Thursday, February 26, 2026
From Ian:
How the Revolutionary Left Embraced Radical Islam
How the Revolutionary Left Embraced Radical Islam
In 2006, in a public discussion of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, the feminist scholar Judith Butler characterized Hamas and Hezbollah as “part of the global left.” Butler’s remarks provoked a scandal at the time, but after the October 7 attacks, it became common to hear Western leftist protesters chanting slogans like “long live Hamas!” How did Middle Eastern terrorist groups rooted in radical Islamic ideology come to occupy such a central place in otherwise secular left-wing politics? In The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s, journalist Jason Burke takes up this question, exploring the historical roots of the Palestinian national movement and situating its rise within the transition from 1970s left-wing radicalism to the emergence of radical Islamism, which reshaped global politics in the 1980s.Seth Mandel: The Emotional and Intellectual Fragility of Anti-Israel Activists
Burke’s account brings to life the central figures of this transnational revolutionary movement: Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fusako Shigenobu of the Japanese Red Army, Ulrike Meinhof from the German Red Army Faction, and “Carlos the Jackal,” the nom de guerre of the sociopathic Venezuelan-born gun for hire Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. These leftist militants moved fluidly across borders, traveling from sympathetic regimes in the Middle East to hubs of revolutionary fervor, most notably the PLO’s refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. They hijacked airplanes and marched with Kalashnikovs in the desert. Inspired by the revolutionary tracts of Frantz Fanon, Régis Debray, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong, they forged a transnational network of anti-colonial insurgency and solidarity.
These left-wing radicals took Mao’s dictum that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” to heart and concluded that electoral politics and peaceful protest were insufficient for taking on the global forces of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism. But this analysis also created its own problems. The enemy these militants fought was not a single politician, national government, or corporation, but a vast, complex global political and economic system, so it was always unclear how a small number of assassinations and kidnappings could defeat it.
This is part of why Israel became their primary target. The radicals of the era viewed the Jewish state as the most egregious manifestation of capitalist decadence and settler colonialism, but also as small and weak enough to be brought down through violent direct action. By doing so, they believed they could hasten the inevitable collapse of a rotten Euro-American imperial system.
The ideological current underpinning this radical global project was internationalism. Building on Marx’s dictum that class conflict had no national boundaries, these radicals traveled the world for training, combat, and refuge. From the street cafes of Paris to the Arab communist enclave of Aden, the revolutionaries searched for hideout spots and friendly governments in far-flung parts of the world. For example, “Carlos the Jackal,” settled in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen after fleeing authorities in Europe.
Burke offers a compellingly detailed picture of these radicals’ delusions of grandeur and the many comical contradictions that hampered their efforts. For example, a group of British Trotskyists drank alcohol in a PLO training camp and got into a fist fight with British Maoists as well as with the Palestinian guards who tried to confiscate their bottles. The German Red Army Faction mistakenly incorporated a submachine gun used by West German security forces into their logo, instead of the Kalashnikov, the weapon most associated with anti-colonial resistance. German radicals were so repulsed by the dirtiness of a PFLP office in Yemen that they went on a blitzkrieg-style cleaning spree. These militants romanticized the life of the revolutionary and were convinced they were forging a more just world, but they were constantly undermined by their own incompetence, poor planning, bad tempers, and cultural cluelessness.
The few stills from the video presentation that have leaked focus on Islamophobia and something called “anti-Palestinian racism.” One example of anti-Palestinian racism, provided on a slide about “APR in Education,” is: “Being called Antisemitic if they are Pro-Palestinian or speak up about APR.”The Real Reason the “Pro-Pals” Did not speak out on behalf of Iranians
This is a neat trick, and it is in line with the wider speech-chilling campaign conducted by pro-Hamas propagandists: It is “racist” to call someone an anti-Semite.
Because this idea is ubiquitous among Gaza Westerners, it tells us a few things about members of this movement.
First, they exhibit a level of emotional and intellectual fragility that is, frankly, pathetic. This training reportedly showed a map of Israel replaced by the Palestinian flag, and yet “teaching students that ‘Israel is a free democratic state’ would render teachers ‘racist’ in the eyes of the board,” Hummel explains. That the “pro-Palestinian” narrative relies on such Stalinism is not unrelated to the fact that much of modern anti-Zionist propaganda was produced by the Soviet Union in the first place. Yet even by the standards of anti-freedom Hamasniks, this scale of reality-aversion in adults is frightening.
Second, the process by which this campaign is being carried out is anti-democratic in the extreme. That means the system will be anti-democratic about everything it does. Israel isn’t the exception but the rule. The ultimate target, then, is the Western system of liberty and self-government, with which strident anti-Zionism is entirely incompatible.
Third, the terminology is an assault on language. “Anti-Palestinian racism” is a ridiculous, self-contradictory phrase that ought to be laughed out of the room. If it were racism, they could just call it racism. Since it isn’t, its proponents have come up with a term that means “pretend ‘Palestinian’ is something it’s not.”
And fourth, absolutely none of the movement’s complaints about “policing anti-Israel rhetoric” are to be taken seriously. These lunatics are arguing that openly calling for genocide against the Jews is not only within the bounds of neutral argumentation but that it is fundamental to the identity of what might be called Palestinianism. But saying “Israel is a democratic state” is so “racist” that educators have to be trained not to say it around children.
As this type of “equity” training colonizes Western academia at every level of schooling, it’s easy to see why these activists want it kept secret. Any self-respecting person would be ashamed to be a part of it.
The author seems to think this is perfectly understandable under the circumstances of the Palestinians’ lives imposed on them, not by their own leaders who drag them into incessant conflict, but because of Israel’s terrible treatment of Palestinians [2](also in the West Bank- I guess the Gazans were channeling their brothers and sisters.) In point of fact, Israel had not stepped foot in Gaza since 2005. Only when Hamas was elected to lead and resumed firing rockets at Israeli towns on a near daily basis, did Israel together with Egypt impose a blockade to prevent the Gazans from bringing in more tools of destruction (it didn’t work).
Mr. QJ laments the number of deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis but you know what he never mentions even once? Hamas and a good part of the Palestinian population at large, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and killing Jews as they have threatened to do repeatedly. And we had a front row seat to how that threat has been and, if given the opportunity, will continue to be carried out, on October 7, 2023. Israel set out to destroy Hamas so that the October 7 atrocities can never be repeated — and all of its actions in Gaza were proportionate to war’s purpose. No one forced Hamas to store munitions in schools and use hospitals as a base for military operations or to shoot from people’s homes making civilian casualties unavoidable.
The author’s point is essentially this: We don’t need to stand up for Iranians because there is substantial agreement in the country that what Iran is doing is wrong. We need only protest Israel’s actions because Israel has the support of its American ally.
So notwithstanding the real genocide in Sudan, no need to support the Sudanese because we all agree that they are oppressed and the United States is not supporting Sudan,
Tell that to the people who spoke out on behalf of the Ukrainians and against the South African apartheid.
What message does silence send to the Iranian people who are risking their lives for freedom? Some suffering is more worthy than others?
In other words, instead of answering the question—why some activists ignore atrocities in Iran—the author takes the opportunity to add to the slanderous vitriol against Israel who are portrayed as uniquely evil and invents a narrative that absolves him of any moral responsibility, Iran as irrelevant, and critical thinking is nowhere in sight.
This was not an article to be taken seriously on its merits and I would not usually pay attention to this kind of drivel but the author has 18,000 followers and lots of support. Fair minded people cannot allow antisemitic voices to continue slandering the State of Israel without raising our hands.
Buy 
