I acknowledge that I stand on stolen Aboriginal land, land whose sovereignty was never ceded. I thank the traditional custodians for their stewardship, under which all life flourished. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and pledge my solidarity in their anticolonial struggle.

The organiser of the March for Australia, was recorded coaching promoters on how to avoid being recognised as Nazis. Just say the protest is about protecting “Australian heritage,” not “white Australia," she said. But let’s just call it what it is - a neo-Nazi rally. 

And it will include Zionists. You might think that Zionism - support for the so-called Jewish State of Israel - and Nazism - responsible for a genocide that exterminated 2/3 of Europe’s Jews - would be on opposite sides of the divide. But, no. Nazis and other fascists are among the most ardent Zionists in the world. 

Elon Musk, promoter of the “great replacement theory” and Nazi saluter, is a Zionist. Richard Spencer, who organized the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, where neo-Nazis bearing burning torches chanted “Jews will not replace us,” is a Zionist. Pastor Hagee, who once said God “sent Hitler to help Jews reach the Promised Land” is founder and National Chairman of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the largest pro-Israel organisation in the US.

In Australia we have Avi Yemini who, at a gig with UK neo-Nazi Tommy Robinson, said he was “the world’s proudest Jewish Nazi.” 

Across Europe, many of the most influential fascists and neo-Nazis are Zionists. There’s Hungarian President Viktor Orban, the Sweden Democrats aka the Swedish Nazi Party, the Brothers of Italy, an ideological offshoot of Mussolini’s Fascist Party, France’s National Rally Party, Spain’s Vox Party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, and many other far-right factions across the continent. 

And the love is not unrequited. Israel has historically been promiscuous in its relationships with authoritarian regimes. While Stalinist states in the USSR were carrying out vicious antisemitic campaigns, Zionist militias, and then Israel, were purchasing Soviet weapons. While Argentina under the Junta was “disappearing” thousands of dissidents, including Jews, Israel supplied it with arms. In fact, Israel’s support for ruthless right-wing terror regimes in Guatemala and elsewhere in Latin America established it as a military, economic, and ideological power in the region. 

In fact, Israel has always been naturally ideologically aligned with repressive regimes, its economy underpinned by global export of weaponry, surveillance technology, and the techniques of repression - classic fascist fare. As Antony Loewenstein observes in ‘The Palestine Laboratory’ the “relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa was not just about the arms trade. It was an ideological affinity about how to treat unwanted populations.”

Zionism and Nazism are effectively the same ideology. Both are grounded in belief in a mythical past and admiration for military prowess. Both emphasise the subordination of the individual to the state. Both reject human rights and the rule of law. Both are racist and supremacist, and work to achieve their specific version of ethnic purity through the genocide of “inferiors.” 

Zionism has managed to recruit Arab Jews by kicking Palestinians even further down the ladder, but at its core it remains racist and fascist. It might use Judaism as its Trojan Horse, and its particular supremacism elevates Jews, but its ideological foundation is White European ethno-nationalism.   This is the same ideology that drives the March for Australia. And just as “Australian heritage” is a code word for neo-Nazism, so is Zionist propaganda a veil of deception for Israel’s Nazi agenda.  

Too bad for the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Yeshayahu Leibowitz was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish public intellectual, professor of biochemistry, organic chemistry, and neurophysiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Several years before the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, Leibowitz already described Israeli conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories as “Judeo-Nazi.” 

And speaking of Nazis, do we condemn the Jews of Lødz and Warsaw and other ghettos who rose up in acts of courageous resistance against their Nazi oppressors? Or do we laud their heroism in the face of overwhelming odds and unbearable cruelty? 

The Palestinian Resistance is not responsible for the unspeakable violence unleashed by the Nazi State of Israel against the besieged and abandoned people of Gaza. Nor for the brutal wave of ethnic cleansing sweeping the West Bank - just like Zionists rampaged through Palestine in 1947 and 1948, long before Hamas was a twinkle in Netanyahu’s eye. 

The UN has affirmed the right of peoples to resist foreign occupation, subjection, domination, and exploitation by “all available means,” including armed struggle. If we support Palestine, we support Palestinian Resistance. 

And part of our work for the liberation of Palestine is refusing to be distracted or intimidated. Zionism is a racist, supremacist, inherently genocidal ideology. Israel is a racist fascist state - a Nazi state. 

And let’s spare a thought for the white supremacists marching for Australia having to cope with Jewish Zionists among them. As my Israeli friend and comrade Allon says, “it’s tough being a Nazi these days, with Jews gatecrashing all your parties.” Zionist Jews of course, not the real kind.  

Free Palestine from the River to the Sea.