(This takes three minutes to read!)

Yes, you read that correctly: the galaxy brains who were so concerned about their settler population lacking its spazio vitale have left a huge portion of that violently depopulated land wasted! Ghost towns and ahistorical forests are common in occupied Palestine.

Quoting Dan Steinbock’s The Fall of Israel: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military, pages 11–2, 15:

When I attended the Jewish school, every Friday the teacher would bring to the class a white-and-blue charity box, known as a pushke. It was from the Jewish National Fund (JNF). As we put our coins into the box, we saw ourselves contributing to a peaceful future in which sandy deserts would be transformed into beautiful forest gardens. The realities were and remain different.

Since 1901, the JNF has planted more than 250 million trees, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 2,000 parks and provided the infrastructure for over 1,000 communities.²⁶ It is a part of the story, but not the full narrative.

Yosef Weitz, head of [Herzlianism’s] land and afforestation department, made the Fund a central player in the pre-state Yishuv in the 1930s. At the time, Jews represented barely a tenth of the population, owning just 2 percent of the land. If there was to be a[n ethno]state, Weitz thought, that was grossly inadequate.

The solution was Arab emigration or “transfer,” which could rely on voluntary departure or, if necessary, on force; that is, expulsion. As we have seen, in the early decades of the 20th century, the idea was very much in the air. In the new normal, ethnic minorities were expunged amid the disintegration of European empires and the rise of new nation-states.

However, the Zionist founding fathers were thinking of “a massive ‘strategic’ transfer.”²⁷ Weitz was rather blunt about the objectives. As he wrote in his diary in 1940:

[…] there is no room in Palestine for these two peoples. No “development” will bring us to our goal of independent nationhood in this small country. Without the Arabs, the land will become wide and spacious for us; with the Arabs, the land will remain sparse and cramped. […] The only solution is Palestine, at least Western Palestine, without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises! […] The way is to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, all of them, except perhaps those from Bethlehem, Nazareth and the Old City of Jerusalem.

Not one village, not one tribe should be left. And the form of the transfer needs to be the creation of a refuge for them in Iraq, in Syria and even in Transjordan. There is no other way out.”²⁸

[…]

Weitz had been the key member of the Jewish Agency “transfer committee” in the late 1930s and he was willing to walk the talk. Despite the ambiguous status of the committee, he arranged the destruction of several villages in June 1948. In practice, his agents determined which Arab villages would be destroyed and which preserved for […] settlement.³⁰

Obviously, the expelled Palestinians would try to return to their lands after the 1948 War, Weitz said to Ben-Gurion. What was needed was a policy of relentless harassment by every available means to quash any such return. The empty Palestinian homes and villages had to be razed to prevent the return of the refugees.

Hence, Weitz’s work in afforestation, which often clashed with the ecological objectives of the […] conservation movement, served to cover up the destruction of the Palestinian villages, and to preempt efforts of rebuilding them.³¹ Though portrayed as “environmentalism,” the JNF’s goal in actuality has been nation-building via afforestation, despite its harm to local biomes and unique biodiversity.

[…]

Along with Walid Khalidi, Nur Masalha and other Palestinian historians conclude that

[…]

Of the 418 depopulated villages, 293 (70 percent) were totally destroyed and 90 (22 percent) were largely destroyed. […] While an observant traveler can still see some evidence of these villages, in the main all that remains is a scattering of stones and rubble.⁴¹

(Emphasis added.)

I want us all to keep this mind: there is already plenty of depopulated land that the uninvited guests could settle if they wanted to do so. Instead, they have either left the land alone or populated it with plant life—as if the plants were the ones having a population crisis! There is a certain brainlessness in the Herzlians’ plans which I hope is obvious enough for you to see. After all, I am pretty sure that the slogan was never ‘a land without trees for trees without a land.’

Many are often perplexed by the influence of Israel in the American government. Though often the focus is on financial influence, the religious influence of the Christian Zionist ideology is often overlooked and misunderstood. This documentary examines the history of Christian Zionism, its origins, and its unique influence on American politics.

Source: comrade.aarie  on instagram

(This takes 3¾ minutes to read.)

Quoting Daniel Marwecki’s Germany and Israel: Whitewashing and State Building, pages 57–58, 60:

Military relations between the [Federal Republic of Germany] and Israel actually harken back to the earliest days of bilateral relations. According to […] historian Yeshayahu Jelinek:

Neither the Jewish community of the British Mandate in Palestine, nor the Israelis ever hesitated to buy German-produced weapons or to procure weapons with German help. Many entries in Ben-Gurion’s diary testify to this. In 1947, before the end of the British Mandate and only two years after the downfall of the Third Reich, the Jewish underground army, the Haganah, used German weapons and led negotiations with Germans. (Jelinek 2004: 402)

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel bought German-produced Messerschmidt planes and light weapons from Czechoslovakia. According to Jelinek, the Israeli Ministry of Defence (IMoD) went on a purchasing mission to West Germany no later than 1951. […] From 1957 to 1962, [West] Germany delivered light weapons (mostly Allied surplus material not needed by the German army) and motor patrol boats, as well as providing military training.

Pgs. 65–6:

Most accounts date the beginning of military relations to the meeting between Shimon Peres, the Israeli deputy minister of defence, and Franz Josef Strauss, the German minister of defence, to December 1957.

Although the two had met before and would meet several times afterwards, this meeting can be said to have instituted the official, yet highly secretive military relationship between the two countries that characterised German–Israeli relations until the advent of diplomatic relations in 1965 (see also Jelinek 2004: 407).

Pg. 71:

The German defence establishment was impressed by the show of Israel’s military proficiency during the Suez War. Stauber refers to a conversation involving Franz Josef Strauss and Hans Speidel in December 1956.

Speidel was a founder of the Bundeswehr and later chief-of-staff of NATO’s Central European ground forces. He had also been a Wehrmacht senior commander on the Eastern Front, where Strauss had served as a junior officer. Strauss was also formerly a member of the Nationalsozialistischer Kraftfahrerkorps, a Sturmabteilung suborganisation.

Strauss and Speidel were dissatisfied with the French and British military handling of the Suez crisis. In light of the military capabilities shown by the Israel Defence Forces, one of the two (it is unclear from the file who) claimed that ‘perhaps it would have been better to have let the Jews defeat the Egyptians’ (cited in Stauber 2013: 242). It is interesting, as Stauber rightly notes, that Speidel and Strauss were impressed by the military capacity of ‘the Jews’.

Pg. 74:

Franz Josef Strauss was, on the German side, the driving force behind military ties with Israel. Strauss was one of the most controversial German postwar politicians, his name invariably connected to the revisionist tendencies in the early Federal Republic. Pushing for early German rearmament, as well as nuclear armament, he was opposed to any moves towards legal and political confrontation with the [Fascist] past.

Strauss was not initially favourable towards Israel. […] he abstained in the Bundestag vote on the ratification of the Reparations Agreement, arguing that the agreement posed a threat to German relations with Arab states.

However, he changed his mind once he became minister of defence. His interests in relations with Israel reflected closely his interests in Germany regaining its military power, the growth of German arms industries, as well as his views on Cold War confrontation, in which he foresaw a rôle for Israel as a western bastion against Arab nationalism and Soviet influence in the Middle East.

Pg. 102:

In 1963, Franz Josef Strauss visited Israel, now as the former defence minister. A New York Herald Tribune article about the visit quoted Shimon Peres as saying that ‘Germany’s importance to Israel’s vital interests is no less than that of France.’

The article continued by stating that ‘[i]t is known that France is a major supplier of weapons to Israel.’ Peres praised Strauss for having provided ‘the most substantial aid’ to Israel’s security. Not detailing what this ‘substantial aid’ had consisted of, Peres said that ‘a day will come when the truth will be known’ (PA AA, B130, Bd. 2314, 24 February 1964).

The Herzlians never banned Axis soldiers from fighting on behalf of Palestine’s occupation. How many such soldiers were involved in fighting therefor is unclear, but we do know of at least two examples: Solomon Perel and Karl-Heinz Maier. Quoting Bryan Mark Rigg’s Lives of Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich:

After World War II, Wehrmacht veteran Karl-Heinz Maier […] traveled to Israel and fought in its War of Independence.

Even after he became a major, the local authorities did not consider him Jewish because his father, rather than his mother, was Jewish. For twelve years, Maier explained, the Nazis persecuted him because he had a Jewish father, but the Israelis called him a Goy (a […] Yiddish term for gentile) because of his gentile mother. Although he could fight for the Israeli army, the government did not consider him Jewish.¹⁴

Related: ‘If the mission is to seize a densely populated refugee camp, or take over the kasbah in Nablus, and if the commander’s obligation is to try to execute the mission without casualties on either side, then he must first analyse and internalise the lessons of earlier battles — even, however shocking it may sound, even how the German Army fought in the Warsaw Ghetto.’

‘Waffen-SS Soldier Became Israeli Army Officer’

(This takes 6¾ minutes to read.)

Quoting D. Tamir’s Hebrew Fascism in Palestine, 1922–1942, page 99:

It was two weeks after the Fascist seizure of power. In a report titled “The Victory of the ‘Fascists’”, Ḥayim Vardi—a “special reporter in Rome” of the daily newspaper Do’ar ha-Yom—wrote that Mussolini “was able to prove to the government that the fascist forces are huge, and that the majority of the people pursues this great ideal: a strong Patria, with glory and fame”.¹

Page 123:

The way Aḥime’ir admired Jabotinsky and Mussolini is revealed in his personal correspondence as well. “When I addressed him in my first letter by the title ‘Leader’”, Aḥime’ir opened his letter to Jabotinsky that month, “it was not an attempt to please him, but simply an expression of my feeling. I want some high ranking person to stand on my back and show me the way”.¹⁹

Aḥime’ir’s appreciation of autocratic rulers was not personal, restricted to Jabotinsky alone; the Revisionists, he argued, should take a lesson from Mussolini, Kemal, Piłsudski and Voldemaras, “abandon the high politics” and concentrate on educating the public. “Why does he [Jabotinsky] consult us so much?” Aḥime’ir asked rhetorically.

Pages 130–2:

Mussolini continued to attract very positive attention among the Revisionists throughout the 1930s. “The Hebrew reader is hardly acquainted with Italian Fascism, and its creator and initiator”, assumed the publisher’s preface to Mussolini’s first Hebrew biography, titled Mussolini: His Personality and Doctrine. “Short-sighted newspapers and journalists”, the editor added, have put the Fascist movement

under a very weird light, distorting its essence. Despite the sympathy many Jews have towards allegedly liberal and democratic states, one cannot deny the fact that modern Italy is the only state where Jews enjoy complete equality, without being persecuted because of their origin. We know that this book could raise resentment among certain circles, which are used to see no difference between the fascist movement in Italy and antisemitic movements in Europe, which claim to be fascist—although their “fascisms” are false pretenses, just as naming the Nazis “socialist” is a false pretence.⁴⁷

The biography’s author, Zwi Kolitz,⁴⁸ described the leader of Italian Fascism as a strong personality “with total consistency and an exceptional willpower”, a man

who knows what he wants, and wants the favour and the future of Italy to the best of his belief. He placed himself to preside over his people. Since the day he came to power until this very day, he shows himself to his people as the complete personality, the stable man, who makes an example of devotion and self sacrifice before calling others to do the same.⁴⁹

Remarkably, the only other example Kolitz brought for a national leader gifted with such complete devotion and accountability was Gandhi.⁵⁰ Convinced that “an idea without a leader—is like a corpse without a soul”, Kolitz came to the conclusion that

strong ideas are dependent on strong personalities. Italian Fascism is today the most significant idea in Europe, since the personality representing it is mighty and complete.⁵¹

Throughout the book, the admiration of Mussolini expressed by Kolitz usually remained reasonable—or earthly, at least. Now and then, however, the author “slipped” towards a transcendental evaluation of the leader. “No force in this world”, Kolitz declares,

will influence him and make him believe that not he, but other factors—human or superhuman—may determine his fate. Mussolini is the only leader who fully stands for himself… he does not see himself dependent on any superhuman fate, and even less the fate of the people around him… he is the only leader who’s not led, whose personality is whole and strong, inspiring by its might and splendor on all [people], near and far.⁵²

Further on, Kolitz states that “Mussolini is a power of nature, with a huge will for creation, gifted with a unique constructive imagination, which knows no twists or faults and is not dependent upon moods”.⁵³

The deification of Mussolini gradually becomes explicit in Kolitz’s writing, when he refers to Mussolini’s past. As a journalist, he adheres

to the rule of “vox populi vox dei” and—by way of wonder!—can himself believe that the voice of the people, which is equivalent to the voice of G-d, does not want to follow this “voce dei”, but to call unto the people with the voice of a single person, to follow and to obey.⁵⁴

Hence the deification is comprehensive: the fascist leader is both the bearer of a divine message and its initiator […]. Kolitz does not try to conceal this mystification, but rather make it blatant, claiming that “Mussolini not only changed the set of mind and thought in Italy, but also created around him a certain frame of National Mysticism”.⁵⁵

Kolitz’s description of Mussolini impressed at least some of his readers. “A man of iron who knew how to overcome the difficulties of life; a man who knows only one thing: forward!”, Šalom Rosenfeld described the Italian dictator in his review of the book.⁵⁶

Page 135:

From an early stage during the 1920s, Itamar Ben Avi clearly expressed his admiration towards Mussolini and later Jabotinsky. The fact that this admiration was criticised by his political and journalistic adversaries from other parts of Hebrew society, liberals and socialists alike, did not change much; on the contrary: it probably contributed to his image as a flamboyant, non-conformist public figure. Ben Avi regarded Mussolini and Jabotinsky not only as bulwarks against communist trends, but as drivers of national resurrection (a context in which he compared Jabotinsky to Garibaldi, too).

Pgs. 160–1:

Admiration of the power of will was evident in Hebrew perception of Italian fascism as well. According to his first Hebrew biographer, Mussolini did not believe in fate, but rather “in Will”. Kolitz cited him as saying that “one should know that progress is made in life only through iron-cast will, able to defeat even fate itself”, concluding that “Power of the Will—this is Mussolini’s motto”.⁷³ Kolitz made it clear, however, that the demand for sacrifice is not a unique feature of Mussolini, but a prerequisite for every successful leader:

Louis XVI, the contemporary of Napoleon, a guzzler king, did not demand anything of his people: no fighting, no effort, no sacrifice—and still, he was hated, mocked and despised. Napoleon, on the contrary, demanded from his people the maximum: hundreds of thousands of lives; almost insane patriotic vigilance; physical, spiritual, political and financial efforts… and still, he was beloved. Not the crowds, who might be taken by changing moods, can take the steering-wheel to their hands, but an individual, crystallised and unified force, dictating its will. Psychology teaches us that this is exactly the regime people like.⁷⁴

Kolitz then quoted Mussolini’s proverb saying that “it is better to live one day as a lion, than hundred days as a sheep”,⁷⁵ a proverb he also follows in his life, as he (Mussolini)

remained enchanting and dynamic from his childhood until today. Now, as Fascist Italy’s leader, he does not have a moment of rest. For him, serenity is mire.⁷⁶ Mussolini does not know any middle-way or a “Golden Path”. He says that “people who stand on the same spot—are dying people”. In his view, stagnation is regression—and Mussolini wiped this word out of modern Italy’s political and military lexicon.⁷⁷

For Abraham Stern, who was a student in Italy at about the same time as Kolitz, the legitimacy for the use of violence went without saying. “The evil forces controlling us today”, he wrote in a draft for the first publications of the NMO in Israel, “must be overthrown by a strong hand”. [NMO is short for National Military Organisation. — Anbol] This is what should be done “at a time of national revolution. This sacred task is imposed on you, the strong, fresh, Hebrew youth.”⁷⁸ The youth, therefore, should

get ready for the war of liberty. Teach your hands to war, and your fingers to fight.⁷⁹ Toughen your will and be ready for whatever sacrifice for your people, Israel, and your homeland—the Land of Israel.⁸⁰

The use of force was clearly declared not only internally, for mobilising Hebrew youngsters, but externally as well. “The NMO sees fighting and sacrifice as the only true means for the conquest and the liberation of Palestine”, read the communiqué submitted to Von Hentig in 1941.⁸¹ “The NMO, who embarked on acts of terrorism already in the Autumn of 1936 […] came to the fore by a successful intensification of its terror and sabotage actions against English property.”⁸² This is how the organisation blatantly presented itself, declaring not only its aims, but its means as well.

Pg. 188:

To be sure, not only Revisionists have expressed fondness of Mussolini, affinity towards Italy and—to a smaller extent—support for Italian Fascism. “Mussolini is undoubtedly the most famous personality in the world”, said Naḥum Sokolow, chairperson of the Zionist Organisation’s central committee in an interview he gave to an Italian newspaper that was translated and cited quite broadly in Ha-‘Aretz in 1927.

Sokolow opined that Mussolini still hadn’t received “a proper literary appreciation by the great writers abroad”, hence everything written about him thus far was biased. Referring directly to one of Fascism’s basic characteristics, Sokolow claimed that “by his romantic emotion”, Mussolini “is the symbol of nationalism, and as such he understands the secret of Israel’s revival”.⁷

Sokolow referred not only to Mussolini, but to the Fascist movement as well, arguing that

Fascism gained bad publicity from Italian writers abroad… the Fascists didn’t do much in order to explain [themselves] and deny this [bad publicity]. The question of parliamentarism and the way it was solved by fascism, interests the entire world. I deny [the assumption] that Zionism hates Fascism. We are only enemies of the Antisemites”.⁸

(All emphasis added.)

>Mark Levine says technical challenges and financial considerations led him to halt reinvestment, reversing a pledge he made during his 2025 campaign.

>New York City Comptroller Mark Levine says he will not reinvest city pension cash funds in Israel bonds for now, reversing a pledge he made during his successful 2025 campaign. Levine told The New York Times the decision was based on financial considerations, not politics.

>“As of now, we feel that because of some technical challenges, and because of financial considerations, that this is not an investment that we can make right now,” Levine said. He described himself as a supporter of Israel and said his position on investment decisions remained grounded in finances.

>The decision concerns whether to reinvest in Israel bonds, not a stated move to withdraw all city pension investments from Israel. The comptroller’s office oversees pension assets totaling $325 billion for city government workers, but the report did not specify how much the city currently holds in the bonds or when the decision could change.

>Levine’s predecessor, Brad Lander, divested $40 million in Israel bonds that the city had held since the 1970s. New York State’s pension system, managed by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, has more than $360 million invested in Israel, the report said. The source did not provide a timeline for any future city reinvestment.

(This takes 5½ minutes to read.)

Quoting Patrick Bernhard’s ‘Libya, Mussolini, and the “White Race”: Fascist Colonialism and its Imprint on the British Empire’ in Knowledge in Modern Transimperial History, pages 223–226:

In another part of the world, however, the [Fascist] model was put into practice: in Palestine. This is less surprising than it may sound to present day ears. The former territory of the Ottoman Empire, since 1923 officially under a British Mandate, was considered a genuinely colonial space not only by the British themselves, but also by the Americans and the League of Nations. In various official publications, Palestine was mentioned in the same breath as India, Algeria, and, precisely, [Fascist-occupied] Africa.⁸⁶

As high-ranking Labour politicians declared in November 1938 during a special session of the British parliament on Palestine’s future, Jewish people were highly welcome to settle in the territory, as they had “proved to be first-class colonisers, to have the real, good, old, Empire-building kind of qualities, to be really first-class Colonial pioneers.”⁸⁷

In other words, Labour supported Zionism and its objective of establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine (a promise that the British state had made in 1917 in the Balfour Declaration), yet at the same time it considered the settlers also useful tools of British empire building.

Yet it was Tory members who, during the same session, went a step further and tied Palestine to colonial Libya. They suggested borrowing the strict policies of spatial and racial segregation that the fascist régime conducted in North Africa, thus recommending a de facto partition of the Mandate territory between Arabs and Jews.⁸⁸

As Walter Smiles, a longstanding conservative MP, argued, adopting the [Fascist] settlement schemes would be a way of keeping his country’s promise given in the Balfour Declaration and ending the Arab resistance against the Jewish presence in the Mandate once and for all.

Smiles’ suggestions must indeed be understood against the backdrop of the Arab Revolt that had started two years prior, in 1936.⁸⁹ The popular uprising, which the British authorities referred to as a “colonial rebellion,” had its roots in the increasingly desperate economic and social situation of the vast majority of local Arabs. Many took to the streets over their frustration with the high taxes on agrarian products following World War I, the ensuing loss of their smallholdings, and the growing presence of […] settlers who had migrated from Europe not at least due to antisemitic persecutions in [the Third Reich] and elsewhere.

Between 1931 and 1936, their number more than doubled from 175,000 to 370,000. In April 1936, various acts of violence between Arab and [settler] militants escalated into an armed Palestinian insurrection that targeted both British and American petroleum installations and [Herzlian] settlers, with hundreds being killed. Although the uprising was also directed against the British occupation of the country, the Mandate power addressed it as an ethnic conflict.⁹⁰

The Peel Commission set up after the outbreak of hostilities by the British government thus recommended the division of the country along ethnic lines.⁹¹ However, only a year later, in 1938, another government commission concluded that this plan was unfeasible and should be dropped.

In this difficult situation, Smiles and other Tories in opposition used the [Fascist] model to revive the Peel Commission’s recommendations and put pressure on the […] government under Arthur Neville Chamberlain. It is noteworthy that they took a foreign case to bolster their claim in the mentioned parliamentary session in November 1938. Similar partition plans had been discussed within the British Empire at the time; thus, they could have easily referred to them.⁹²

Instead, Smiles and others opted for a particularly radical model of ethnic segregation. It is therefore possible that the aim was also to deliberately intimidate Palestinians. After all, fascist rule over Libya was very much hated in the Arab world, as the British press had made clear on various occasions.⁹³

Being mingled with Mussolini’s colonial régime met with vehement rejection from Jewish organizations, though. The Jewish Agency in charge of the settlements rebutted the insinuations made that Jews arriving in Palestine were akin to European colonialists and thus guilty of imperial exploitation and oppression. Publications such as the Jewish Frontier, the mouthpiece of the Labor Zionist movement, took pain to emphasize that for Jews, settling in Palestine simply meant returning to lands previously held by their ancestors.⁹⁴

In addition, the […] planning offices in charge of the settlements had bought the land from the locals at a high price instead of confiscating it by force, as had been the case with the European colonial powers and especially fascist Italy. Above all, so it was argued, the […] settlement project was not driven by racism. Rather, [the] settlers were motivated by a sincere desire to establish relations of “social equality” with the local Arabs.⁹⁵

Things were more complicated, though. No matter how hard the [Zionist] leadership tried to distance the settlement project in Palestine from race and imperialism, it remained “haunted by them ideologically because its project has always been defined by them in practice.”⁹⁶

Indeed, shortly after the formation of the [ethno]state […] in 1948, the […] agencies in charge of the new national settlement program oriented themselves to colonial models, and in particular the fascist pianificazione for Libya.

Oh my God.

As Smadar Sharon has shown on the basis of newly unearthed archival materials, Ra’anan Weitz, the founding father of rural planning [under Zionism], had come in close contact with the [Fascist] colonization efforts during his doctoral studies in agronomy at the University of Florence in the 1930s.⁹⁷ His academic teacher was Arrigo Serpieri, one of the most influential [Fascist] experts in land settlement projects. Serpieri helped to design new towns in Italy at the same time that his knowledge was applied to colonial Libya.⁹⁸

In the postwar period, Weitz was appointed deputy head of the […] planning agency of the new [ethno]state […]. In the Lakhish region, a territory in the northern Negev in south-central [Palestine], he conceived a flagship project of 22 agricultural settlements and two rural centers between 1954 and 1956.

The project followed the same pattern as in fascist Italy and its colonies: the new villages built were organized in clusters of settlements around the rural centers, the famous centri rurali that people like Moore had highlighted in their accounts of fascist Libya as particularly supportive. Indeed, in his publications after 1945, Weitz expressly referred to the projects of the Italians and occasionally returned to Rome and Florence to reconnect with his former colleagues.⁹⁹

Even more important was that the Lakhish settlements also had racialized objectives that linked them, if only tangentially, to the [Fascist] experience. The scheme aimed to resettle poor Mizrahim migrants, that is, descendants of Jewish communities mainly from North Africa and the Middle East. These Jews were often orientalized by Ashkenazi[m] arriving from Europe.¹⁰⁰

Thus, the idea was that the Lakhish settlements would help transform these “orientals” into the Zionist ideal of the modern, productive, masculine “New Jew.” After centuries of being stigmatized in Europe as “foreign,” Ashkenazim [under Zionism] imagined the emerging [Zionist] society as European and white. Projects such as the Lakhish settlements were thus tools of racialized social engineering aimed at creating a more cohesive society of Western imprint, as [Levantine] scholars have recently argued.¹⁰¹

At the same time, however, Mizrahim […] were sent to Lakhish in order to establish Jewish sovereignty over former Palestinian land.¹⁰² Just like in Libya, they were to form a bul[wark] […] against Arabs. One must know that the Lakhish region marked a borderland towards Egypt and the Gaza strip and thus constituted the new frontier of the [Herzlian] society. It was probably also because of this parallel that planners chose the [Fascist] model; in Libya, the [Fascist] settlements had been imagined at home as “oases of Italianness” in an otherwise hostile territory.¹⁰³

What emerges here is a circuit of reference and learning of vast dimensions. The imperial biopolitics of Italian fascism inspired political rhetoric across the British Empire and the Dominions and helped to justify policies aimed at racial exclusionism and white supremacy. Even more importantly, these ideas continued to travel the globe long after the end of fascism.

(Emphasis added.)

(This takes 4⅔ minutes to read.)

The more that I learned about the Crusades, the more parallels that I noticed between them and the current occupation of Palestine.

There are some differences between the two occupations. Notably, the Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1291, whereas the so-called ‘State of Israel’ lasted from 1948 and shall most likely collapse before the 2030s; the Crusader occupation lasted much longer. The most important motivation for the Crusades was reducing overpopulation, whereas Herzlianism aims to liquidate the Jewish diaspora (though one could argue that managing overpopulation figures into that, too). Lastly, the Crusades were maybe deadlier than Zionism… but I can’t so sure on that one.

I feel that the similarities outnumber the differences, though. What you are about to read are some striking parallels between the Crusades and Herzlianism. Quoting John Beavers’s ‘Crusader Colonialism: Descriptio Terrae Sanctae and the Coloniality of the Latin Kingdom (1099–1291)’:

In embarking on the First Crusade, Pope Urban II aimed for the displacement of all Turks, pagans (including Muslims), and non-Latin Christians. The stated purpose of such mass displacement was to purify the Holy Land and make it suitable for Latin stewardship.⁴⁴

Perhaps given the spiritual significance of the Holy Land, this policy’s overtly sectarian nature was not condemned as forced conversion unlike Castilian settlement. Despite no universal policy of either ethnic cleansing or mass conversion, both did occur in the Latin Kingdom on a localized scale.⁴⁵

Major cities along the Syrian and Palestinian coast were often the sights of devastating massacres, where crusaders targeted Muslims and Jews specifically. Jews and Muslims were also forbidden from residing in Jerusalem during Frankish rule.

Much like Castilian settlement, Frankish rural settlements were also established in depopulated areas, though this displacement was the result of locals fleeing violence during wartime rather than a concerted, organized effort after the fact.

The deficit of European settlement in the Latin Kingdom necessitated the preservation of local populations where possible, however settlements in depopulated areas were nevertheless established.

Anybody who has read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine or the United Nations’ position on the Nakba should quickly recognize how familiar this looks. The only significant difference is that the medieval displacement was less extreme in practice.

Burchard presents Muslims as inherently invasive with no legitimate form of belonging, while he does not characterize local Christians in similar regards.⁸⁶ By claiming that the majority of the East is Christian, Burchard further alienates Muslims by characterizing them as an eternal foreigner in their own lands.

This is nearly identical to how Herzlians conceive of Palestinians (or ‘Arabs’), viewing them as somehow more alien to Palestine than the settlers.

Burchard does not qualify many Muslim groups, instead flattening them into a single Saracen gens and natio. The only two other Saracen groups he describes as such are the Assassins and ‘Vannini’, who are distinguished from the norm by their exceptional ferocity.⁸⁷ Muslim groups and individuals are characterized as violent, superstitious, and as stated before, foreigners in their own land.

This is practically identical to how Herzlians view the Middle Eastern population. In their minds, Palestinians are interchangeable with Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians, and so forth.

The chronicles contemporary to the First Crusade often conceptualized the conflict as an apocalyptic war between good and evil, between Christendom and Islam. They described individual battles against Muslim groups, or Saracens, in terms of graphic brutality and their connection to biblical prophecies of Armageddon.

Christians recapturing Jerusalem was often understood by intellectuals or crusaders as a prerequisite condition for the Second Coming and the end of days. Muhammad was characterized as the Antichrist, and Muslims therefore were the Antichrist’s armies.¹¹⁹

Apocalyptic thinking is unusual in modern Judaism, but this eschatology is remarkably similar to what Christian Zionists believe.

The persecution and martyrdom of Christians, especially pilgrims, during Muslim rule over the Holy Land was a fundamental justification for the Crusades. In describing more current martyrdom, Burchard is substantiating the persistent belief that Muslims are Christianity’s fundamental enemy. In situating the relics and holy places important to Latin Christians, as well as mentioning episodes of Christian martyrdom, Burchard is harkening back to the original rhetoric of the crusades as a war of liberation and protecting pilgrims.

Does this not sound anything like the IOF using the October 7th incident as an excuse to exterminate thousands of Gazans? If nothing else, the insistence on antagonizing Muslims should look familiar.

Toxic theology also played an important rôle in (justifying) the Crusades. Turning now to Faith A. Edwards’s ‘Old Testament Land Promises and the Justification of Violence in the Crusades’, pgs. 46–7:

Taking on the identity of “G-d’s Chosen People,” they looked up to the warriors of the Old Testament, believing that they, too, had the G-d of Israel by their side:

In the Old Testament, the Chosen People of the Israelites fought battles commanded and protected by their G-d…Warrior heroes adorn the scriptural landscape: Joshua, Gideon, David…the martial history of the biblical Chosen People of the Old Testament fed directly the world-view of the crusaders, providing rich quarries alike for preachers and chroniclers.¹¹

[…]

In a study of crusader art in the Latin Kingdom, it became clear that the crusaders believed that their Old Testament heroes were types for themselves in their quest for the Holy Land:

As both the textual and visual sources reveal, alongside the figures of Christ and the Apostles, those of the Maccabees, Joshua, and King David were also central for the crusaders, functioning as models designating the crusaders as the “New Israelites” who had conquered the Holy Land and the Holy City.¹³

Their artwork showed how they viewed themselves as part of a “miraculous work of G-d,” and exploited Biblical models to enunciate their legitimacy in claiming the Holy Land.¹⁴

Louis IX, leader of the Seventh and Eighth Crusades, also drew strongly from the story of Joshua:

Joshua…was seen as a type for the crusader in ways that informed Louis IX’s crusading ideology and his kingship. The parallel between Joshua's divinely sanctioned wars and Louis' own crusading ambitions structured a teleology that incorporated Louis into salvation history.¹⁵ Despite the disaster of the Seventh Crusade,¹⁶ Louis was encouraged through the failures of Joshua and soldiered on in his journey to recapture the Holy Land in the eighth and final crusade.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

I could add more, such as how the Crusaders prohibited intimate relations with Muslims, but I want to keep this topic at a manageable length. Above all, remember that Judaism has very little to do with Zionism, and that Zionism was always more of an Evangelical phenomenon.

See also: Mazza, Roberto. 2025. “The Last Crusade and The First Zionists: Religion, Empire, and The Making of Modern Palestine”. Bulletin of Palestine Studies, №№ 18: 1–28.

Bedirhanoğlu, Hüseyin Erkan. 2026. “Beyond the Battlefield: The Lasting Legacy of the Medieval Crusades on the Holy Land”. Vakanüvis - Uluslararası Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 11 (1): 52–78.

Nefesh B’Nefesh, an Israeli government-affiliated settler agency, has announced that they’ve moved their settler recruitment fair from Queens to a synagogue in Long Island. The new location is significantly less accessible from the city; the Zionist organizers have been forced to isolate themselves due to sustained community pressure over months and years.

Our demands to NYC Mayor Mamdani remain clear. Recruitment of settlers to occupy stolen Palestinian land will NOT be tolerated in our city and in the absence of meaningful action from those in power, we the people will sustain the struggle until every inch of Palestine is free from the river to the sea.