The new anti-semitism of the Right takes as its object the perfidious, cosmopolitan, liberal Jew (CJs). So do Islamist fundamentalists [IFs], who conflate CJs with every other kind of Jew, and Jews with imperialism.
The IFs animus towards all Js is of a piece with their struggle against modernity, secularism, gays, and the emancipation of women. Insofar as the left is soft on Islamicists, it is soft on the bad stuff, not just supporting anti-imperialism.
This dilemma is not wished away by noting, correctly, that Islamophobia and Zionism serve imperial interests.
mbs
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 7:37 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (was Radicalism ofMorons)
On 8/25/06, www.leninology. blogspot.com <leninology at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
Yes. Matti Bunzl, an anthropologist, has an another take: anti-Semitism was an exclusionary project to purify the ethnic nation-state, whereas Islamophobia is a project to "safeguard the future of European civilization" (qtd. in Sharif Islam, "A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the Nation-State," <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/islam230806.html>).
On 8/25/06, www.leninology. blogspot.com <leninology at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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).
Japanese immigrants constituted an even smaller proportion of the US population than Arabs and Muslims do today, and yet they were hated even before Pearl Harbor.
On 8/25/06, www.leninology. blogspot.com <leninology at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
Where Arabs and Muslims have attained a certain level of weight in populations, political organization, etc., they can defend themselves better.
On 8/25/06, Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:
> You might think I'm kidding, but I'm not. When Nazis
> march, and the Left counter-demonstrates, you can
> always tell the two sides apart. The Nazis are the
> wons wearing Keffiyahs and banners proclaiming
> solidarity with the Iraqi resistance. The Antifas are
> the ones with Israeli flags and pictures of Arthur
> Harris.
Very funny. That only shows how far the far Right and Left are from political power.
The state, both in the EU and the USA, has already accepted Jews as equal citizens. It has yet to accept Arabs and Muslims in either, in part because of fear of Islam, in part because of anxiety about immigration, in part because of the tendency to suspect all Arabs and Muslims of being actual or potential terrorists.
On 8/25/06, Michael Givel <mgivel at earthlink.net> wrote:
> There is widespread
> Jewish conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.
How widespread? There are, after all, an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide.
On 8/25/06, Michael Givel <mgivel at earthlink.net> wrote:
>It is not like it is a secret as the anti-Holocaust exhibit
> in Iran is big news in places like the New York Times.
The NYT article about the Holocaust cartoon exhibit in Iran says that it is not popular in Iran at all: "The provocative theme may attract the attention of the West. But it has gone little noticed here. Over a three-day period the gallery was virtually empty. A few visitors stopped by, mostly art students who said they had visited to examine artistic techniques" (at <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html>). -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/> ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.6/427 - Release Date: 8/24/2006
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