Israeli influence: US "left" a threat

[Moses]

This from is one of the innumerable Israeli propaganda fronts:


December 27th, 2005



Why Does the Left Hate Israel?
December 27th, 2005



[Editor’s note: during the holiday period, we are republishing classic articles along with a few new ones. This article was written in January 2004.]



For decades, most American Jews have believed there were far greater threats from the fringe right than the fringe left in this country. While this view may have been reasonable in the past, it is certainly not so today. The fringe right still exists- the neo-Nazis in Northwest Idaho, Matthew Hale, and David Duke, and the remnants of the KKK. But the views of the fringe right have been marginalized by their repudiation by virtually all mainstream elements on the political right.

The fringe left, on the other hand, has evolved into a broader left, and become more mainstream. [?!] The political perspective of this new left is vehemently anti-Israel, and the power and reach of this movement represent a real threat to Israel, and by extension to Jews who support Israel.

What is the Left? 

The left does not mean the Democratic Party in Congress.  When pro-Israel resolutions come before the Congress, due in part to the extraordinary efforts of AIPAC [America Israel Public Affairs Committee], a very high percentage of both Democrats and Republicans vote a solidly pro-Israel agenda. There are some small differences between the parties, however, especially in the House. In particular, the support for Israel among African American Congressmen, all Democrats, has dropped in recent years. However, the defeat in the 2002 cycle of Cynthia McKinney, and Earl Hilliard, two members who were hostile to Israel, and the election to their seats of Denise Majettte and Arthur Davis, has put two highly visible, very pro-Israel African Americans into the Congress. 

In the Senate, you have a different situation. Senators run statewide – which tends to move them towards the center in competitive states. Add to this the fact that many Senators have national political ambitions, and almost all Senators wind up having mainstream views on the Middle East. The mainstream view in Congress is to be a supporter of Israel.  This is due in part, as I said already, to effective lobbying, but also to the widely held view that Israel is an embattled democracy, living in a neighborhood full of authoritarian, thuggish anti-American regimes, that Israel shares the western values this country holds dear, and is engaged in the same fight against Islamic terrorists as this country. [And the political fundraisers? The $$$?]

These views are also mainstream for most Americans, which is why support for Israel routinely runs three to five times the support level for the Palestinians in every public opinion survey that is taken. In the House, the tendency to use the redistricting process after every census for incumbent protection, has led to the creation of a very large number of safe seats, and very few competitive ones (perhaps 10-15% of the total). This has given incumbents the ability to be less mainstream in their views on this issue and others. The growth in the Arab and Muslim population in America, and the creation of more districts with high percentages of African American voters, are both elements that could create more House members sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, since both African Americans, as a group, and Arabs and Muslims, to a much larger extent, are less sympathetic to Israel than the general population. In any case, it would be hard to point to any individual member of Congress today and say that he or she hates Israel.

The left in this country includes large numbers of academics, journalists, human rights activists, environmental and animal rights activists, entertainers, and some church groups, women’s groups, racial advocacy groups and unions. There are also liberals who are members of these same groups. I distinguish between leftists and liberals by one key test: how they feel about the country in which they live. If you tend to regard America as a primarily flawed, evil, unjust, racist country (or at least when Republicans are running it), and most importantly, believe that the US is the primary threat to world peace internationally, then you are a leftist, and not a liberal. Of course, many leftists are perfectly happy to be living here, amidst all their complaints about the country, and regrettably all too few Hollywood artists carried through with their threat to leave the country after the 2000 election. 

This does not mean, however, that many liberals, while generally pro-Israel, have been on the right side of many foreign policy debates. From the cold war to both of the Iraq wars, many, though certainly not all liberals, have been on the anti-war side of the foreign policy debate. [The anti-war side, according to the Zionists, is always the wrong side-- is there any question that zionism promotes war, violence, and death?] But liberals, as distinguished from leftists, do not think America is a bad country. Most liberals think America is an improvable country, if only we made the tax system more progressive, spent more money on social services, and worked more through multilateral organizations abroad. Liberals tend to support overseas military missions when our effort supports a human rights concern, and much less so if the military engagement is claimed to be in support of a strategic objective. Liberals, by and large, supported American military involvement in the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti, and now Liberia, while opposing the two wars with Iraq. 

One can not generalize about all liberal political leaders, however. Scoop Jackson, President Harry Truman, President Lyndon Johnson, and President John F. Kennedy were all liberals, and so today is Dick Gephardt, and to some extent  Joe Lieberman. All of these men, however, supported assertive foreign policies, not much different from today’s neo-conservatives.  So, among liberals, and certainly within the Democratic Party, there is debate and there are differing views on foreign policy. Among leftists, however, there is a lockstep view of America’s role in the world. You can not be a “card carrying” leftist today, and find any reason to support American military efforts abroad, whether it be to save Kosovo from the Serbs [sic], or to liberate Iraq [sic], or destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan. Certainly, some leftists defend American involvement in World War II, since we were fighting right wing fascists. But even here, many on the left argue that most of the heavy lifting in this war was performed by the Soviet Union, our communist allies.    DOES THE LEFT HATE ISRAEL? 

Opposition to the recent American invasion of Iraq is not a defining characteristic of a leftist. You could be opposed to the war, without being a leftist. However, some, perhaps many, of those who opposed the war are leftists, by the definition I provided above. While I was a supporter of the war effort, there were legitimate reasons to be opposed to going to war, that do not in any way raise a question of someone’s patriotism.

However, when a demonstrator carries a sign in an anti-war rally saying Stop AmeriKKKan Imperialism, or America and Israel are the Real Axis of Evil, that I think is different, and reflects not a reasoned consideration of the Iraq question, but a worldview that is anti-American, hence leftist, [!!] and guarantees opposition to the war effort. Only one other country other than the US was ever named in a sign carried by a demonstrator at the marches or rallies I saw, and that of course was Israel and always negatively.

I happened to witness several anti-war demonstrations. There were always many printed signs attacking Israel, signs in other words produced by groups that participated in anti-war demonstrations, and thought it was entirely consistent to be both against the war with Iraq and anti-Israel. Think about this issue this way: was there a single pro-war rally in the country in which there was an anti-Israel sign? I don’t remember seeing one or hearing about one. During the period leading up to the war and in the months since, has there been any supporter of the war on any talk show or newscast, or in any op-ed, gratuitously attacking Israel? [Of course not, because the war is for Israel, and those who support it are wealthy pro-Israeli traitors who don't give a d**n about America, but put Israeli interests first, including attempting to cow REAL Americans who want their country to live up to REAL American ideals]

[Moses]

What is it about Israel that brings forth this ill will from the left? Why this exceptionalism about Israel? Alan Dershowitz once wrote an article describing a visitor from another galaxy who comes to earth, and spends several weeks visiting major American colleges and universities. At the end of his tour, the visitor would learn that of all the nations of the world other than the one he was visiting, only one is subject to a divestment effort for a university’s endowment, only one is viciously described in literature regularly distributed to students on campus, and in essays and editorials in college papers and magazines, and only one is discussed in classes across the humanities curriculum with relentless rebuke and scorn. And this country is not, say Sudan or Nigeria, where millions have died in vicious civil wars perpetrated for the most part by Muslims against Christians, or other countries in Africa that still practice slavery, or Saudi Arabia, where women have no rights, and those who try to practice a religion other than Islam are arrested or expelled, or the Palestinian territories, in which homosexuals or those suspected of being homosexual, are tortured or mutilated in the same way as captured Israelis. It is not in fact, any of the dozens of other unsavory places on the planet that provide little or no freedom for their citizens and ruthlessly exploit their country’s workers and resources for the benefit of the ruling few. This much maligned country of course is Israel.[Duh. This is because the US gives so much money to Israel: though it is a small country, and is a theocracy that discriminates against all those who don't pass religious or ethnic muster, it is the recipient of more foreign and military aid than any country in the world-- what would the visitor from outer space make of that? Maybe that the US politicians had been hijacked by a wealthy elite and was sending American money and aid in a way contrary to the interests and values of the society at large? In a way that doesn't represent their constituency?]

The treatment of America itself on the college campus is pretty bad. When a Columbia University professor calls for a million Mogadishus (in other words, the death of many millions of Americans), that is beyond even what we normally get from the academic left – rationalizing and explaining the root causes of the 9/11 attacks (American policies of course), or defending suicide bombings in Israel as acts of resistance and national liberation.

But there are differences between the anger towards Israel and that directed against America. The level of anger directed against America seems to depend to some extent, among some critics at least, on the party controlling the White House and Congress. Leftists hated America less when Clinton was president than they do now. Some leftists seem so agitated by President Bush, they have become unhinged from any ability to see the world except in conspiratorial, and apocalyptic terms. With Israel, the party in power makes little difference in terms of the attitudes towards it in academia, or for others on the left. A left of center Israeli government may make Israel easier to defend for some Jews, but does not change the nature of the historical crime that was committed in establishing the Zionist state for most leftists. 

Why does the Left hate Israel? 

I believe there are several reasons:

1. It is an easy way to express one’s hatred for America. 

2. Israel is viewed as an outpost of colonialism , and an active practitioner of it.

3. Israel is a western nation, and hence can be judged by the left.  Israel is not protected by cultural relativism, as the Arabs are.

4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain.  Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land- in other words they feel threatened.

5. Ferocious Muslim hatred of Israel and the Jews reinforces the natural cowardice of many on the left who go along with the Muslims to stay out of their line of fire.

6. Jewish leftists are prominent in the anti-Israel movement. This opens the floodgates for everybody else.

7. Israel is attacked because the secular left is appalled by the influence of religious settlers and their biblical connections to the land of Israel, and by the support for Israel by evangelical Christians, and Christian Zionists.

1. Hatred of America

The most basic reason as suggested already is that those who hate America, also hate those whom America supports, of which Israel is exhibit A. For Al Qaeda, there is the great Satan, America, and the little Satan, Israel. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has made the focus of its  hatred for the great Satan,  the great Satan’s support for the little Satan. In Europe there are a much larger number of hardcore leftists than we have in the United States. Score one for America, I think. Two percent of the population vote for the Green Party here, 10% or more do so in European countries. While many think the Greens are primarily an environmental movement, the party platform in every country in which they are a factor, including the US, is replete with harsh attacks on Israel. In many European countries, the Greens are part of a left of center governing coalition, which helps explain why there is so little sympathy for Israel in Europe.

Why do the Greens hate Israel? The Greens hate the western consumer society in which they live, they hate corporations and capitalism, and they hate globalization. America is the great Satan for the Greens – the killer of Kyoto, the maker of genetically modified foods, the exporter of McDonald’s, Disney, Hollywood trash and Starbucks. So the Greens are leftist by definition. And economic leftists have an anti-American world view which tends to make them reflexively pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. This hatred of America, which spills over into anti-Israel venom, is, as mentioned earlier, also quite common on the college campuses in America.

2. Colonialism

Along with the hatred for America, comes a world view about what America and its Western allies represent. In short, the western capitalist societies are believed to be colonialists. While the European empires disbanded half a century ago in most cases, the left believes that colonialism is still evident in the economic relations of the western countries with the third world- in the exploitation of their economies. Globalization has become the catchphrase to describe how the west gets rich off of the backs of the poor countries and their people. Hence, a critical slogan of the anti-war effort in Iraq was No War for Oil. Why do western nations go to war?  To steal the resources of the Third World One might wonder about what resources we were fighting for in Afghanistan, but consistency has never been a requirement for a leftist world view.  Israel in the mind of the left is a colonialist creation. The Zionists were given a country to settle where other people already lived. Then the western nations tried to expunge their guilt for the Holocaust (which most leftists will tell you was a bad thing, though hardly unique in the long history of western colonialist genocide) by agreeing to partition Palestine and formally create one Jewish majority state and one Arab majority state. 

After 1967, the left’s job became easier in attacking Israel, since Israel became a very juicy target. By absorbing millions of Palestinians in the west bank and Gaza, Israel became an occupier. By creating settlements, Israel showed the left its desire to permanently dominate the Palestinians. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Eastern European satellite nations gained their freedom. So for the left, Israel has become the most glaring example of a western society oppressing indigenous peoples.

Now of course the left never became too agitated over the Soviet Union and their system of satellite nations. After all, the economic philosophy of communism had a lot of appeal for many on the left, even after many decades of proof that neither the Soviet Union, nor China, nor any other communist countries had created economic or political systems that had much to so with any noble visions about workers paradises that leftist philosophers might have gleaned from the writing of Karl Marx. Today’s economic explosion in China has, of course, come through the Communist party’s capitulation to capitalism. But the left did not criticize China’s now permanent occupation and annexation of Tibet, nor the movement of many Chinese into Tibet to create a Chinese majority there, nor the Soviets’ movement of hundreds of thousands of Russians into the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia after World War II, so as to diminish the percentage of the native stock in those countries. Jewish settlers are perhaps 10% of the population of the West Bank. So no-one could seriously suggest that the settlements were an attempt to create a Jewish majority in the area. Instead, stories are circulated about nefarious Israeli plans to move the Palestinian population out of these areas, and make them Arab free, in other words- ethnic cleansing, one of the left’s favorite charges.

The charge that Israel has plans to move the Palestinians out is almost amusing, since it is the reverse that is true: the Palestinians demand and the left wholeheartedly endorses the call for making the west bank Judenrein [all Jewish settlers out], yet also demands that Israel accept the Palestinian right of return, and absorb 4 million displaced Palestinians, 95% of whom are descendants of original refugees, and have never set foot within pre-67 Israel. One might ask how these people are returning to anything that is theirs or that they know, but why complicate things?

---

yada yada yada: www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5106

[RPankn]

The fringe right still exists- the neo-Nazis in Northwest Idaho, Matthew Hale, and David Duke, and the remnants of the KKK. But the views of the fringe right have been marginalized by their repudiation by virtually all mainstream elements on the political right.

Note the wailing and gnashing of teeth over these groups, but never a discussion of who is financing them. They obviously couldn't continue to exist without a stream of funds coming in, and their members certainly aren't the independently wealthy type, so why is this crucial part of the equation never discussed?

[Moses]

Notice the litany of orgs the Usraeli ringer lists as "left". Women's groups, "high protestant churches" (like the Presbys?!). The writer of this article is no American.

[RPankn]

I distinguish between leftists and liberals by one key test: how they feel about the country in which they live. If you tend to regard America as a primarily flawed, evil, unjust, racist country (or at least when Republicans are running it), and most importantly, believe that the US is the primary threat to world peace internationally, then you are a leftist, and not a liberal.

Dear God, no! How dare Leftists hold the US and Israel to the same moral, ethical and legal standards, and judge them by the same, which both countries readily impose on others. This idea of exceptionalism too closely follows the concept of "divine right" exercised by monarchies, and is precisely what the Framers were trying to get away from when they broke away from England. Thus, in this sense, exceptionalism is antithetical to true American values. But, I suppose, had to be invented because the Constitution bans the establishment of a monarchy.

[RPankn]

I happened to witness several anti-war demonstrations. There were always many printed signs attacking Israel, signs in other words produced by groups that participated in anti-war demonstrations, and thought it was entirely consistent to be both against the war with Iraq and anti-Israel. Think about this issue this way: was there a single pro-war rally in the country in which there was an anti-Israel sign? I don’t remember seeing one or hearing about one. During the period leading up to the war and in the months since, has there been any supporter of the war on any talk show or newscast, or in any op-ed, gratuitously attacking Israel?

Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because the situations of both countries are connected on a deeper level -- that imperialism, no matter who it's practiced by, or where it's practiced, is wrong -- and the protesters are simply being intellectually honest and consistent in their thinking?

[RPankn]

4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain. Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land- in other words they feel threatened.

If a visitor from outer space read this, they would think that Jews were the only ones to perish in the Holocaust, when many more groups of people were victims as well. Further, they would never hear a discussion of the Zionists' collaboration with the Nazis, which kept German Jews trapped in that country, and thus provided a pretext for the Zionists' colonization the British Protectorate in Palestine.

[Moses]

What part did the Quakers (note: deemed a "grave threat" by the Usraeli Pentagon) and the Presbyterians play in the holocaust?! The Presbyterian church is Scottish in origin! Which side of the war do they think the Presbyterians fought and died on?!

I say it again. The author and his ilk are not Americans!!

[RPankn]

Notice the litany of orgs the Usraeli ringer lists as "left". Women's groups, "high protestant churches" (like the Presbys?!). The writer of this article is no American.

admin said:

What part did the Quakers (note: deemed a "grave threat" by the Usraeli Pentagon) and the Presbyterians play in the holocaust?! The Presbyterian church is Scottish in origin! Which side of the war do they think the Presbyterians fought and died on?!

I say it again. The author and his ilk are not Americans!!

Women's rights, liberal Christian theology...these are all antithetical to fascism; which is what neoconservatism, neoliberalism and Zionism really are. Lipstick on a pig.