I read in the news that Muslims are suffering a backlash in France after the murder of 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine.
I don’t know if I have a particularly cold heart, but when I look inside myself, I see that I don’t much care about Muslims suffering in France. In large part, that’s because I don’t know any Muslims in France.
I care most about my own kind and I don’t care much about those who are the most different from me.
I’m not a historian and I am no great moral thinker, but I fear that my perspective is pretty similar to that of Germans in the 1930s who simply wanted the Jews out of Germany. Most Germans did not want to kill the Jews, but many Germans such as the Nazis, wanted the Jews out of Germany. So now I look at Europe and I understand those who want the Muslims out.
Maybe Meir Kahane was right that Israel would be better off without Arabs and Muslims. I want Israel for Jews just like the 1930s Nazis wanted Germany for non-Jewish Germans.
I think I am an even-handed nationalist. I want nationalism for all peoples. There’s nothing I want for my own kind that I don’t want for other peoples.
I’m watching this documentary, The Decent One, on Heinrich Himmler, who ran Hitler’s SS.
Forty eight minutes into the documentary, his wife in 1938 writes to him: “Regarding the Jews, when will these scoundrels leave so we can enjoy life again?”
I fail to see any difference in her attitude to Jews and many modern Western attitudes to Muslims.
In 1939, Himmler’s wife says: “These Jews and Polacks don’t even look human.”
Well, many people said the same thing about races completely different from their own. Everybody, down deep inside, has a bit of themselves that regards those who are different as sub-human.
Himmler issues orders for some Poles to leave their homes within seven hours for resettlement. Well, during the 1948 War of Independence, Israel did similar things to the Palestinians. If France did that today to Muslims or if Israel did something similar to its Arabs, I would sleep OK.
After the invasion of Russia in 1941, Himmler wrote: “How Russians feel, how Czechs feel, does not concern me at all. Whether other nations live in prosperity or die from hunger interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture.”
I think these sentiments are normal for those with a strong in-group identity.
“We will create pure German areas just like our ancestors did.”
This is a common sentiment for nationalists, including Jewish nationalists. I see nothing wrong with it. I like Jewish neighborhoods. I would have no problem if a Jewish town prohibited non-Jewish residents. So why wouldn’t I want these same things for the goyim?
Himmler’s kids apparently prayed to God that their daddy would be kept safe.
Himmler is interested in the sterilization of Jews.
Now the documentary moves on to the mass killing of Jews. This turns my stomach. My mind asks, however, what if I believed the survival of my people depended upon killing an alien people in our midst who I believed would try to destroy my people? For example, I am sure most Israelis would love for the Palestinians and for Arab Israeli citizens to disappear. Israelis would not feed them into gas chambers but they would like them to disappear.
It seems understandable to me why Germans who believed that Jews were their mortal enemy would want to be rid of the Jews in their midst just as Russians under Stalin decided to exterminate millions of Ukrainians and so forth. Genocide has been a recurring theme in history because different groups have different interests, resources are scarce, and different groups must fight for the good land and the good food and so forth. The English who moved to America in the 17th Century had noble intentions towards the Indians but in the end that did not matter. Either the English were going to get wiped out or the Indians were going to get wiped out. There was no way they could live in peace together because their lifestyles were not compatible.
What if the survival of the Jewish state of Israel depended on wiping out all Iranian nuclear installations and millions of Iranians along with them? What would Israel do?
Himmler says: “We have a moral right, an obligation to our people, to take the people who want to kill us and to kill them.”
What nationalist would disagree? This is a reason why Jews fear Gentile nationalisms. They’re often dangerous for Jews.
Himmler’s eldest daughter says in 1943: “We have no allies in Europe. We are entirely on our own. Just imagine what will happen if we lose.”
What Jew or oppressed minority can’t identify with these sentiments?
During WWII, Himmler instructed his children to always be “brave, strong and kind.”
While Himmler committed suicide May 21, 1945, his wife, mistress and children lived long full lives. His eldest daughter worked all of her life on behalf of accused Nazis.
