"What the Israeli Left Means By The Word 'Fascist'"

Steven Plaut explains What the Israeli Left means by the word 'Fascist'.
(Of course, the radical left in Israel is not alone in resorting to emotionally charged words to 'prove' their point.)

Israel's radical left is obsessed with the word "fascist."

Israel is the only country in the Middle East where people vote and enjoy free speech, a free press, due process and habeas corpus, but none of that makes any impression on an increasing number of Israeli left-wingers whose definition of fascist seems to be any government that doesn't adopt left-wing policies.

At any rate, with Israel's leftist chattering classes so eager to label virtually anyone and anything as fascist, perhaps it's necessary to clarify just what such people mean when they use the word.

Here is a partial list from Plaut's article:

• It's fascist to allow Israeli voters to dictate the decisions of the Israeli government. Those voters cannot be counted on to support correct policy choices.
  
  
• It's fascist to suggest that people applying for Israeli citizenship be required to express a commitment of loyalty to the country. (It's OK, though, for other countries to require it.)
  
  
• It's fascist for Israel to have a dominant ethnic majority. That makes it an apartheid-like entity. (It's OK, though, for other countries to have one.)
  
  
• It's fascist for Israel to use force to defend its citizens. Terror should be dealt with by Israel only through capitulation.
  
  
• It's fascist for Israel to interfere with the smuggling of explosives and other weapons to Hamas in Gaza.
  
  
• It's fascist for Israel to refuse to turn half of Jerusalem over to terrorists.
  
  
• It's fascist for Israel to defend its borders.

Read the whole thing.

Why is it that its democracies like Israel and the US are the ones that get painted with the fascist brush?

Technorati Tag: Fascism.