I think we should have this debate.
Greg Johnson is opposed to American isolationism.
“Sorry to have upset you, Hunter.
There are a couple inaccuracies in what you have written.
First, I have never said that Russia is the number one threat to white people.
Second, I absolutely do not discount or gloss over the differences between white ethnic groups. I am quite explicitly opposed to idea that White Nationalism is a one-size-fits-all political solution for generic white people. I am an ethnonationalist because I think that the best form of government is to create sovereign homelands for all distinct peoples who desire them. This is why I am opposed to empires like Russia and side with nations trying to hold onto their homelands as opposed to empires trying to take them away. I am even opposed to defenders of empires in our milieu, like Francis Parker Yockey or Guillaume Faye.
However, even though I oppose the idea of “one big white state,” I am still a White Nationalist insofar as I feel a strong solidarity with white people around the globe and would like to see all of them flourish in their own homelands, including Russians. Whites worldwide share a common race, a common history, common enemies, and common problems.
Thus I oppose American isolationism as much as I oppose American imperialism. Whether you think that America should remain isolated or act as a light unto the nations, both spring from the idea that America is an exceptional place rather than an offshoot of European civilization and the white race. America has no business lording it over other peoples around the world. But I think it is natural, normal, and right for Americans to be concerned about protecting other white nations, especially nations in Europe, which is the heartland of our race and civilization.
It is easy to dismiss the Ukraine enthusiasm of the Twitterati. But I am seeing a great deal of spontaneous white solidarity with Ukraine, much as I saw during the migrant crisis, when people who had never uttered an unconventional thought in their lives were suddenly worried about the future of Europe due to demographic swamping. I think that is a healthy impulse. Isolationism, by contrast, is petty-minded. I think it is silly to want to make the world safe for “democracy.” But I think it is healthy to want to make the world safe for white people.
PS: You really need to clean up your comment section. I am sure you think that platforming this collection of paranoids, cranks, and Russia shills makes you look good by comparison, but it repulses better commenters. You are judged by the company you keep.”
My position is simple.
White identity in America was strong throughout the 19th century when the United States pursued an “isolationist” foreign policy instead of liberal imperialism. The country expanded from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic, industrialized and developed a broad middle class at least in the North and was open to European immigrants who fled from the dumb imperial dynastic wars of that continent. Throughout that entire century, we had good relations with Russia and engaged in peaceful trade with that country and did not concern ourselves with the status of Finland, the Baltic states or the Ukraine. The United States was the freest country it has ever been in the 19th century when it was on the way up.
The United States was never an “isolationist” country. We always engaged in trade with the rest of the world. We declared the entire Western hemisphere to be our sphere of influence. “Isolationism” meant a conscious rejection of Atlanticism. It meant avoiding entangling alliances with European states and getting sucked into European wars like the Napoleonic Wars and the Crimean War. It meant rejecting the globalist model of the British Empire in favor of the organic growth of westward expansion. The United States saw itself as a North American power and pursued a continental model of national development.
There were plenty of European ethnonationalist struggles in 19th century: German and Italian unification and the Irish, Hungarian, Polish and Greek independence movements. Americans cheered on all those causes, but the United States also never got involved in them. We never went to war with Britain, Austria, Russia or the Ottoman Empire for the sake of Irish, Hungarian, Polish or Greek independence. As we learned in the 20th century, the problem with ethnonationalism is that reality is messy and different European nations often have rival claims and that involves choosing sides which leads to bloody conflicts that end up killing millions of people. Ethnonationalism can also be taken to extremes. In the United States, the bad sort of ethnonationalism was dulled by racial nationalism and European immigrants were simply assimilated into the American ethnos.
Anyway, the United States abandoned our traditional “isolationist” foreign policy long ago in the age of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. The British Empire was at its Victorian apogee, the East was ascendant in the late 19th century and British liberalism had become fashionable among the old Anglo-American establishment. The East had long opposed the old Jeffersonian policy of westward expansion and development which it saw as mainly benefiting settlers from the South and the West. In those days, American expansion benefited rural America rather than coastal educated urban dwellers.
Frankly, I am surprised that I have to recall the history of American liberal imperialism. You would think it would be self evident from a racialist perspective that it has been an unmitigated disaster. The first step was the destruction of the Confederacy and the emancipation of slaves and the incorporation of blacks into the United States as citizens with equal rights which permanently changed our politics and has bedeviled us ever since. This was followed by the expansion of the nascent American Empire into Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines which was a break from the tradition of not expanding into areas with large non-White populations. This was followed by interventions all over the Caribbean, Central America, the Western Pacific and East Asia in the years before we made the leap into World War I.
We famously intervened in World War I to “make the world safe for democracy.” The peace that followed established the basic pattern of American interventions in Europe. The Poles, Czechs and Serbs were deemed to be the Autobots in that conflict and the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians were deemed to be the Decepticons. The Soviet Union emerged from the wreckage of the Russian Empire. The outcome of the war in Germany, Italy and Russia set in motion a whole chain of destructive events. Alternatively, European history could have taken a different turn if Imperial Germany had won that war or negotiated a settlement that would have avoided the grievances that stoked and led to World War II.
World War II, of course, was the defining moment in the destruction of America’s traditional identity and the mindset of liberal imperialism and a willingness to intervene in another European war was the cause of it. It was at that point that something called “racism” entered the lexicon. “Racism” has been the greatest of all evils ever since. American liberals defined their own identity against Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler replaced Satan. Nationalism became taboo. “Racism” became taboo. It was in that conflict that “isolationism” became taboo. The war empowered liberals to push their civil rights agenda in their “Double V campaign” against the Jim Crow South at home. It drove Denazification in Germany from which the Germans have never recovered. It rescued the Soviet Union and set the stage for the Cold War between liberals and communists for global domination. It led to the creation of NATO which entrenched the American Empire in Western Europe and fostered liberal imperialism there. National security dominated our politics for generations and everything from our immigration policy to our trade policy has been subordinated to it. The idea that a global liberal empire can foster, say, White identity is preposterous.
How in the world is NATO or the European Union protecting the sovereignty of European nations? Every single one of those nations is being dissolved by the acid of liberalism. Their populations are all being systematically replaced by non-White immigrants who are cultivated by the liberal professional class. Hungary is currently being punished for reelecting Viktor Orbán. In the last two weeks, the EU has attempted to thwart Marine Le Pen’s victory in the French presidential election and has passed a draconian censorship law to crackdown on “hate speech” and “disinformation.” The EU is explicitly an enemy of nationalism, populism, traditional Christian values, the White race and freedom as well. It has eroded the sovereignty of all European nations. It has led to a loss of ethnic identity as it blurred and homogenized their populations by transforming Europe into a sterile, deracinated marketplace on the American model. Insofar as Russia tries to intervene in American or European politics, it has largely been to bolster the forces like Trump which are opposed to these developments, which is why Russia is so deeply resented by liberals. The liberals are now effectively at war with Russia.
Without getting into all of our Eurasian adventures from North Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia to East Asia to the Western Pacific, I will simply note that the war in Ukraine is nothing more than the replacement for the war in Syria. It is another devastating proxy war between rival empires. It is due to the need of our own liberal imperialists in Washington and the forces that back them to constantly incite these conflicts. The United States never had a strong relationship with the Ukraine before these people decided it would be the next theater of their operations which wrapped up in Afghanistan last summer.
In practice, liberal imperialism has decoupled “the Homeland” from the American Empire (“the Homeland” being merely the base of its global operations and a dumping ground for an endless stream of refugees from its war zones), and it has dismantled and destroyed the historic character of the American nation. We haven’t helped ourselves or European nations or Ukraine by supporting this process. Ideologically speaking, the real threat to all of our nations and especially to those who want to change our course comes from within. Pretty much the last thing we need right now is liberals starting World War III with Russia in the name of fighting an ideological crusade for their idea of “liberal democracy” (which doesn’t include us) vs. “autocracy” (which isn’t rule by unelected bureaucrats).
In sum, “isolationism” worked out well for us. It kept us White, safe and free. It made us prosperous and powerful. It made us independent and basically autarkic. We are still living off the fumes of its legacy. How is “isolationism” as bad for us or for Europe, which Washington has helped so much, as the legacy of liberal imperialism and the racial, cultural and possibly fatal civilization-wide catastrophe it has led us to?
hoping for this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Old_Right_(United_States)
instead I get Cruz and Mandel on tour promoting ‘bedrock Judeo-Christianity’
Andrew Jackson John C Calhoun had it right. We would have colonies on Mars now probably. Destroying Germany for the bankers was catastrophic for western civilization. Henry Ford, Father Caughlin and Charles Lindbergh had this right. But hey, giving up jet scooters for child trannies and Amazon slave jobs was worth it right?
“Destroying Germany for the bankers was catastrophic for western civilization”
That is gospel!
Our losses are unlimited, due to the savagery of ww1 and ww2, most especially ww2.
HW, I think both of you are wrong. But what else is new?
America was ‘isolationist’ primarily because it was just trying to become a nation, during the first 100 years. Then we had Civil War I…..
What was wrong with that, was the fallacy that started first with the Roman Pontiff, and ‘trickled down,’ Reagan-esque style, to her protestant daughters. That ‘all hominids are created equal.’
Because we had adopted a basically pagan thought-form (Englightenmentism) instead of our Calvinist ancestors…
(as North notes, in this quote:“And so, there was ‘from the beginning’ [ I John 1:1] an inevitable civil war between Christ and Caesar. Church and State. This war was eventually won by the earthly representatives of the ascended Christ. Christians finally replaced pagans in the offices of civil authority.
This ‘Constantinian settlement’ still outrages and embarrasses political polytheists in the modern Church: fundamentalists, pietists, neo-evangelical liberals, and Christian college professors, everywhere. They much prefer to see pagans occupy the seats of civil authority, so the example of Constantine offends them. They prefer a contemporary political polytheism analogous to that of the Roman Pantheon, either because they secretly worship the messianic monotheism of the State (political liberals, humanists, and some neo-evangelicals) or because they refuse to acknowledge that statism is always the political manifestation of polytheism (fundamentalists, Lutherans, most Calvinists, and any remaining neo-evangelicals). Like the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, they prefer rule by polytheistic taskmasters in the service of a [sic] divine State…”… It is time to begin making plans for the conquest of Canaan.” -Gary North, PhD, “Political Polytheism,” (1989) p. 536-7.)
we were either forced or TAUGHT that multiracialism as the great ‘equalizer,’ was true. IT IS NOT. AND NEVER WAS, OR WILL BE. But with the advent of Negro hominidization, all attempts to retain that racial particularism you mention above, were doomed to fail.
Johnson shows that as well, in his comment: “America has no business lording it over other peoples around the world.”
America does not. BUT WHITE PEOPLE, DO.
If we realized that our humanity is Adamic, rather than mongrel, we might restore Christendom as a viable construct, and become the head, and not the tail. If Gab’s readership is any indication, it’s about time the Saxon awoke to restore His place as the “Ye are Gods” statement of fact, that Christ gave to His People.
For the same issues you noted in this statement- “We never went to war with Britain, Austria, Russia or the Ottoman Empire for the sake of Irish, Hungarian, Polish or Greek independence. As we learned in the 20th century, the problem with ethnonationalism is that reality is messy and different European nations often have rival claims and that involves choosing sides which leads to bloody conflicts that end up killing millions of people”
Are there precisely because we have ‘left our first love.’ If we aren’t unified as the Body of Christ, well then… the antichrists (jews) will gladly come forward and tell us how ‘oppressive’ we are, as they conveniently forget the 100 million they killed as a result of their Talmudic Marxist ‘paradise.’
There is not religious neutrality, in other words.
Like most political issues in the USA, isolationism vs interventionism isn’t even asking the right question. The right question is “should the USA exist?” The answer is “no.” By the time you get to the question of isolationism vs interventionism, you have already accepted dozens of premises, like the existence of America, that should not be accepted.
Good comment.
You have to define USA. The mountain range I’m looking at out my window isn’t going anywhere fast unless Putin has some really big bombas.
The Confederates should have pushed hard for Washington immediately after Bull Run. Many problems may have been avoided.
I have nothing else to say but congratulations, you made a clear and rational speech about what happened and what is happening today. I tell you as a European, we European nationalists or identitarians hate Brussels as much as you American identitarians hate Washington. Unfortunately, we are hostages of Brussels and Washington, of their exclusively economic and materialistic vision of the world, with no moral or cultural or even biological values anymore, given the transgender crap taking hold in the Western world. I have often advocated confederatism as an ideology of separate peoples whose motto is “I live with those who have my worldview and culture and you live with those who have yours.” Instead, Brussels’ Europe and Washington’s America want to hold everyone hostage to the materialist, globalist, transgender, anti-white world. In the universities they teach that European and white history is criminal and that all our ancestors were evil, this is one of the reasons why when they proposed me to do a PhD I refused, because they would have thrown me out immediately and above all I like to study history as it is and not as some people want it to be interpreted. I hope that one day there will be a real referendum of separation, that globalists will get a territory where they can do their gay, anti-western, marxist, cancel culture bullshit, while everyone like us can have a territory where they can run their ideas, left alone.
Since there is so much talk of war I’ll show you some real soldiers:
https://youtu.be/VmeLth7tS80
Greg and Spencer use to go back forth on the ideas of petty nationalism versus a white Imperium (a lot of it over the EU). To see Greg support an interventionist position in support of petty nationalism makes sense in a way. But so does Richard supporting Ukraine from an Imperium stand point, albeit the EU and NATOs.
But we are in 2022, and Spencer and Greg finally have something to agree on.
The more interesting point is that Greg and Spencer gave up the ghost by backing the antiwhite establishments enthusiasm for prolonging a destructive war that has killed tens of thousands of whites, and will kill many more, and could possibly lead to a nuclear exchange (which, I presume, would suffocate any possibility of a white resurgence).
The most responsible course of action is de-escalation.
>The most responsible course of action is de-escalation.
That’s right (does that make me a ‘Russia shill’?) — perhaps you are also old enough to remember when diplomacy was a ‘thing’.
@eah – In my mind this doesn’t make you a pro Russia shill. It’s the reasonable position.
@Hunter, Re: The article – There was never a reason for our provocation of Russia. There was never any real reason for Russia and the oligarchs behind that regime cynically exploiting the provocation to justify an all-out invasion of Ukraine either.
It is exactly as you say, a proxy war between two empires with zero regard for the consequences to the people its hurting, who are White on both sides, though different flavors of White.
Regardless of our ruling regime’s position, which we can do nothing about (no matter how hard we effort post about it), the position of anyone that pretends to advocate White interests must invariably recognize that American working class Whites have no dog in the fight (except the cost of gas that results), have never been honestly given a say anyway, and so should commit no time or resources to this artifical controversy beyond insisting we do not get involved or interfere, so that one way or another it is over as soon as possible.
We have more pressing matters at home.
> The United States was never an “isolationist” country. We always engaged in trade with the rest of the world. We declared the entire Western hemisphere to be our sphere of influence.
For twenty years, the phrase “isolationist” has been a neo-con slur against anyone who opposed the USA getting into whatever foreign wars they were pushing at the time.
The neo-cons – and their fellow travelers pretending to be “dissidents” – try to make people think that if the “isolationists” get in charge, America will close down embassies, stop trading with other nations, and even withdraw from various international organizations like the UN.
Other than the latter, not a single “isolationist” has even suggested any such thing.
For the entire 20th century white powers have been fighting and killing each other for all the reasons that humans do that.
Instead of the US staying out of these conflicts, they decided to become a World Super-Power and get into WWI and WWII, the greatest disasters for the human race – and white people specifically – in all of human history.
Now they want World War III – they are talking about “limited nuclear strikes” in the Wall Street Journal now – and the idiots in the stupid “movement” are getting blog hits by playing Keyboard Warrior for one side or another.
But what do you expect from a “movement” run by Feds and Jews and costume clowns? None of these people are serious political actors, obviously.
The Russian shills are a new development though. I remember them from 2014 when all of a sudden Putin was “based” because he banned gay propaganda before 9pm from Russian TV.
They had Ukrainian flags at Charlottesville. See if y’all can figure out why.
Obviously Putin banning homosexual propaganda was quite the affront to you and your ilk. One positive aspect about Putin is his positive stance on maintaining traditional Orthodox Christian values in Russia.
Putin’s father worked for Stalin who punished it severely, with years of hard labour in the mines on the FIRST offense! Early Bolshevik legalisation of licentiousness that would have destroyed Russia was replaced with “the Soviet family” – husband and wife, and divorces were made very difficult to obtain.
Greg’s best days are long behind him.
Spencer’s are as well. Both of their views are outdated and irreverent to modern times. At least Spencer had the dignity to bow out and start something new.
I am telling international transnational white supremacy is the next big thing, the next big boogie man that is now being created by the Jews as a strawman to take on Christ and Christianity and Greg and all the other international white supremacists are part of the Jew operation to subvert and undermine Christ and Christianity.
Don’t take my word for it, just google Rita Katz and transnational white supremacy or Rinaldo Nazzaro and transnational white supremacy, it is already in the works and pre-positioned. You, not going along with Greg on Ukraine and wishing to mind your own business is a fantastic move. Fantastic. It is monkey wrench in the plans.
And unless you wise up, you are going to get the Muslim treatment white man and the people who are going to crap all over you like they did the Muslims are the Jews the Irish and the queers. Queers like Greg Johnson , Pete Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, and Jeff Giesea. The Jews think it is funny for a Christian nation to be ruled by a bunch of faggotts. Do you think it is funny?
Yeah. We really need to do something about the Irish. They have too much control over the media, academia, Hollywood and foreign policy.
@Jim Smith—–Show me the Buford’s and the Beauregard’s on Fox and Friends. Where are they Jim, under the seat cushions? Does it strike you as odd in our time of diversity and inclusion there are no southerners to be seen on television any where. WTF happened to Hee Haw, Jim? Can’t we get Junior Samples on Fox and Friends? What do you say Jim?
Well, if you want to be on t.v., you have to get some dental work.
You trusted the Republicans. The Confederate armies were filled with Irish. New York City was pro-southern, mostly because of the Irish.
Come on now, Robert. If you want to be on television, you have to be a member of the intelligence agencies. They appeal to the patriotic instincts of people. The Irish are very patriotic. When I see the St. Patrick’s day parade, there are thousands of American flags. In the Puerto Rican day parade, I don’t see any.
You are playing an old game. Dividing Europeans against each other so they cannot mount a response. It is all so tiresome. How is the weather in Tel Aviv?
It should be the Bufords and Beauregards,(plural). Ironic that with all your talk about english superiority your English is so poor.
Nice try, Shlomo
A very good post, to which I would add that the American Civil War was an imperialist undertaking designed to transform the USA from a country whose government derived its just powers from the the consent of the governed to one that derives its power from the conquest of the governed. The purpose of the Civil War was for the Northern States to govern people without their consent. Every war since then has been based on US and its allies to some extent, governing other peoples without their consent, whether Germans, Japanese, Iraqis, etc. We were a better country before we became and imperialistic one.
Holy crap. I can’t believe Greg is seriously suggesting that the (((white))) regime that rules over America, should help the (((white))) regime that rules over Ukraine. I can only chalk this up to the rare condition of HIV-associated dementia.
Yes it’s a very strange position for someone who says he is a ‘white nationalist’. What possible interest would any bona-fide white nationalist (a term pretty-much limited to the USA) have in supporting the Zionist Occupation Government in Sodom-on-Potomac spending tax dollars and sending US troops to support its colonial Zionist-Occupation-Regime in a fake-country created in 1991 in pursuing a white-on-white war against other whites – ongoing since 2014? Note all of the Jew vermin who rule Country 404 departed on February 14, leaving only Dickey Piano-man and a few others to whine on TV.
Based on the above quote from Johnson, he considers Ukrainians to be white but not the Russians.
“The United States was never an “isolationist” country. We always engaged in trade with the rest of the world. We declared the entire Western hemisphere to be our sphere of influence. “Isolationism” meant a conscious rejection of Atlanticism.”
This is an extremely important point. The tag “isolationist” is a slur used by Globopedo and its acolytes to distort the actual policy. Actual isolationism was found in Japan under the Shogunate. Only the Dutch were permitted a small trading post in Hiroshima during the era. It worked admirably for them for some 300 years. Their finest cultural achievements date from the era of isolationism.
“In sum, “isolationism” worked out well for us. It kept us White, safe and free. It made us prosperous and powerful. It made us independent and basically autarkic. We are still living off the fumes of its legacy. How is “isolationism” as bad for us or for Europe, which Washington has helped so much, as the legacy of liberal imperialism and the racial, cultural and possibly fatal civilization-wide catastrophe it has led us to?”
Exactly so.
Hunter, I agree with you that “ethnonationalism can be taken to extremes.” Whole peoples can be divided, sliced and diced endlessly into sub- and sub-sub-ethnic groups, until they all exist in countries the size of Andorra or Lichtenstein – because the real problem is not being addressed which is the class system of the usurious elites that turns brother and against brother, distracting them with intraethnic hatred while they are being exploited. When sub-ethnies that were divided and ruled finally become free (socialist) they are likely to join with other free ethnies in federations or other brotherly unions or even merge to become larger, unified states. Welsh nationalist separatism is an example of a sub-ethnic movement that would not exist if Welsh people were not exploited by London, and would probably disappear if Britain as a whole ever became free.
There is no value in debating fags. It is degrading
PS: You really need to clean up your comment section. I am sure you think that platforming this collection of paranoids, cranks, and Russia shills makes you look good by comparison, but it repulses better commenters. You are judged by the company you keep.”
Like this kind of vapid ad hominem rhetoric is some kind of model — fuck off you prissy self-righteous little prick.
Greg Johnson says “the best form of government is to create sovereign homelands for all distinct peoples”:
That is not a form of government.
The best and most natural form of government, which is the people’s socialist republic, tends not to divide but to unite with neighboring closely-related peoples in brotherly confederacies (NOT empires!).
Socialism is natural only in that it reflects the natural inability of the masses to keep their paws off everything.
Re: “the natural inability of the masses to keep their paws off”:
Yes, greed is natural – an expression of the evil side of human (and animal) nature. But the other side pf human nature, the good, godly, side is expressed in unselfish, even sacrificial sharing and service. Furthermore, greed does not even predominate among the poor masses, who are more likely than not to be generous with what little they have, but among the “well off” it is predominant, and the rich are by definition always guilty of it. It is said, “behind every fortune there is a great crime” and that a camel could pass through the eye of a needle sooner than one of the rich can enter heaven. Your system of private profit and right not to give is natural in the sense that it rewards the evil side of human nature (greed) while the system that you oppose is truly natural, because it belongs to the originally good, godly, side of human nature (love).
When you constantly give money to foreign countries, fund wars, open your borders and police the world with your military you can’t be an isolationist. An isolation country keeps its border closed, lets no one in, minds its business and takes care of its citizens without outside help. It seem America gives and gives but never gets anything back in return.
“You are judged by the company you keep.”
Which is why self-respecting Whites refuse to hobnob with butt boys.
With any political issue….the extremes can be a problem. Thinking in terms of extreme isolation vs extreme foreign intervention are both problems. I think the US and other countries should look at it on a case basis. Think in depth about things. Who’s our friend….Russia? The Ukraine? Iraq? Afghanistan? Jews? Islamics? So on. Constantly being at War is bad…if it’s for the Money. Fighting just Wars is another thing. One thing is for sure….Southerners have fought and died in many US Imperialist Wars and that’s not good for Dixie. European Americans and Southerners should never fight a War unless it’s in our best interest. The US has a long history of caring more about an Empire and War Profits that it ever has cared about human life. Deo Vindice !
You heard Greg, Hunter! You need to clean out your commentary section of these unsavoury misfits such as Spahn and Robert O’Browning, and just have quality, wholesome input from people such as…..well, myself! 😉
You’re judged by the company you keep! Lol.
I have it on good authority that HW often chuckles and sometimes even guffaws whenever he reads my posts!
@Spahn,
I’m sure you’d make a good stand up comedian……a politically incorrect one!
Humour is the best way to get messages across.
Keep it up, my friend.
Homosexuality is dynamically opposed to Nationalism. The Nation is the people. Homos don’t create people for the nation. Homos groom people out of the breeding pool. No homo is a Nationalist. As selfish individualists, they are liberals.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over “unforgivable” comments by its foreign minister about Nazism and antisemitism — including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish. Israel, which summoned the Russian ambassador in response, said the remarks blamed Jews for their own murder in the Holocaust.
It was a steep decline in the ties between the two countries at a time when Israel has sought to stake out a neutral position between Russia and Ukraine and remain in Russia’s good stead for its security needs in the Middle East.
Asked in an interview with an Italian news channel about Russian claims that it invaded Ukraine to “denazify” the country, Sergey Lavrov said that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some figures, including the country’s president, were Jewish.
“So when they say ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish,” he said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation.
In some of the harshest remarks since the start of the war in Ukraine, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov’s statement “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”
“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” said Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.”
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has been more measured in his criticism of Russia’s invasion, also condemned Lavrov’s comments.
“Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a means to score political points must be stopped immediately,” he said. “His remarks are not the truth and their content is unacceptable.”
Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem called the remarks “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation.”
“Lavrov is propagating the inversion of the Holocaust — turning the victims into the criminals on the basis of promoting a completely unfounded claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent,” it said in a statement.
“Equally serious is calling the Ukrainians in general, and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy in particular, Nazis. This, among other things, is a complete distortion of the history and an affront to the victims of Nazism.”
In Germany, government spokesman Steffen Hebstreit said the Russian government’s “propaganda” efforts weren’t worthy of comment, calling them “absurd.”
Nazism has featured prominently in Russia’s war aims and narrative as it fights in Ukraine. In his bid to legitimize the war to Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the battle as a struggle against Nazis in Ukraine, even though the country has a democratically elected government and a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust.
Ukraine also condemned Lavrov’s remarks.
“By trying to rewrite history, Moscow is simply looking for arguments to justify the mass murders of Ukrainians,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Lavrov’s remarks exposed the “deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”
World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people and helped defeat Nazi Germany, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity. Repeatedly reaching for the historical narrative that places Russia as a savior against evil forces has helped the Kremlin rally Russians around the war.
Israel was formed as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust. Over 70 years later, the Holocaust is central to its national ethos and it has positioned itself at the center of global efforts to remember the Holocaust and combat antisemitism. Israel is home to a shrinking population of 165,000 Holocaust survivors, most in their 80s and 90s, and last week the country marked its annual Holocaust memorial day.
But those aims sometimes clash with its other national interests. Russia has a military presence in neighboring Syria, and Israel, which carries out frequent strikes on enemy targets in the country, relies on Russia for security coordination to prevent their forces from coming into conflict with one another. That has forced Israel to tread lightly in its criticism of the war in Ukraine.
While it has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and expressed support for its people, Israel has been measured in its criticism of Russia. It has not joined international sanctions against Russia or provided military aid to Ukraine.
That paved the way for Bennett to be able to try to mediate between the sides, an effort which appears to have stalled as Israel deals with its own internal unrest.
The Holocaust and the constant manipulation of its history during the conflict has sparked outrage in Israel before.
In a speech to Israeli legislators in March, Zelenskyy compared Russia’s invasion of his country to the actions of Nazi Germany, accusing Putin of trying to carry out a “final solution” against Ukraine. The comparisons drew an angry condemnation from Yad Vashem, which said Zelenskyy was trivializing the Holocaust.
——–
Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.
— Washington Post, “Israel lashes out at Russia over Lavrov’s Nazism remarks”, Tia Goldenberg, 05-02-2022.
I heard Greg say that Putin jails people like Greg in Russia. I wish he could point to an ethnonationlist spending time in a prison because of his ethnotionalism. Putin has a tendency to imprison his political opponents, that’s true, but I’m unware of ethnotionalists being persecuted because they’re ethnonationlists. Greg also likes the French Revolution, I was really stunned to hear this…I can’t point to a single figure on the historical Radical Right who thought that the French Revolutioin was a worthwhile experiment. In sum, compare Pat Buchanan to Greg; in Buchanan we have a mature and solid intellectual.
If memory serves, Greg was arrested and deported from Norway.
Now that Russia is no longer Bolshevik, why would it bother me if Russia invaded Germany, France, Belgium, etc.? It’s entirely probable that the overall situation in those countries would improve. The replacent of the autocratic technocrats of the EU with Russia-appointed collaborators would undoubtedly decrease the moral rot and nihilism of the EU.