“The Geopolitics of Shabbetai Zevi”

The king whose “reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of the Fascist regime in Italy,” Victor Emmanuel III, ruled during both world wars and gave birth to fascism, bringing Mussolini into power. This fascist king met with Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, to discuss Zionist ambitions for Palestine. In this meeting he told Herzl that his great grandfather several generations back “conspired with (Sabbatai) Zvi.” This directly links fascism and its ancestor, European monarchy, to zionism, and its ancestor, Sabbatianism. Naor describes this collaboration between the Sabbatian underground and the European elite, by stating that “overtures were made to non-jewish aristocracy to help themselves to the spoils once the Turk (The Ottoman Emperor ruling Palestine at the time) had been overthrown.” This echoes eerily familiar today.