[lbo-talk] Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (was Radicalism of Morons)

www.leninology. blogspot.com leninology at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 25 04:52:35 PDT 2006


Yoshie wrote:


> But it cannot be denied that leftists have successfully made
> anti-Semitism anathema, a big no-no in public discourse, so much so
> that the Right -- even the electoral far Right -- has remade
> themselves into seeming philo-Semites (though pro-Zionist
> anti-Semitism is the kernel of Christian Zionism in the USA, Christian
> Zionists court Jewish Zionist allies, and even a number of liberal
> Zionist Jews have responded favorably to their overtures to make a
> tactical alliance to support Tel Aviv); whereas Islamophobia has grown
> dramatically in recent decades,

Noticeably, the European far right is tailoring its message to respond to this. The Belgian fascists Vlaam Belang were recently given a glowing review by the WSJ because they have abandoned antisemitism and made some positive noises about Israel while talking up the anti-Muslim agenda: the WSJ piece claimed that the "real fascists" were Muslims. The BNP in Britain recently announced that it was abandoning 'conspiracy theories' and 'antisemitism' and pursuing a much more urgent anti-Muslim pogrom too. Neither are sincere, of course: Nick Griffin did not face the possibility of prison time over his antisemitic slurs only to become a philosemite overnight. But it does reflect the general trends in racist ideology, which is closely correlated to the current wave of imperialism. I doubt this is much to do with migration, however. In the US, where there is a comparatively small Muslim population, 40% of people think Muslims should have to wear special ID (maybe like those mythical badges that Iran was allegedly going to introduce). I think that although there is a lot of anti-Muslim racism in the UK, with its proportionately much larger Muslim population, you wouldn't find 40% of people willing to openly advocate such a policy even to pollsters. I could be wrong, of course.

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