Fascism on Display 

Seventy two years ago, the Second World War ended. Surrounded and trapped, Adolf Hitler took the coward’s way out and killed himself. The Allied forces were victorious, after over 5 years of war, incurring countless deaths, unimaginable suffering and devastation, and the horrendous crimes against humanity that the nazi war machine, under the direction of Hitler, committed. 

Some estimates say that over 60 million people were killed during the war, which in 1940 terms, represented 3% of the world’s population. The fascists lost. The nazis lost. The Japanese lost. As a result of the war, it is estimated that the USSR lost about 26 million people during the war (soldiers and civilians), estimated to be about 13% of the 1940 USSR population. 

The world also lost over 55% of the world wide Jewish population; the Jews were specifically targeted by the nazis for complete extermination. A goal of the nazi machine, besides creating a thousand year ‘reich’ or empire, was to eliminate the sub-human race of Jews. Racism, specifically antisemitism, was the central feature of the nazi regime under Hitler. The master race, the thousand year empire, lasted 12 years. Those 12 years witnessed the worst world wide devastation ever. To this day, no monuments were erected anywhere to memorialize any of the nazi leaders.

In the United States, 1865 saw the end of the bloodiest war our young democracy had ever seen; a war fought over slavery. Southern states wanted to keep their way of life, which included owning slaves, and the government of the United States (the northern states) was against slavery, under the leadership of President Lincoln. Between April 2, 1861 and April 9, 1865, about 700,000 people died, split almost equally, depending on what resources you use, between the two opposing sides. For the next 40 years, no monuments were erected anywhere in the healing United States memorializing any of the Confederate leaders. There were a few statues built in the late 1890s in places liked Alabama and South Carolina. 

Suddenly, beginning in 1906, a spate of monuments, privately paid for, sprung up throughout the south. By the 1920s and 30s, more monuments honoring Confederate leaders were installed in places like Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina, just to name a few. The bulk of monuments erected were funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Most were erected between 1909 and 1930. 

The United Daughters of the Confederacy was established in 1896. It promoted the ideals of the KKK in its early years for its heroic accomplishments toward anglo-saxon supremacy. These monuments were not erected as a post-war remembrance honoring heroes. For 40 years after the end of the war, no statues or monuments were erected anywhere. It is curious, perhaps not so curious, that the spate of monuments and statues started at the same time that ‘Jim Crow’ laws began to be enacted in southern states. For reference, in 1896, there was a landmark US Supreme Court decision (Plessy v Ferguson) which essentially allowed individual states to enact brutal segregationist laws. Between 1896 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most blacks. So, starting in 1896, and continuing for decades after, southern states began limiting blacks in all sorts of ways, which precipitated a mass exodus of blacks to northern states. 

By the early years of the 20th century, those northern states were struggling to absorb all these people, and the black population, along with many white supporters and leaders in government, looked to ways to help. It is interesting to note that in 1909, when hundreds of statues and monuments were put up (almost all paid for by the United Daughters of the Confederacy), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) was established (on February 12, 1909 to be precise - the centennial birthday of Abraham Lincoln). It is also interesting that in 1910, the National Urban League was established, created to help black families who were flocking north (called the ‘Black Migrations’ at the time) integrate into the cities and towns of the northern states. 

The south continued to be free to segregate and demonize the black population living there. The KKK and white supremacists had almost free rein to persecute, and kill, blacks for almost no reason at all. Indeed, between 1900-1910, at least 790 blacks were lynched or burned alive in the US; almost 600 people are lynched or burned alive during the next decade. Almost all of these murders took place in southern states. 

It is estimated that over 1,500 statues and monuments exist honoring Confederate leaders and soldiers. Almost all of the them were erected as a political response to a cultural shift that went toward helping blacks integrate into America. The Daughters of the Confederacy, who supported and gave honor to the KKK, were less interested in placing statues in the central square than they were in showing the population who had the power. Those statues and monuments were erected as a political message to educate the white folk of those towns and cities to know that the Confederacy lived, that blacks had no power. 

In a convoluted way, the pro-Confederacy supporters melded with the white power and the nazi folk (through the KKK) to create a new master race nazi machine, one that believes the slavery is okay, killing blacks is okay, killing Jews is okay. This machine believes that the focus of the Confederacy and the focus of Hitler align. This is why the images and videos coming out of Virginia show flags of the Confederacy along side nazi flags. This is why the images and videos of the people marching chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “you will not replace us” as they taunt blacks and stand opposite synagogues in full militia garb, carrying automatic weapons, and chanting that they will ‘burn it down’ (referring to the synagogue). 

This is why, when a deranged nazi drove his car into a crowd and murdered an innocent peaceful ant-fascist marcher, other nazis saluted the murder as necessary and correct. 

Being labeled an anti-fascist should not be a separate stand alone description. A normal state should be defined as being against fascism, being against supremacist movements, being against racial profiling, being against nazis. I’ve read descriptions of white power supremacists clashing with anti-fascists. Shouldn’t that description be that the white power supremacists were clashing with people? “The good people of Charlottesville confronted the Nazi marchers.” “The citizens of Charlottesville marched against the white supremacists.” 

This is not an argument about who’s right, who started it, who had weapons, who had a permit (although I’ve learned that the anti-fascist marchers did indeed have a permit to march on that Saturday). It’s about right and wrong. It’s right to stand up to hate, bigotry, fascism, supremacists, nazis. We fought a war against these people, a big war, a world war. The world determined that nazis and the master race mentality should not get any oxygen for survival. We won. The good guys won. The nazis lost. The white power guys lost. 

Supporting and giving comfort to these degenerates, these dangerous bigots, should be called out. We cannot be silent. Elie Weisel (a Holocaust survivor) said “the opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.” When the leadership of our own country, the country that went through the horrors of a civil war, and engaged an enemy as terrible as Hitler; when those people who have the responsibility of presiding over this great nation stand silent, or worse, give support to the white power supremacists, the nazis, the fascists by saying they are “fine people” and that there is a moral equivalence between those people and the citizens who stand and march against them; when that happens, we have a responsibility to act. Stand up for our democracy. Stand up for our freedoms. Take a stand. Make a comment; do something. Our president, Donald John Trump, supports racism. His words and inaction prove he supports the white supremacy movement. This cannot continue. 

Neal Elyakin
August 20, 2017
Ann Arbor, MI 

A Mountain of Temples 

I used to go to the Temple Mount when I lived in Israel. There were guards, of course. There were always guards. Israeli guards and Waqf guards. I went not to pray, not to disrupt others’ prayers and not to create disturbances. i went to honor the religion of Islam, and to sight-see one of the most spectacular sites in Jerusalem. As I entered the Dome of the Rock Mosque, I followed the appropriate customs as outlined in the pamphlets I had and the instructions outside. 

The inside of the Mosque was beautiful. People milling around respectfully, some trying to take furtive pictures of the people praying or the ornaments and artwork inside. I went almost every time I visited Jerusalem during those years. My memories of those visits are strong and vivid. The beauty of the colors of the inside walls and ceiling. the pillars, carpeting, tile floors, tiled artwork in the ceiling. A masterpiece of art, sculpture and architecture. 

Belief about the religious significance of this place is fascinatingly coincidental. 

Historically, this place once held the Jewish holy temples, the first one built in 957 BCE by King Solomon, destroyed and then rebuilt as the second temple in 165 BCE. It was then destroyed again in 70 CE by the Romans. The Romans then built their own temple, the Jupiter Capitolinus. Fast forward to 691 CE, when the caliph 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan built the Dome of the Rock on the exact same site, originally built not as a mosque but as a ‘mashhad’ - a shrine for pilgrims. 

Jewish belief holds that this site is where Abraham attempted to sacrifice his only son to God, the place where the Jewish Temples were eventually built. Islam holds that this is the exact spot, called Haram al-Sharif, where the Prophet Muhammad began his night journey to heaven. Christianity believes that this is the site where Jesus first argued against the perceived corruption of the temple, an act that led to his death and the beginning of Christianity. Thus, the Dome of the Rock, the Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif, sits on a piece of land worshipped, adored, and loved by Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Truly an historic and remarkable piece of real estate. 

I haven’t been inside the Temple Mount since the late 1970s. I’ve been to religious buildings all over Jerusalem; Mosques, Churches, Synagogues. I’ve visited dozens of historical buildings and campuses all over Israel. The beauty of the architecture, the art, the historical significance, the spirituality of the members within - it takes my breath away. 

The utter sadness I feel about the situation in Jerusalem shakes me to my core. Not because I have any religious devotion to the sites, buildings, parcels of land. Not because I think Israel is right, Islam is right, the Waqf is right, or anyone is right, or wrong. I am sad because so many cannot marvel in the majesty of that place. So many cannot walk along the stones and feel the history, enter the holy buildings and breathe in the memories of so many generations, going back thousands of years. Each time I go to Israel, I visit the Western Wall, the remnant of the exterior wall of the Jewish temple. I touch the stones and let my mind wander to what it must have been like to have lived then, to have been part of such history. I feel the same sense of awe of majesty in the ornate churches, mosques and other shrines throughout Israel. 

It is not right. It has never been right, what is going on with the Temple Mount. We have come to a place recently in Israel … and I mean over the past 5o years, where spirituality and religious belief are no longer of the people. They are weapons to use against ‘the other’ - they are instruments of politics. Israel handed over the authority of the Temple Mount to the Waqf in 1967, immediately after taking control of all of Jerusalem in a war. Israel decided that this place, this holy place, should be looked after by those who know about it, those who care about. The Jordanian Waqf, who administered the site prior to the 1967 war, was invited to continue their tasks. Moshe Dayan argued, successfully, that Israel was not interested in changing or destroying the mosques. Indeed, Dayan went against some of the Israeli leaders and prevailed in keeping the Haram al-Sharif completely under the administration of the Waqf. To this day, the Waqf administers the site; of course, Israeli guards stand at all the entrances - but the Waqf controls the site. 

Recently, there has been violence on the Temple Mount. Someone shot and killed two Israeli policemen on the grounds, outside the Dome of the Rock. Israel’s response was to place metal detectors by each of the entrances to the holy site. When I heard this, my immediate response was, wait, aren’t there already metal detectors there? There are metal detectors everywhere in Israel. You must go through a metal detector when you go to the movies, the supermarket, a cafe. At every holy site, there are security systems. It seemed incomprehensible that there weren’t metal detectors at the entrances to one of the most holy sites in Islam, and Judaism. When the outrage started, I began to realize that this was not about security. This was not about protecting pilgrims, guests, tourists, and mosque goers. 

Religion is … excuse me, should be, for all people. The artifacts of belief, the products of passion, the results of hundreds and thousands of years of belief should be something to behold, something to cherish, something to share. In all other places, we look to ensure the safety of the guests, the members, the prayerful. This mountain of temples, where the history of religion began, has been transformed to an ugly, dangerous place where the tiniest spark can create a fire of enormous proportions. What Moshe Dayan did was to give the religious authorities control over sacred places. What has happened since dishonors the religion. It dishonors all who believe and cherish the beauty. My sadness is great. 

Neal Elyakin

Ann Arbor, MI 

August 4, 2017 

Who Owns The Gaza Problem?

I was in Gaza back in 1978. I visited some friends, Israeli friends, who were staying there temporarily. Gaza in 1978 was not much to look at. The residents I encountered were nice enough; shopkeepers, restaurateurs, people on the street. If there was anger toward Jews or Israelis then, it simmered in the background. The people of Gaza went about their lives, perhaps in a state of quiet desperation, perhaps quietly waiting for their ‘time’ to come. 

It came, first with violence in the streets, attacks on the Israeli communities in Gaza; then with terror from the air (the rockets), a ‘war’ (although many would not use the quotation marks I just used) that killed many people from Gaza, as well as Israelis. It continued and escalated when Israel exited from the entire region. Gaza had the opportunity then to re-imagine itself, released from the choke hold that Israel had on it since 1967. I use the phrase choke hold intentionally; the Israeli government felt that controlling the Gaza region was the only way to ensure safety for its citizens - for Israelis. The people of Gaza were second on the priority list. 

Gaza had the opportunity to build a society, a community. The raw materials were there. The people, the human resources, were there. Of course, Israel continued to control most of the borders (remember, Egypt also controlled one border). Of course, Israel maintained a very close eye on everything, even without physically being there. Israel controlled water, electricity, fuel, materials, medicine, food, etc. through border controls. Even with these controls, millions of tons of supplies entered Gaza regularly though the Israeli borders. What happened to those supplies once they entered Gaza was not under Israeli control. That was under the authority of the PA, the Palestinian Authority. The PA was the government in Gaza (and the West Bank). The PA had the opportunity to work with Israel to ensure that their citizens, now free of Israeli control, could build a nation, build a community, build infrastructure, schools, hospitals, homes, roads, businesses. Had they done that, had the PA struck out to re-imagine their world, the world would have cheered them, supported them, partnered with them. Israel was ready to do the same. 

In 2005, Israel completely withdrew from Gaza; dismantling the Israeli communities, removing all the Israelis, some by force. In 2005, the PA had the unique opportunity to create a new nation, to become a middle-eastern Singapore. There was hope. Then Hamas won an election in Gaza in 2006, and in 2007, violently threw the PA out of Gaza (sometimes literally throwing PA officials out of buildings to their death), establishing a Hamas power structure, intent on destroying Israel. Gone was the chance to create a new Gaza. Gone was the chance to invent a middle-eastern Singapore. Instead, Hamas created a middle-eastern Somalia. Israel responded as it needed to respond; to protect its citizens, to protect itself, it tightened controls on Gaza. Hamas didn’t and doesn’t care about building a nation; it didn’t build roads, schools, hospitals, infrastructure. Actually, it did build infrastructure. It built terror tunnels, it built rocket launchers and placed them in schools, hospitals, apartment buildings. Tunnels (using concrete meant for building schools and hospitals) under the border with Egypt to smuggle in arms, explosives, rocket parts, terrorists. Tunnels under the borders with Israel, to sneak into Israel to kill and/or kidnap Jews. 

I recently read someone write that their heart goes out to the people of Gaza. I recently read that we, the civilized world, must care for the welfare of people in Gaza, while at the same time, hold Israel accountable for their role in the suffering of the people in Gaza. I recently read that, while Israel has the right to defend itself, Israel must acknowledge and do something about the suffering of the people in Gaza, that the world has an obligation to hold Israel to account for the way Israel treated and continues to treat the people of Gaza. 

Israel holds itself to account for the harm it causes. But make no mistake, Israel does cause harm to others to live another day. Israel cannot afford to lose a war. Israel cannot lower its guard. Israel does not hesitate when it comes to the safety and security of the State of Israel. There are those in Israel, and elsewhere, who could care less about the suffering of the people of Gaza, of the people of the West Bank. There are, though, many who care. There are many who act to help. There are many who work with the government, with the service agencies, with the PA, to help alleviate the suffering. 

If only. If only we had partners on both sides willing agree to live side by side. If only the Palestinian people threw out the terrorists, elected real leaders who reject terror and accept political compromise, and work to build a just and peaceful society in a Palestine that exists next door to Israel. The narrative that Israel is solely responsible for the suffering in Gaza is incomplete. The problem is that the narrative that is best consumed by the public is one that places the other side in the wrong and their side as the victims being wronged. There’s enough facts and fictions being thrown around by all sides blaming others. If only we all could get over the blame game, accept the fact of Israel’s existence, and accept the need for a Palestine to exist. Unless and until we get there, the problem of Gaza will continue. 

Neal Elyakin

July 20, 2017

Ann Arbor Michigan