Is Support for Nazism the Solution to the Palestinian Struggle?

The Palestinian liberation struggle is fundamentally an anti-colonial movement, which has been resisting decades of Zionist-Jewish settlement expansion, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid rule. However, a problematic trend has emerged among some Muslim youths—particularly those influenced by online right-wing rhetoric: they are praising Nazi ideology under the guise of opposing Zionism.

This is not only historically incorrect, but it also harms the just Palestinian resistance movement, as it conflates the anti-colonial struggle with the very fascism from whose atrocities Zionism was able to rise. More worryingly, these youths fail to realize that both Nazism and Zionism are rooted in ideologies of racial supremacy and the displacement of other populations, and they function vigorously as each other's bosom friends.

It is important to recognize these contradictions because glorifying Nazism does not benefit Palestine in any way; rather, it walks right into the trap of Israeli propaganda and commits a betrayal against the Palestinian people. The immediate harm such rhetoric brings to Palestine is that it pushes away potential allies.

The Palestinian movement has long enjoyed the support of a diverse coalition—anti-colonial activists, Jewish groups opposed to Zionism, leftist liberation movements, and human rights organizations worldwide have stood by this movement. But when Muslim youth oppose Israel using Hitler or Nazi symbols, they hand an easy propaganda tool to the Zionists. Israel can then easily label all criticism as "antisemitism" and conceal its crimes.

This trend causes another crucial harm: it erases the history of the Palestinians' own resistance. They have resisted through organized strikes, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, and diplomatic efforts at the United Nations—not through Nazi nostalgia. Slogans like "Hitler was right" not only deprive the Palestinian struggle of its moral and political depth, but they also belittle their fight for human dignity.

The bigger problem is that this trend of Nazi glorification among some Muslim youths is actually a victory for the fascist logic of Zionist Israel, which the Zionists only hate in words. The Nazis wanted to eliminate Jews from Europe, and the Zionists want to displace Palestinians to establish a Jewish state—both movements stand on fake "scientific" racial supremacy, territorial expansion, and the dehumanization of those deemed "inferior."

Just as the Nazis spoke of Lebensraum ("living space" for Aryans), Zionists today speak of Eretz Yisrael ("Greater Israel")—both harbor dreams of occupation by asserting the same kind of racial supremacy. The present reflection of the Warsaw Ghetto, a symbol of Nazi barbarism, is Gaza—the world's largest open-air prison.

The most distorted reality is that history shows early cooperation between Nazis and Zionists—the most infamous example being the Haavara Agreement of 1933, through which the decision was made to send German Jews to Palestine (which later led to Madagascar and ultimately Hitler's Final Solution), because both Zionist Jews and Nazis believed Jews had no right to live in Europe.

Jabotinsky, the ideological predecessor of today's Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, openly praised European fascism in the 1920s. Today's Western far-right, who hate Muslims, support Israel because they consider it a successful ethno-state model that has managed to displace local populations and establish supremacist dominance. Rejecting these dangerous double standards must be the way forward.

If one is to criticize Israel's crimes—and they must be—it can never be done through sympathy for Nazism. Instead, the core of that criticism should be exposing Zionism as a settler-colonial project, speaking of the ongoing Nakba, and supporting the genocide case brought against countries like South Africa in the International Court of Justice.

It is essential to expose the hypocrisy of those far-right Zionists who praise ethnic cleansing in the Nazi fashion while accusing critics of being "antisemitic." Most importantly, the center of the Palestinian struggle must be the voices of Palestinians themselves—who have fought from the beginning through journalism, grassroots organization, and international solidarity—not by chanting the glories of Nazi fascism.

The fight for Palestinian liberation is a fight against all forms of racism and racial supremacy—whether under the mask of Nazism or the disguise of Zionism. Opposing Israel in Hitler's name means accepting the very logic of oppression that Palestinians are fighting desperately against. True solidarity means standing against all forms of fascism—whether against the Nazi swastika or the Zionist Star of David.

The path to justice will not be built on the shadow-path of Nazis, but through the indomitable resistance of Gaza, the hills of the West Bank, and a mass movement that intertwines Palestinian liberation with universal liberation.