An editorial in a renowned academic journal has been branded “blatant anti-Semitism” after it claimed the Holocaust is used to justify “Jewish extremism” and compared foreign jihadists to British Jews fighting in the IDF.
Writing about ‘Mahal’, the process whereby non-Israeli Jews travel to Israel to fight in the Israel Defence Forces, the guest editorial in Anthropology Today says those returning to Britain are “indoctrinated” and “a threat” but are not listed as such because Israel is an ally.
The inflammatory remarks appear in April’s edition of the Royal Anthropological Institute’s bimonthly journal, where prize-winning American Professor Laura Nader argues that news of foreign fighters joining Islamic State in Syria and Iraq has focused media attention on “Jewish jihad”.
She writes: “Today around 100 British nationals are serving in the Israeli army, supported by proud British mothers, however the April 2014 British report on counter-terrorism does not include as [a] threat the indoctrinated British citizens returning home from service in the Israeli military, since the UK is already an ally of Israel.”
She continues: “The Mahal network of jihadists were taking part in the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip last summer, which resulted in the death of so many innocent Palestinian civilians.”
Nader further notes that “5,000 Jews carry the title ‘Lone Soldier,” aping the term “lone wolf” used to describe Islamist fanatics who kill Jews. Of these, she says “very little is reported in the Western media”.
In addition, she writes that Birthright (Israel) trips “recruit youngsters to visit a fantasy Israel where they receive instruction on Zionism”. On these trips, she says “visitors learn to hate the enemy, the Palestinians”.
Elsewhere in the editorial, Nader writes: “For Judaism, extremism is justified as a result of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the right of return.” She adds: “Islamic jihad has some contemporary parallels in Judaism.”
Holy warriors and Jewish Jihad: Diaspora Jews in the IDF
UC Berkeley anthropologist Laura Nader writes:
For Judaism a single term does not exist, or at least not in the mass media and not until the recent birth of the state of Israel. But the finger pointing toward young Muslim men from Europe and the Americas who travelled to fight with the ISIS Caliphate has elicited some attention to Jewish jihad. Europeans and Americans have served in the Israeli army since before the creation of the state of Israel. The Zionist movement recruited thousands, and included both men and women. The process was known as Mahal, when volunteers from abroad took part in Zionist military opera-tions during the British Mandate in Palestine. In the 1948 war, by some estimates, there were as many as 4,000 World War II veterans from Europe, the US and Canada involved in military operations against Palestinians, bringing their experience in World War II warfare to the Zionist cause.
Mahal recruitment continues to this day. Thousands of volunteers, from dozens of countries, presently go to Israel to serve in mainly combat units of the Israeli mili-tary. The online Mahal recruitment programme declares its purpose is to strengthen front line combat units with non-Israeli nationals of Jewish descent for up to and beyond an 18-month duty. By one count, today around 100 British nationals are serving in the Israeli army, sup-ported by British mothers proud to have a child serving in the Israeli military. However, the April 2014 British report on counterterrorism does not include as threat the indoctrinated British citizens returning home from ser-vice in the Israeli military, since the UK is already an ally of Israel. The Mahal network of jihadists were taking part in the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza strip last summer which resulted in the death of so many innocent Palestinian civilians.
Recruitment policies span the globe today, and approximately 5,000 Jews carry the title ‘Lone Soldier’, used to refer to those who become immigrants. Such recruits receive special financial assistance to live in Israel or to visit family abroad. Although very little about these recruits is reported in the Western media, we do hear of the Birthright visits, a Zionist project that recruits youngsters to visit a fantasy Israel where they receive instruction on Zionism and the Israeli military. According to some studies of these ‘birthing’ trips, the visitors learn to hate the enemy, the Palestinians, and accept Israel along with the duty to defend it. The selectivity of the media that turns a blind eye to Israel’s Western recruits fuels the notions of Islamic jihad as defence against the Jewish jihad’s continued expansion in the occupied territories, and military assets beyond, to other Arab countries.In response to documentation of Jewish jihad there has been a renouncing of Jewish jihad.
A media specialist in the area, Michael Brown, notes that the difference between Jewish jihad and Islamic jihad is that only in Islam is jihad a legitimate expression of the faith. He summarizes acts of religious Jews, especially the ultra-Orthodox rabbis who justify killing children in the name of Jewish law. In his op-ed, Brown (2014) concludes that the difference between such orthodox positions of Judaism and orthodox expressions of Islam is that murderous expressions are rare exceptions in Judaism. Brown asks ‘How many rabbinic texts (in comparison with Koranic texts) can legitimately be used to justify the murder of innocent people in the name of the holy war?’ On the BBC TV programme Newsnight, a report by Katya Adler deals with ‘The rise of the military rabbis’ who are changing the face of the once proudly secular Israeli army, filling its ranks with those who believe Israel’s wars are ‘God’s wars’. According to this programme, military rabbis played a prominent role during Israel’s invasion of Gaza earlier this year, side by side with civilian rabbis, thereby, they argue, making the war holier, making the army better – ‘more moral’. Some reserve military think this change is dangerous because once it is a holy war ‘there are no limits’…
In Christianity, the invasion of Middle Eastern lands is justified as self-defence or in terms of national security after the terrorist threat of 9/11. Contrary explanations such as energy and other resource wars have not been highlighted. For Judaism, extremism is justified as a result of the Nazi holocaust and assorted problems of anti-Semi-tism, and the right of return. Ameliorative movements such as Human Rights have sometimes been part of the problem when they only see through one prism. War exhaustion is overwhelmed by the international arms industry, mainly Western. Whatever the possible solutions to war, it appears that all three monotheisms have entertained the concept of holy war but in different ways. Islamic jihad has some contem-porary parallels in Judaism which have consequences. For example, foreign military volunteers in Israel are not crim-inalized. There are double standards, and serious implica-tions when Western and Israeli armies are perceived as neo-crusaders. Anthropologists are well equipped as com-parativists to use such methods as ethical practice.
