Salon: Is the Star of David the new swastika?

Thursday, Apr 15, 2010 11:16 EDT
Is the Star of David the new swastika?
In a disturbing reversal of symbolism, Israeli extremists are defacing Palestinian property with the Jewish symbol
By Judy Mandelbaum
This post originally appeared on Judy Mandelbaum's Open Salon blog.

Time was when Nazis used to slather swastikas on synagogues and Jewish businesses to prepare the local population for expulsion or much worse. It's sad that this sort of behavior persists around the world, as a new study by Tel Aviv University shows. But it's even sadder to see Israelis regularly defacing Palestinian property with Stars of David with equal glee and with what appears to be the same brain-dead mindset.

Your local paper might not have covered it, but in the wee hours of Wednesday morning a gang of Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank village of Hawara. "Palestinians reported two torched cars on the village’s central road early yesterday," Haaretz writes. "A small village mosque, used only on the weekend, had the word 'Muhammad' sprayed in Hebrew and a Star of David. Haaretz also found graffiti with the Jewish prayer 'Praise be onto him for not making me a gentile.'" The attackers also took the opportunity to destroy some three hundred olive trees, a major source of local income.

In February of 2009, a Canadian writer by the name of Marcello Di Cintio witnessed how "earlier this week, the IDF raided Jayyous. Soldiers entered the village at night, seized about a hundred young men and penned them in the school gymnasium. The troops also occupied several village houses and spray-painted a Star of David over a pro-freedom mural on a school wall. The IDF took about a dozen men with them when they left, and the men are still in custody somewhere in Israel."

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The Mogen Dovid is a symbol that has experienced a roller coaster of shifting meanings over the centuries. The six-pointed star was a symbol known to many religious and spiritual traditions and only became firmly associated with Judaism and Zionism in the late nineteenth century. But its power as a Jewish symbol derives less from what Jews have done with it than from what anti-Semites have tried in vain to make it into. Storm troopers painted Stars of David on Jewish businesses during their boycott of Jewish shops in 1933. In September, 1941, SS leader Reinhard Heydrich signed a decree demanding that all Jews in German-occupied Europe wear a yellow star – first to shut them up as potential defeatists, and later to mark them for extermination. After the war the new State of Israel chose the Star of David as its national emblem. Thus it has gone from a symbol of pride to a symbol of shame and fear and then back again to a symbol of pride and endurance against impossible odds.

Will it return to being a symbol of shame and fear -- perhaps permanently? With attacks like the ones I described above on the increase, and now that the Israeli military has approved plans that could lead to the mass deportation of tens of thousands of West Bank residents on short notice, Palestinians are increasingly experiencing the Star of David as a threat to their very existence. This should be a scandal to everyone who remembers what the star has meant in the past. My message to Israelis is simple: Stop doing this. NOW.

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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/04/15/star_david_swastika_open2010/index.html

I just wonder how long before this becomes evident to the American government.....

a few fanatics will not make me ashamed to be what i am.
should mosques be a symbol of shame because osama et al. kill thousands in the name of allah?

I will also (like you) be ashamed of the few who defame it.

And that goes for all other religions as well.

:)

This CAN'T be what that state was founded to represent.

I suppose the lesson is that nationalism eats your soul away from within.

who remembers what the star has meant in the past. My message to Israelis is simple: Stop doing this. NOW


Excellent advice.

As has been pointed out, what a small number of extremists is doing is not the same thing as what the Nazis did.

And I'm not referring to the vandalism, though that IS quite disgusting, it isn't nearly as much as the implications this article is making.

Why is it that so many people seem intent on drawing any kind of possible parallel they can between Israel and the Nazis? So there is a small number of extremist assholes who see fit to vandalize and terrorize Palestinians using the symbol of Zionism that graces Israel's flag. How the fuck does this in any way imply a parallel to the swastika? The only thing I can think of is that some schmucks also use the swastika as a symbol to vandalize Jewish people's stores and homes in an attempt to terrorize them. But the meanings of the two symbols could not be any more different, even if it was used in this one, single facet, in a similar way.

Will it return to being a symbol of shame and fear -- perhaps permanently?

So all of a sudden this symbol will be inextricably linked to the way that a relatively small group of extremists use it? Why would that happen? Oh, I see the implication here... that what these people are doing is similar to what the Nazis did! So they must be the same, right? (Except that they are not... or ARE they?)

Time was when Nazis used to slather swastikas on synagogues and Jewish businesses to prepare the local population for expulsion or much worse. It's sad that this sort of behavior persists around the world, as a new study by Tel Aviv University shows. But it's even sadder to see Israelis regularly defacing Palestinian property with Stars of David with equal glee and with what appears to be the same brain-dead mindset.

I find this incredibly offensive. To diminish the actions of the Nazis and the meaning of the swastika to mere vandalism just so they could be equated with these (admittedly repulsive) settlers should be an affront to anyone who knows what a Nazi actually is.

With attacks like the ones I described above on the increase, and now that the Israeli military has approved plans that could lead to the mass deportation of tens of thousands of West Bank residents on short notice, Palestinians are increasingly experiencing the Star of David as a threat to their very existence.

Yeah, except that the approved plans mentioned here have been "approved" for decades and have thus far not resulted in the deportation of thousands of anyone. Soooo, that's pretty much bullshit right there. But aside from that, does this guy really mean to tell me that Palestinians are now looking at the star of david as a "threat to their very existence" in the same manner that Jews used to view the swastika? Really? REALLY?!

Well that pretty much spells it out, doesn't it? The Israelis are Nazis! And the symbol of Israeli nationalism, the star, will soon be equated with that famous symbol of Nazism, the swastika... because both were spray painted on their enemies' homes, I guess, but really because we all know that the Israelis are just like the Nazis in so many, many other ways that it is inevitable... (although that spray paint thing is the main connection.)

Jews are the new Nazis!

Nazis are the old Jews!

They're the SAME! The SAME!

So I guess Hamas must be the new French Resistance? And Arafat was Churchill! (Hey, this is fun!) Who is Roosevelt? Maybe Saddam can be Roosevelt, he hated the Israelis, and even bombed them kind of recently. Oooh, then Obama can be Mussolini. Or maybe Bush should be Mussolini and then Obama can be Hirohito. What does everyone think?

.....so ridiculous that they will lose all credibility outside the lunatic fringe.

What we got here is the settlers exhibiting the same behaviour as the nazis and other anti-Semites before Hitler took power. That alone should be a warning as to what the ultimate outcome is going to be if these people are allowed to have complete power in Israel.

The swastika is the symbol of the racism that led to the Holocaust. The settlers and their brand of Zionism are as racist as the nazis were. It is only a matter of time before mass murder becomes their modus operandi.

Nazi Germany. It did not represent all people of German heritage as the star of david does jews.

The swastika (once taken over by the Nazis) was used for, and meant, only a bad purpose. The Star of David, and the Cross, and the British and American flags have been used for good purposes and bad purposes.

Using it in the way that these thugs are doing is desecration of the symbol for those who take it seriously. But that does not mean that Israel, or the Jewish community, is just the same as Nazi Germany and the Star of David the same as the swastika!

:shrug: