the hatred, the intolerance, the conspiracy theories, of people such as the neo-nazi, and the Muslim extremist, I was explains why such extremists denounced Israel, the occupation by Jews of Muslim lands, called for Israel to be either destroyed or replaced by a resurgent Muslim Palestine, and supported terrorist attacks by Muslims against Jews – men, women, and children – in Israel. And explains why we extremists would rant and rave and denounce American support for Israel. Of course, in these matters our hatred, our prejudice, and such conspiracy theories, blinded us to the obvious truth of the matter, which was of a modern nation born out of the recent tragic, and immense, suffering inflicted upon a people, and which people naturally desired that that it should never happen to them again and who thus saught to secure the future of their new communities where they could live free from the persecution, the hatred, the domination, the subservience, that they had suffered and endured for well over two thousand years.
It is therefore unsettlingly strange for me, now, to ponder on my lamentable inexcusable decades of extremism; on such intolerance, prejudice, hatred. On the propagation of and a belief in such inhuman things. For it really is as if that person is a stranger now; someone I most definitely would now be disgusted with and dislike, and someone whom, I now understand, so justly caused others to dislike – even hate – him for his adherence to and propagation of National-Socialism, fascism, and terrorism in the name of Islam.
http://regardingdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/myatt-on-jews-and-judaism/