Wrath of the Keffiyeh Nazis

Hitler predicted them and they will end up with him on the ash heap of history

“There is a certain concord and consent in evil souls.” — Plotinus

A day before he committed suicide, Adolf Hitler dictated his final testament. In it, he blamed Germany’s defeat—which no one did more to engineer than himself—on the Jews.

Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua once remarked on the astonishing insanity of this claim, given that Hitler had just succeeded in slaughtering six million Jews with little in the way of resistance. If Hitler’s imagined Elders of Zion really existed, after all, they would have stopped his genocidal project before it even got started.

In the midst of this derangement, however, Hitler made a chilling prophecy: “Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow.”

Inevitably, there was going to be some truth in this. Antisemitism has always moved in cycles and its resurgence should never come as a surprise. As the Haggadah says, “In every generation…”

Nonetheless, there should be no mistaking the implications of Hitler’s prediction, because today we are seeing not only antisemitism but Hitler’s particular kind of antisemitism rising up out of the ruins.

Indeed, over the past few months, the extraordinary extent to which Palestinian nationalism—which fuels the current explosion of antisemitism—was not just influenced but literally born out of Nazism has become disturbingly clear.

It is true that the connections between Palestinian nationalism and Nazism have long been noted, especially the close relationship between Hitler and Hajj Amin al-Husseini—the founder of Palestinian nationalism as we now know it. But the extent to which Palestinian nationalism was not simply influenced by but an iteration of Nazism is now indisputable.

It was Hamas that provided us with conclusive proof. The Oct. 7 massacre was more than a rampage of unspeakable atrocities. It was a statement of intent. Its savagery could only have crawled forth from an essentially genocidal ethos, a desire not just to wound but to exterminate a people. Its violence was absolute.

If Hamas had possessed the power to do so—which it thankfully did not—it would have slaughtered every single Israeli Jew. Had it been more powerful still, it would have slaughtered every Jew it could get its hands on anywhere. Hamas has stated this intention for decades, but its actions have now proven that this was never mere rhetoric. It is not a coincidence that it and its supporters are now accusing Israel of genocide. Projection is a revelation of the accuser, not the accused.

The outpouring of support for and adoration of Hamas in the wake of the massacre, along with the bloodthirsty celebrations of the carnage and the proud calls for it to be repeated “from the river to the sea,” were another revelation: Not just Hamas, but all Palestinian nationalists suffer from the same pathology, because Nazism was not just an ally of Palestinian nationalism, but its fountainhead.

We now realize that we are facing a kind of Keffiyeh Nazism. It encompasses all who wear or would wear the scarf of death, the new swastika, what is now the ultimate symbol of genocide, terrorism, sadism, atrocity, and crimes against humanity.

The Keffiyeh Nazis include the overwhelming majority of Palestinians who support the Oct. 7 massacre and Hamas; the 60% of Muslim Americans who feel the massacre was, to some extent, justified; the progressive leftists who took to the streets alongside them to dip their hands in the blood of the victims; the thugs on campus who tried to carry out, in their small way, the same genocidal violence as their heroes; the politicians who cry “from the river to the sea” even though they now know precisely what it means in practice; and perhaps most appallingly, the adults in the room who should have and did know better, but still aided and abetted in these horrors.

Keffiyeh Nazism is indeed a Nazism risen from the ruins. It is the opiate of the loser, the failed and degraded, and those who have degraded themselves. It has risen from the ruins of Islamic imperialist fantasies of ruling the world under one God and one prophet, which the imperialists now know, in their secret heart, will never happen; of the pan-Arab dream of a united Middle East under the domination of a single people; of the progressive dream, a political messianism that shattered itself against the immovable object of history; of a young generation’s aspirations to middle-class prosperity now undone by economic forces beyond their control; of the lives of millions of individuals who cannot or will not look themselves in the mirror.

They all believe that a human sacrifice is required to expiate their empty selves and regain the favor of the dark gods of the underworld. The chosen victim is the same as it has always been. The blood libel accuses us of the sin our enemies are desperate to commit, with ourselves as the hapless object.

If there is reason for hope, it is that this is a terrible miscalculation. A million mini-Hitlers may have risen from the ruins, but they have forgotten that Hitler failed. He failed not just because of his derangements, but because the Jews are not hapless. Hitler did not reckon with the powers inherent in a people that has remained true to itself despite everything the world has thrown at us. When we could fight, we fought. When we could not, we withstood. When we could not withstand, we bore witness. Thus, we left Haman and Hitler on the ash heap of history.

Compared to these two world-historical villains, the Keffiyeh Nazis are mere revenants, refugees from the ash heap of history. They have nowhere to go except back into the abyss of defeat. We know this because the ruins from which they have risen are of their own making.

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In my latest JNS column, I deal with one small group of Keffiyeh Nazis: The fiends behind California’s new “liberated ethnic studies” program (the name is not a joke) who were quite happy to elaborate on their stunningly racist ideology for the benefit of a New York Times that was no doubt begging them to keep quiet. Thankfully, antisemites are very bad at keeping their mouths shut.

The liberationists are a somewhat comical but undoubtedly sinister example not only of the institutionalization of systemic antisemitism in the American educational system, but also the extent to which the professoriate regime has extended its tentacles into secondary schools and, one imagines, elementary schools as well.

The bottom line, of course, is that no sane society should allow such people anywhere near a classroom. American society may or may not be sane at the moment but, thankfully, given recent events and the current political climate, there is reason to hope that the Keffiyeh Nazis will find it hard going from now on.

Read the column in full here.