Yes Elon Musk, you can be both a Zionist and a Nazi

from Mondoweiss

In an ominous incident at Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk performed a gesture widely perceived as a Nazi salute. Much of the world expressed shock and outrage. In response to the criticism, Musk tweeted in jest: “So I am both a zionist AND a nazi?”

He meant it mockingly, but it’s not an outlandish proposition. Musk has expressed support for both Israel and Germany’s far-right AFD party, which has been widely condemned for its attempts to rebrand Nazism. Speaking at an AFD campaign rally this weekend, still reeling from the salute controversy, Musk reaffirmed his support for the party and urged Germans to move past “their guilt.” He also claimed the AFD was the only chance to preserve German culture. Evidently, Musk believes his support for the Israeli state absolves him of ties to the burgeoning neo-nazi movement. But one can in fact be both a white nationalist and a staunch supporter of Israel. 

How? Well, the ideology of Zionism – and subsequently the state of Israel – was built on the foundations of antisemitism and ethnic cleansing. Zionism was predicated on the idea that the Jewish people do not fit into the rest of the world and must emigrate to a national homeland in Israel, all while displacing the indigenous Palestinian population already living there. The original founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, even wrote in 1895: “Antisemites will become our [Israel’s] most dependable friends, the antisemitic countries our allies.” Herzl and the antisemites of the time had the same end goal: a massive migration of the Jewish population out of Europe.

Both Zionists and antisemites were violently against Jews assimilating in their home countries. In Israel’s early days, Zionists murdered their own people to encourage the exodus of Middle Eastern Jews to Israel. In 1951, a pair of Jewish Zionists carried out a series of bombing attacks against Jewish sites in Baghdad. They wanted to falsely blame the attacks on antisemitic terror and give credence to the idea that Jews outside of Israel were not safe, and that Israel must exist to protect them. And they were willing to kill Iraqi Jews to make that point.

It’s unsurprising then that Zionists have always been willing to cooperate with unsavory characters to justify Israel’s existence on Palestinian land. Today, they’ve found many allies in the Republican Party and the far-right parties across Europe and Latin America. For instance, American Christian Zionists often parrot racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories while loudly proclaiming their love for the Jewish state. Take Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, who has tweeted outlandish antisemitic conspiracies about “Jewish space lasers” while expressing her support for Israel and voting to fund its Iron Dome...

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