The Insidious Alliance of Leftists and Islamists

Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel, and the warfare that has followed both on the ground and in the media, constitute a watershed moment in history. Some of the deepest problems in our societies have been made plainer than ever. Benjamin Kerstein writes of an “Axis of Antisemitism” which has become apparent during this period, having developed over more than twenty years. The Axis, he observes, consists “largely of radical Muslims and certain progressives who have metastasized into a kind of Neo-Nazi Left.”

This unholy alliance is indeed nothing new. As Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor wrote years ago, “most of the antisemitic physical violence in Europe today is the work of […] Muslims now living there,” while rhetorical attacks “there and in North America [are] the work primarily of leftists and liberals.”

Gone are the days when leftists like Jean-Paul Sartre possessed the decency and intellectual consistency to recognize that their professed ideals required solidarity with Israel! Now if anyone on the left even says something even implying solidarity with Israel and Jews, they are branded fascist, racist, or, more laughably, far-right.

The events surrounding this new war have made the rot in our societies clearer for all to see. To a certain point, the “liberal media” could always be pardoned for their intellectual sins. After all, they did deliver masses of high-quality reporting in the days after the attacks. That may still be true, but when an organization allows itself to abet terrorism, there is only so much one should be willing to forgive it. The media may now be making that turn.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has highlighted a slew of such instances of media bias during this war, coming from The Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Associated Press, and other mainstream media organizations. These incidents must be seen to be believed. Perhaps the most blatant example of unethical journalism has been the coverage of the infamous explosion at a hospital in Gaza. In that instance, the media uncritically spread a “blood libel,” as even Jonathan Greenblatt of the neutered ADL had the backbone to state. Israel was immediately blamed before the truth revealed otherwise. The damage, however, was already done.

We – at least, many of those who will read this – live in countries where some mainstream media publications and journalists implicitly support terrorism. It is hard to think of a historical analogy for this situation, in which it is not exactly “the rulers,” but large segments of the elites, who have turned against their people and side with those who wish to kill them. Equally alarming is some people’s ability to fail at basic pattern recognition.

Islamism and barbarous terrorist activity are closely interlinked. Hamas, in this regard, is nothing new. For instance, a recent article by Raymond Ibrahim traces a tradition of cannibalistic themes from the doctrine’s earliest days to a celebrated Palestinian activist’s threat to “drink [the] blood and eat [the] skull” of any Jewish settler in the West Bank. The brutality of Hamas is what we’ve seen with the Taliban, ISIS, and other Jihadist organizations. Instead of recognizing that violence committed by adherents of a violent ideology is business as usual, many in the chattering classes take for granted that the real culprit must be Israel, or the United States, or Europe. “Because they hate us, they must be right,” Pascal Bruckner once quipped. Many Westerners just blame themselves (or, often, Israel) rather than the obvious culprit: the Islamist ideology these terrorist adhere and subscribe to.

Also noteworthy is the spectacle of some Jews, albeit a minority of them, siding with their own would-be killers and against the state of Israel. In his essay on this subject, Seth Mandel uses the very apposite phrase “nominally Jewish anti-Zionist hate groups.” His chief example is the notorious Jewish Voice for Peace. For the mainstream media, JVP is a respectable group of pacifistic Jews. For CAMERA, JVP is an “anti-Semitic group,” prominent members of which have gotten elbow-deep into Holocaust denial. Without discussing any specific examples, we can note that Jewish antisemitism, anti-Israelism, and everything in between is also nothing new.

Paul Bogdanor and Edward Alexander catalogue typical traits of Jewish Israel-haters. To paraphrase, these are “liberals” – in the American usage of the term – who travel in liberal circles and wish to be accepted by their fellow liberals. But the American left is hostile to the Jewish state and, consequently, looks at them askance. So these renegades have to work extra hard to fit in among their peers with baffling feats of Israel-bashing and victim-blaming.

Economist Werner Sombart’s work has lasting relevance to this issue, as it does to many others. Of particular interest is his 1912 book The Future of the Jews. Therein, Sombart deplores the desire to assimilate which, he recognizes, is widespread among Western Jews, including in Germany. Not only will efforts to dissolve into wider society inevitably fail – subsequent history would prove him tragically right on this point – but they will only lead to frustration on the part of those trying to assimilate. The desire to melt away will only make things worse for everyone. Once again, Sombart proves remarkably prescient. Though not Jewish himself, he applauds the Zionist movement and the broader “Jewish Renaissance” of his time as a countertrend to the assimilationist mood. It is not that he likes the idea of a Jewish state because he wants the Jews to get out of Germany, which is Kaiser Wilhelm’s position. On the contrary, he wishes for a distinct Jewish community to persist, including in Germany. Aside from this group’s cultural output, he is keenly aware of its economic contribution. Sombart knew Germany benefited by Jews being Jews.

Would that more Jews had taken heed of advice like Sombart’s! As Eric Hoffer describes in The True Believer, the Jews who fared worst in the concentration camps were those who lacked a strong Jewish identity. As atomized individuals, they were more vulnerable than they would otherwise have been. On a larger scale, the dissolution of collective identities and community spirit in the West as a whole leaves its people vulnerable to hostile forces.

Large political factions across Europe and North America are hell-bent on surrendering to those who seek to destroy them. Yes, the Islamists – meaning Hamas and Hezbollah, but especially the Iranian regime – are bent on exterminating Jews. But ultimately, if you are not a Muslim, or not a specific kind of Muslim, their goal is to kill you as well, or at least to make you a second-class citizen in a truly religious apartheid state. In the words of Yoni Asher, husband and father to three hostages abducted by Hamas, this is not merely an “Israeli war. They are knocking on your doors. The West is not next, the West is now.” The West is now, and the world is next if the West doesn’t stand up to this kind of aggressive, often terroristic, utopian expansionism

Just as leftists and many liberals assume “the Palestinians” (a dog-whistle for Hamas and other terrorists) must be driven by something we would recognize as grievances, they also assume the Iranian regime is motivated by some thought process that could conceivably arise in a Western society. They believe the clerics’ central motive is some misperceived national interest, or at least self-interest. They are wrong. As Ali Ansari and Kasra Aarabi explain, the Islamic Revolution’s program does not aim to benefit Iran. Rather, Iran is to be exploited for “the expansion of the revolution.” The authors’ comparison with communism is apt. The aim of a world revolution, and hence the drive to export communism, was baked into the ideology itself; it did not require provocation, it was inherent to it. This is true with Islamism.

To resist terrorists and their sympathizers’ influence operations is vital at this juncture in history. Perhaps future events will remove some of the pressure. Certain facts indicate, albeit vaguely and uncertainly, that history may be against the Islamic fundamentalists. India is rising, Iranians have grown more and more resentful of their rulers over the decades, the Abraham Accords were an unprecedented step towards reconciliation in the Middle East, and Israel’s high birthrate had, before this war, set it on a path of growing influence in the region.

Some optimism may therefore be warranted. Such glimmers of hope, however, arise no thanks to our impotent elites, media mouthpieces, and university presidents. The glimmers of hope in this conflict emanate from the people, the common men and women who have yet lost themselves to the dark, parasitic, ideology of complicity with genocide and terrorism. The insidious alliance of leftists and Islamists entail the expansion of genocide and terrorism worldwide. We do not need to acquiesce to that future world.

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