Written by: Yves Engler

Extreme nationalism and the worship of power, no matter your religion or ethnicity, leads to the same place.

In their bid to defend the slaughter in Gaza, occupied Palestine, the Jewish Zionist establishment has deepened its ties to fascist groups and escalated its anti-democratic rhetoric.

In recent weeks Israeli nationalists have repeatedly taken their cues from the former head of the thuggish and racist Jewish Defence League (JDL). The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), B’nai Brith, Honest Reporting Canada and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center have all supported long-time JDL head Meir Weinstein’s harassment of anti-genocide protesters.

Over the weekend Weinstein condemned protesters for holding Palestinian flags over Highway 401 in Toronto. All the establishment Israel lobby groups echoed Weinstein’s depiction of the protest and Canada’s special envoy on antisemitism, Deborah Lyons, joined the onslaught labelling the anti-genocide action “Antisemitism loud and clear”. Hyper Israeli nationalist Liberal MP Marco Mendocino even quote tweeted Weinstein and copied his claim that “Those who call the Avenue Rd & 401 a ‘Zionist Infested Area’ betray their clearly Antisemitic intent to incite hatred towards a Jewish neighbourhood. This is unacceptable.”

In a similar incident two weeks ago the Jewish Zionist establishment and right-wing media aggressively promoted a video shared by Weinstein. In the video from a protest at the Eaton Centre, a Palestinian activist utters a death threat to someone off camera (video subsequently emerged of a provocateur who was likely the target, which the police effectively confirmed).

At the start of last month, Conservative Party deputy leader and prominent Israeli nationalist voice, Melissa Lantsman, attended a JDL aligned protest. She was photographed with a JDL’er who became prominent when he was photographed brandishing a knife, during a fight he instigated at a 2021 Palestine solidarity rally.

On a number of occasions in recent weeks Weinstein and his associates have been videoed threatening violence. He organizes regular Krav Maga “Israeli combat system” trainings and on December 12 Weinstein organized a day long firearms course in Toronto under the slogan “Every Jew a .22”.

The JDL has been involved in a slew of violent incidents and in 2020 Weinstein was banned from York University. His 2015 push to set up a chapter in Montréal was publicly denounced by CIJA Québec and Mayor Denis Coderre (the Toronto Israeli nationalist Jewish establishment quietly enabled the JDL). A sister Kahanist organization in Israel was outlawed and in 2001 the FBI labeled the US JDL a “right-wing terrorist group”.

As Canada’s Israeli nationalists deepen their ties to Kahanist fascists, Jewish Zionist groups have repeatedly called for marches to be banned, individuals to be fired and talks canceled. To suppress criticism of Canada’s contribution to Israel’s genocide Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather, Marco Mendicino and Ya'ara Saks have repeatedly taken up the call to suspend democratic rights.

In a stark step along the fascist path, B’nai B’rith head Michael Mostyn recently co-signed an op-ed with the head of the Canadian Police Association calling for the suppression of demonstrations. In a not too subtle promotion of police overreach, the commentary praised the repression during the G20 in 2010. In that case, the courts forced the Toronto police to pay out $16.5 million in damages to 1100 protesters who were wrongfully detained.

Another dimension to growing Zio-fascism in Canada are the constant calls to deport protesters. While rarely coming from official Israel lobby groups, many self-described Jewish activists (alongside many more rightist non-Jews) have taken up the repressive anti-immigrant/Arab/Muslim rhetoric.

Jewish fascism may seem like an oxymoron, but it’s not. While Hitler’s efforts to eliminate European Jewry obviously discredited fascism in the eyes of most Jews, some Jews supported and even helped build the original fascism. In A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 Stanley Payne writes: “The Fascist movement was itself disproportionately Jewish — that is, Jews made up a greater proportion of the party at all stages of its history than of the Italian population as a whole. Five of the 191 sansepolcristi who had founded the movement in 1919 had been Jewish, 230 Jewish Fascists had participated in the March on Rome, and by 1938 the party had 10,215 adult Jewish members.”

Labeling Margherita Sarfatti “The Jewish Mother of Fascism”, Ha’aretz described Benito Mussolini’s favoured and most influential mistress this way: “The aristocratic, intellectual and ambitious wife of wealthy Zionist lawyer Cesare Sarfatti, and mother of their three children, did not only share her bed with Il Duce. She also helped him forge and implement the fascist idea; she contributed advice — and Sullivan says, money — to help organize the 1922 March on Rome in which Mussolini seized power.”

Additionally, Francisco Franco received support from many Moroccan Jews when he sought to oust Spain’s Republican government in 1936 and some prominent figures in Portugal’s small Jewish community backed Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar. Early on a small number of German Jewish fascists even backed Hitler. The Association of German National Jews, for instance, supported the Nazis.

Israeli politics itself has seen a surge of fascism and supremacism recent years. A year ago, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich described himself as a “fascist”.

With repulsion towards Israeli criminality growing, expect the fascist turn of its Canadian lobby to escalate. The Jewish Zionist establishment has become one of Canada’s leading fascistic forces.

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Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest book, available now, is "Stand on Guard For Whom? -- A People's History of the Canadian Military”.

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