The Jerusalem March? The Israeli “Blackshirts” and “Brownshirts”

You know the fascist marches that the “Brownshirts” and the “Blackshirts” organised in the 1920s? Well, Israeli fascists have their own yearly equivalent – it’s called the Jerusalem March.

On paper, it’s a March to celebrate the “reunification” on Jerusalem. In reality, the Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem suffer from abuse, discrimination, and don’t want to be under Israeli rule. Jerusalem is all but “united.”

The Jerusalem March is organized by neo-fascist settlers, and the main feature of the march is basically walking through Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, waving the Israeli flag, and shouting racist abuse at Arabs while being protected by the Israeli “Defense” Forces. Naturally, if a fight breaks out, the only ones to remain under arrest will be Palestinian.

Now, what is the main ideology of those settlers? It is very similar to the Nazi ideology. How? First of all, they believe in creating their own Lebensraum in the form of “Greater Israel,” which means conquering the area of the mythical Biblical Israel and “purifying” it of non-Jews.

Violence against Arabs is welcomed, and among the “heroes” of those organising this march is the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who walked into a mosque and massacred Arabs during a prayer in Hebron.  

They also oppose mixed marriage between Jews and non-Jews, oppose gay rights, and believe that Israel should be ruled by the Halakha (the Jewish equivalent of the Sharia Law, a backward set of rules that discriminates against women, gay people, secular people, and against everyone who isn’t a religious Jewish male).

Those national-religious settlers, with the help of the Israeli government, dispossess Palestinians of their lands (and when I say Palestinians, I don’t mean Arabs with Israeli citizenship who live in what is internationally recognised as Israel – I literally mean Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Autonomy, a territory that even by Israeli law isn’t a part of Israel) and create illegal settlements in Palestine (illegal even by Israeli law, on paper). Their end mission is, as I’ve already mentioned, to create a “Greater Israel” (which they believe will bring forward the arrival of the Messiah – yep, they’re that mental).

This is also a part of the apartheid regime imposed by the Israeli government against Palestinians. Israeli propaganda often likes to deny this apartheid by talking about Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship and, at least on paper, enjoy equal rights (not in reality) – it is an intentional distraction tactic to distract the world from the fact the Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Autonomy have no citizenship, have no rights, and suffer abuse and restrictions under the Israeli military rule. Israel wants to distract the world from what is happening to an Arab in Hebron and Gaza (both in Palestine) by talking about an Arab from Haifa (which still suffers discrimination, but of a different kind).

A Palestinian living under Israeli military law can’t travel abroad, can’t trade with another country without a written permission from the Israeli military (which is almost impossible to achieve), and in many cases, can’t even get to a nearby village without passing through Israeli checkpoints and undergoing humiliation by Israeli soldiers.

I know Palestine isn’t a “trendy” topic anymore, but it’s still happening.