Another false accusation of an Israeli law discriminating against Arabs

Jewish Voice for Peace writes in their email newsletter:

On Sunday, the Israeli Knesset passed a shockingly racist law — even by the standards of Israel’s apartheid government.

Under the new "sexual terrorism" law, Palestinian citizens of Israel convicted of rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment can receive double the sentence of Israelis found guilty of the same crimes. The law passed in a bipartisan vote of 39-7, and received immediate condemnation from journalists, Israeli feminist groups, and Palestinian lawmakers.

This law manufactures an image of Palestinians as more violent and more dangerous than Israelis. According to the law, a crime is inherently worse simply because a Palestinian committed it. This puts a target on the back of Palestinian men and boys, intensifying the constant threat of violence that Palestinians already live under.

Really? A law that says that Israeli Arabs would get double the sentence of Israeli Jews? 

Of course not. The law is described in Times of Israel:

The Knesset on Monday passed a right-wing-backed law that makes terrorist, nationalist or racist motivations an aggravating factor in crimes of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Aggravating factors come into play during criminal sentencing and are a consideration that can push judges toward issuing a sentence closer to the legal maximum.

The law would double compensation fines for sexual harassment motivated by racism or hostility toward certain groups. 

The entire intent of the law is to ensure that in cases like the rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher, where the smiling terrorist admitted that his attack was for nationalist reasons, that the sentence would be stricter. 

There hasn't been a huge amount of Palestinian rape of Jewish women specifically as terrorism, but they have occured. In 2012, a Palestinian kidnapped a Jewish couple and raped the woman. The court at the time did not consider this a terror attack, but the Israeli Defense Ministry did determine it was a "nationalistic" crime because of previous terror attacks by the rapist.

An Israeli woman gang-raped by four Palestinians in 2006 was likewise determined by the Defense Ministry to have been the victim of a nationalist crime. 

In these crimes, the rapist specifically seeks out a Jewish woman for attack. As heinous as any rape is, when it is done as a terror act, it is worse: the rapist does not attack Arab women but specifically Jews. 

There have also been reports of Palestinian youths sexually assaulting Jewish women on buses and other public places. Again, when they single out Jewish women for assault, that is a terror attack, not an ordinary rape.

There is nothing wrong, and certainly not racist, with saying  that a terror rape attack should have a stricter punishment than a similar attack that had no nationalistic motive. 

The law does not say anything about Arabs. If a British-born BDS activist would rape an Israeli Jewish woman he would get the same consideration for a sentence. 

As we've seen, Israeli courts have not automatically determined that every rape by a Palestinian is a terror attack, just as they do not automatically determine that every shooting by Arabs against Jews is a terror attack - some crimes have only criminal motivation.

The only bigots here are the members of JVP. Notice their wording, defining Israeli Arabs as "Palestinians" and saying that "Israelis" are all Jews. Even though very few Israeli Arabs define themselves as "Palestinian," JVP is telling them that they are not really Israeli, dismissing their own self-definition. And then JVP  calls Jews racists for passing a law against terrorism and racism. 

 

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The Left - and Palestinian racism - killed Rachel Corrie

Today is the 20th anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death, accidentally killed by an Israeli bulldozer as she acted as a human shield against a mine clearing operation.

Her death came directly because of the Leftist myth that Israelis are racist - and that Palestinians aren't.

Corrie was brainwashed by her "progressive" teachers at Evergreen College and her International Solidarity Movement colleagues. 

One of her instructors, Simona Sharoni,  not only encourages but requires students to engage in activism in her classes. Corrie received college credit for her trip to Gaza, working with her professors to call her activism an independent study program. 

A basic tenet of the far-Left, which has now become mainstream, is that Israel is an irredeemably racist entity engaged in "genocide" against non-white Palestinians. This myth is what fueled Corrie and ISM to place activists in harm's way, because of a naïve belief that they were invincible - protected by their "white privilege."

One of Corrie's fellow Evergreen students, Joe Smith, also received independent study credit for his time in Rafah while Corrie was there. "I saw ISM as a way that I could directly use my white, Western, American male privilege to directly serve underprivileged people of color," he said a week after her death.

Corrie's emails to her parents while in Gaza emphasized her unwavering beliefs that white privilege would protect her, and that her anti-Israel activism was penance for her being an American. She emailed that Israel wouldn't arrest her and hold her for a long time because "I am a white US citizen." She wrote about how ISM members could make "serious use of our international white person privilege," and said, "If the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible."

Other ISM activists admitted after Corrie's death that they felt invincible. ISM believed that "the white foreigners were the magic bullet that could neutralize Israel's overwhelming military strength." Smith himself admitted how he and his fellow ISMers felt invincible by their whiteness: "It's definitely easy to get cocky in this war zone when a tank is shooting at people and you walk up to them and shout at them, 'Hey, I'm here!' and they pack up and leave. You get so used to this idea, 'Hey, they won't hurt us.' It has really made me realize how naïve and cocky I was."

Corrie and other ISMers took huge risks with their lives because of this child-like belief that their whiteness is a superpower. In fact, an Irish activist in Rafah at the time named Jenny was nearly run down herself by a D9 that she thought she could stop. “The bulldozer’s coming, the earth is burying my feet, my legs, I’ve got nowhere to run, and I thought, ‘This is out of control.' Another activist pulled me up and out of the way at the last minute.” 

Even the Palestinians that these activists befriended considered them crazy. But there were no adults around to counteract the almost religious belief they had that Israeli racism would protect them in a war zone.

Notably, ISM would specifically recruit white kids because of this very assumption. Activists were well aware (and struggled with the idea) that they were promoting the idea of being white saviors of darker Palestinians and complicit in the racism they claim to oppose. 

But there was another reason why Corrie took such a risk that day that she was killed. And that was Palestinian racism and misogyny.

Even though these woke, white ISM activists flocked to Rafah to supposedly help Palestinians, there was much mistrust among the oppressed people of color that they deigned to help. ISM members were very concerned over an anonymous letter they had received:

[Corrie] was propelled, in part, by frustration. During the past few days she and the nine other ISM activists had become preoccupied with an anonymous letter circulating through Rafah that cast suspicion on the human shields. “Who are they? Why are they here? Who asked them to come here?” it asked. The letter referred to Corrie and the other expatriate women in Rafah as “nasty foreign bitches” whom “our Palestinian young men are following around.” 

That morning [of Corrie's death], the ISM team tried to devise a strategy to counteract the letter’s effects. “We all had a feeling that our role was too passive. We talked about how to engage the Israeli military,” Richard “Fuzz” Purssell told me by phone from Great Britain. 

Corrie, while assuming that Israeli racism would protect her, felt that if she would only take more risks, then Palestinian racism and misogyny would magically disappear. 

And that is exactly what she did.

We know now that Palestinians have treated these white international women horribly. There are many reports of how they have been raped by the Palestinians they think they are helping - and the stories are hushed up by the very organizations like ISM they volunteer for. Corrie believed that Palestinians are inherently good and Israeli Jews inherently evil, and she only had to try a little harder to prove it. 

The narrative of Israeli racism and Palestinian victimhood is fundamental to the existence of these organizations like ISM. And that false narrative is not only what killed Rachel Corrie, but also promoted a culture of Palestinian sexual assaults on her fellow, invincible, white women. 

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J-Street complains about "right-wing Jewish-American billionaires"

This fundraising email from J-Street is kind of amazing on a number of levels.

Israel is in the midst of a major political struggle.

On one side, those fighting to protect Israel’s founding ideals of democracy, equality and justice. On the other, the new hardline Netanyahu government, bent on centralizing power, circumventing the courts and cementing permanent occupation in the West Bank.

...The government’s radical plan was drawn up by the Kohelet Forum, an increasingly powerful right-wing, pro-settlement think tank that’s funded largely by two right-wing American billionaires. 

They’ve been called “the brains of the Israeli right wing” and helped draft the problematic “Nation-State Law” -- which according to Netanyahu made Israel “the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.” They were also behind Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo’s tenuous legal argument claiming that Israeli settlements in occupied territory do not violate international law.

The group is funded by two Republican Jewish-American billionaires from Pennsylvania who have also helped fund the campaigns of MAGA extremists like Lauren Boebert. They hope that GOP-style policies and values can come to dominate Israeli society....

We might not have right-wing billionaires backing our work, but we do have thousands of supporters like you. Can you chip in $18, $54, $90 -- or any other amount -- to help us fight back?

Their use of the word "Jewish" here is telling. It is meant to be a dog-whistle, just like "right-wing" and "billionaires" and "Republican." Not that J-Street is against Jews per se, but when you add Jewish to the other terms it makes them sound so much worse - as if Jewish conservatives are traitors to the liberal Jewish people. 

J-Street, of course, takes millions of dollars from wealthy left-wing people (like Bill Benter, who helped fund its start-up.) And of course, only last year George Soros gave J-Street's SuperPAC a million dollars, in addition to his other donations to the group over the years, a significant percentage of their annual budget.

Now, how would it sound if far-right people said that J-Street was heavily funded by a "Jewish left-wing billionaire"? It would sound like a dog-whistle. And that is exactly what J-Street is doing here - trying to raise money from leftist donors to counter the evil influence of "Republican, right-wing Jewish billionaires."

Beyond that, J-Street cannot counter the Kohelet Policy Forum.  What exactly would funds raised be used for? To create left-wing think tank to criticize Israel in Israel?

They are creating a bogeyman to inflame the feelings of people who hate the Right, people who hate Republicans, people who hate billionaires, and people who especially hate Jewish right-wing billionaires. They hand-wave as if giving J-Street money will do something against these nefarious forces, but the entire mailing is simply a lesson in propaganda: "Here are people you never heard of before that you should loathe so much that you will want to give us money to pretend to counter them." The fundraising wouldn't work without the appeal to emotion, and the word Jewish is used as part of that appeal. 

If it looks, sounds and smells like an antisemitic dog whistle....

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What we can (and cannot) learn about US Leftist antisemitism in the @ADL report

The ADL has released a report, "Antisemitic Attitudes in America," that is making headines today becasue it indicates that antisemitic attitudes in the US are increasing dramatically.

Over three-quarters of Americans (85 percent) believe at least one anti-Jewish trope, as opposed to 61 percent found in 2019. Twenty percent of Americans believe six or more tropes, which is significantly more than the 11 percent that ADL found in 2019 and is the highest level measured in decades.

Many Americans believe in Israel-oriented antisemitic positions – from 40 percent who at least slightly believe that Israel treats Palestinians like Nazis treated the Jews, to 18 percent who are uncomfortable spending time with a person who supports Israel.

There is a nearly 40 percent correlation between belief in anti-Jewish tropes and anti-Israel belief, meaning that a substantial number of people who believe anti-Jewish tropes also have negative attitudes toward Israel.

This is the first of a series of reports by the ADL based on this survey; a future report will compare antisemitic and anti-Israel opinions across the political and ideological spectrum. 

So while the overlap of anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes would initially appear to show that Leftist anti-Zionism is correlated with antisemitism, we cannot make that conclusion, since traditional antisemites generally also hate Israel (as much as the Left tries to claim that they are Zionist.)  If virtually all far-Right antisemites are also anti-Israel, the 40% correlation could be accurate without any Leftist (traditional) antisemites.

However, even if we assume that the overlap of classic antisemitic and modern anti-Israel opinions occur exclusively on the Right, we can still infer something about Leftist contributions to antisemitic attitudes in the US from the specific questions asked:

Some of these reflect current far-Left antisemitic discourse more than traditional far-Right applying their existing antisemitism to Israel. It may reflect that the far-Left anti-Zionism contributes to far-Right antisemitic rhetoric.

And indeed we have seen that in the past. The most extreme far-Right antisemitic publications enthusiastically and prolifically quote from far-Left sources like Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada and Max Blumenthal.

So while we cannot conclude that the far Left shares antisemitic attitudes with the far Right, there are definitely connections and influences, and this may be one reason the general index of antisemitic attitudes in the US is going up.

But this is in many ways the entire question misses the point.

One reason that my algorithmic  definition of antisemitism is (IMHO) the best out there is that it does not show bias against, even implicitly, the political attitudes of the antisemites. 

The ADL's correlation is important, but it says nothing about causation. 

Since the Left self-defines as anti-racist and socialist, it is emotionally invested in the appearances of treating everyone equally, so certainly their attitudes in any poll will reflect that self-perception. Which means that the ADL methodology, as well-intentioned as it is, has a fatal flaw.

It doesn't take into account the history of antisemitism and how it has changed over the centuries.

It started off as being against a people (this week's Torah portion includes the first expression of antisemitism in history: "“Look, the Israelite people ....may join our enemies in fighting against us....”) Christian antisemitism opposed Jews as a religion and as a people. "Scientific" antisemitism introduced the concept of hating Jews as an inferior race. Conspiracy theory antisemitism groups Jews together as planning to take over the world. And modern antisemitism ascribes all evil to the Jewish state and its supporters.

The commonalities dwarf the differences. For all of them, the "new" antisemites regarded their predecessors with some contempt, as a primitive example of bigotry unlike the newer, enlightened version. 

 For all of them, there were differences in which Jews were included as objects of hate. For all of them, some "good Jews" tried to ingratiate themselves with the new antisemites, and similarly the antisemites would embrace the "good Jews" as a shield to claim that they weren't bigots. For all of them, the Jews represented what the antisemites hated the most in the world. 

And for all of them, the vast majority of Jews in the world by any definition are framed as evil. 

People wouldn't be antisemitic if they didn't get something out of it. Antisemitism is attractive because it is a simple explanation for the ills of the world. It is attractive because the antisemites can use others as scapegoats for their own shortcomings. It is attractive for the simple reason that people want to feel superior to others. For antisemites, modern and classic, Jews represent what they hate most. 

If racism is the biggest evil, then Jews must be the biggest racists - but the new antisemites cannot admit that they are the ones being bigoted. Their hate is different, they want to believe, because it is anchored in ethics. 

But psychically, the hate is the same. It is just as toxic, just as irrational, and just as based on easily provable lies. 

The ADL, by trying to find correlation between the latest flavor of antisemitism and the older versions, does not take into account that the new antisemites specifically define themselves as impervious to bigotry, and will naturally try to avoid appearing to be one of the distasteful types of antisemites that their political enemies embrace. But of one could do a brain scan of their emotional state when they think of Israel, it would be identical to that of the KKK when thinking of Jews. 

The ADL could prove this pretty easily. They could rephrase some of their questions to refer to Zionists, not Jews:

Zionists are not as honest in their business dealings as other businesspeople.

Zionists are not warm and friendly.

Zionists have a lot of irritating faults.

Zionists are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.

Zionists have too much power in the United States today.

Zionists don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind.

Zionists have too much power in the business world.

Zionists do not share my values.

Zionists are more loyal to Israel than to America.

Zionists stick together more than other Americans.

And this is only a list of tropes that apply to traditional antisemitism. Like all previous versions, modern antisemites have added new antisemitic tropes. The ADL could add:

Zionists tend to be more racist than other Americans.

Zionists support Jewish supremacy in Israel.

Zionists are sympathetic towards right wing antisemites. 

Zionists accuse all critics of Israel of being antisemitic.

Zionists use antisemitism as a means to control Americans.

If the Leftist attitude towards "Zionists" mirror that of the Rightist attitude towards "Jews," then we would have very convincing evidence that anti-Zionism is just a new form of antisemitism. 

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01/12 Links Pt2: ADL: Number of Americans believing antisemitic stereotypes nearly doubled since 2019; Jews who defend antisemites

From Ian:

Karol Markowicz: The New Jew

The New Jew remembers the Taffy Brodesser-Akner piece about how support for Israel is no longer in fashion on the left, how “we whispered to each other that it felt like the anti-Israel sentiment was actually a new way of being openly anti-Semitic, somehow wrapping it up in a Democratic cause” and how that piece made him sad. Today it would make him angry. How dare the mealy-mouthed left question the existence of the only Jewish state? We're done explaining anything to anyone anymore.

When someone is found to be a Jew-hater (a term far preferable to the clunky “antisemite”) he thinks “please, just don’t take them to the Holocaust museum.” Having to prove our humanity to people who hate us is embarrassing and the New Jew refuses to do it. We are not here to beg “please don’t hate us” and show them how much we have been hated by others. We’re here to say we mean “Never Again.” We’re here to boo when you think we won’t have guns to protect ourselves.

Her favorite Jewish organization is Tikvah because they didn’t flinch when the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan demanded they disinvite Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from their Jewish Leadership Conference. The boldness was appealing. The event went on, the protestors impotently raged outside, and the Jews inside got to say: we invite who we want.

The New Jew furtively discusses admiration for Bari Weiss if she’s at the beginning of her journey away from the left and brazenly Ben Shapiro if she’s exited the building.

Religiously, the New Jew is either Orthodox or shul-less. She noticed that Reform and Conservative synagogues stayed closed for too long during Covid and when they re-emerged they were temples to leftism not G-d. She fills in her worship at Chabad, because they’ll never turn Shabbat into a struggle session, but it’s not an exact fit. The shuls will get there. They’ll have to. Their empty pews will be their signal.

She has broken with Facebook or Instagram friends who said vile things about Israel while Jews hid from bombs in basements in Tel Aviv. He has looked at his family, or dreamed about the one he hopes to have, and said "Not us. Not ever."

He discovers there are many others like him, so many others, and they’re welcoming and accepting as we all navigate together being independent Jews in the freest of countries.

The gun booing was telling because it wasn't about quietly owning a firearm. It was about letting others know that you do. It was about standing up for that right, standing up against the idea that our people will always be sitting ducks. We will not be.

A real political realignment to accompany this shift is coming. It is not here yet. One issue, like support for Israel, often leads to change on other issues, like gun rights. One little time you pull out a thread and where has it led? The whole shawl of Jews-always-being-liberals unravels.

Israel is an imperfect example but it's still instructive. Israel was once a left-leaning country. It is not today. The shift runs parallel to what is happening with Jews in America. Leftism rewards victimhood and the New Jews have decided to be victims no more.

Melanie Phillips: An ancient spoon stirs American mischief against Israel

So why is the U.S., which claims to be Israel’s staunch ally, giving credence to a false Palestinian identity created to write the Jews out of their own history?

The Biden administration’s sympathy with the Palestinians is well documented. It has persistently refused to call them to account for their murderous aggression and incitement. It continues to fund them regardless of their “pay-for-slay” rewards to terrorists’ families. It forces Israel to undermine its own security in pursuit of a “two-state solution” that the Palestinian Arabs have refused for almost a century.

In creating a new role of special envoy to the Palestinians, for which it appointed a man with a record of profound hostility to Israel, Hady Amr, the administration upgraded the Palestinians’ status by giving them direct and public access to the U.S. government. It has also appointed other profound enemies of Israel to several prominent positions within the administration.

But what the Assyrian spoon transfer reveals is that the Palestinian Big Lie is being promoted as truth by none other than the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11 to protect America against terrorist attacks.

Far from being a key link in the chain of Western security, the DHS has internalized the fiction about Palestinian identity that is promoted as a principal weapon in the war of extermination against Israel—and is in turn the flag behind which march the Islamist foes of the West.

Noll said of the spoon transfer, “This is a historic moment between the American and Palestinian people and a demonstration of our belief in the power of cultural exchanges in building mutual understanding, respect and partnership.”

It was certainly a historic moment. What it demonstrated, however, was that the Biden administration is a far more profound foe of Israel and the Jews than most people have yet realized.

Zionism is more than just a viewpoint and passion - opinion

ZIONISM INSPIRES the Jewish people to this day, through heroes like the Maccabees, who fought for freedom in ancient Israel. It is what triggers mourning for the destruction of the Jewish temples in Jerusalem thousands of years ago.

Zionism is what powers the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the land of Israel, which is constantly reinforced by new archaeological findings. These discoveries date back to the times of King David, whose own Zionism led to him declaring Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish nation, uniting that nation once again.

Zionism is what has accompanied the Jewish people through centuries of exile, crusades, conquerors, pogroms, persecution and the Holocaust.

Zionism is all the above and more. It is such a core element of the Jewish people that it is part of our religion, our oral and written history, our traditions and our national memory. It is an inherent part of our sense of peoplehood. Regardless of whether we live in Israel or not, or agree with the current Israeli government or not, Zionism is part of who we are.

While these clubs and others claim that their only goal is to boycott Zionists, the outcome of their actions is excluding and silencing Jews and Jewish voices on campus. An outcome that, if not confronted, could expand well beyond the halls of UC Berkeley.

These attempts to portray Zionism as merely a viewpoint are a transparent backdoor to excuse antisemitism - a backdoor that must be nailed shut. The way, to do so is to show the OCR and the world that Zionism is an intricate part of the Jewish people, their identity and their shared ancestry. Zionism must be recognized for what it is: an integral part of Jewish Identity not only by the OCR in its investigation but the wider public.

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Some over-the-top articles about the new government in Israel

Here are some excerpts of articles about the new Netanyahu-led government, showing how over-the-top and hysterical some analysis is:

The alarm clock rang long ago already. It rang at fascist speeches by ministers. It appears that we turned it off and slept on. Now it is ringing again . . . One feels like weeping in view of the darkness that is slowly descending on our lives; in view of the takeover of extremist and racist opinions and worldviews, sometimes in such flagrant fashion as in this instance, and sometimes without our even being aware that it is happening. (1)

The new, anti-liberal Israeli Right and Religious Zionism have joined forces, following the logic that guides totalitarian regimes, [aiming] to capture the souls of the pupils and to transform them from lovers of people into stuck-up nationalists. This is the way to turn Israel from a Jewish and democratic state into a religious-nationalist state with a thin veneer of democracy. (2)

It looks like Weimar, it smells like Weimar; it’s malignant like Weimar. We aren’t the Weimar Republic, but a lot of what is happening here is reminiscent of what happened there’. (3)

‘Think of the media as a giant keyboard that the government can play on,’ famously declared Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, who certainly knew a thing or two about communications and cinema, and about the psychology of the masses. On this point, at least, the present Israeli government is acting as though in agreement with him. (4)

This is a sophisticated revolution, full of scheming, that rests on an obedient, ‘normative’, even liberal and tolerant Revolutionary Guards. The sort whose very inaction and habituation feed the revolution. They are sure that we are not Iran, and that we won’t become like Egypt or Turkey. No one is going to surprise them one morning with the execution of intellectuals and the burning of books. There will be no need for that. What happens here is that people march politely along with the revolution, saluting it proudly. (5)

Don’t be surprised if one day someone in civilian dress knocks on your door and takes you for questioning. For two days no one will know your whereabouts, and then you’ll be released, with no explanation . . . We will howl that its ‘undemocratic’. . . and they’ll say, ‘You can say “undemocratic” in Sweden; not by us’. (6)

I'm sorry, did I imply these articles are recent? No, they are from seven years ago. 

1. S. Kadmon, “Between the Wall and the Fence” (Yedioth Aharonoth, December 31, 2015)

2. M. Kremnitzer, “Human Rights? A Whole Lot of Nonsense” (Globes, December 9, 2015).

3. N. Barnea, “Not Even Death will Liberate from Betrayal” (Yedioth Aharonoth, January 28, 2016).

4. N. Anderman, “Regev Learned from Netanyahu How to Crush the Cinema” (Haaretz, March 29, 2017).

5. Z. Barel, “We, the Revolutionary Guard Corps” (Haaretz, February 24, 2016).
6. Y. Klein, “Please, Censor Me” (Haaretz, January 27, 2016).

None of the confident predictions about the government came true.

I have no idea what the new Israeli government will do. But the point is - neither does anyone else. Especially the types of people that made these confident predictions in 2015 and whose jobs rely on their newspapers getting eyeballs. 

I found these excerpts in a recent academic paper in Israel Affairs titled, "‘It’s a war on Israel’s liberal democracy’: the Israeli left as a moral panic community, 2015-19." The abstract is worth reading:

This article examines the discourse of the Israeli Left in the years preceding the succession of general elections in 2019–21, with a focus on claims of the purported threats to democracy presented by the right-wing government. Rhetorical analysis of opinion pieces and political commentary in the press on issues relating to education, science, and culture shows recurrent use of appeals to fear – such as comparisons with totalitarian regimes and invocation of other dystopian spectres resulting from nationalist indoctrination and processes of ‘religionization’. This article defines the appeal to fear and other forms of the Left’s identity claims making during this period as moral panic discourse, around which the Left sought to revive its relevance in the public debate at a time when it was viewed as a marginal political force in ideological decline. The article’s main argument is that while the labelling of the Right as a ‘danger to democracy’ has been entrenched in leftist discourse since the 1977 ‘Upheaval’, during the period in discussion it became the principal – almost sole – theme in leftist publicist discourse, serving as a flag issue around which the Left reorganised its identity as the ‘democratic camp’.

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The Jewish Left is silent when white supremacists are featured in Iranian media

From Iran's Tasnim News:

Gen. Soleimani’s Assassination Extra-Judicial, War Crime: Ex-US Senate CandidateTEHRAN (Tasnim) – Mark Dankof, a former US Senate candidate, called the US assassination of Lt. General Qassem Soleimani “extra-judicial” and a “war crime” under international law.

Who is this guy?

Mark Dankof has made broadcasts with David Duke (whose interviews have also been published by Iranian English-language media.) He has written for the white supremacist American Free Press and the neo-Nazi National Vanguard. He has quoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and has spouted explicit antisemitism on a number of occasions.

His Senate campaign in Delaware in 2000 attracted 0.32% of the vote.

Also published by Iranian media today is this article by Robert David Steele where he blames "Zionists" for misleading Trump about the airstrike on Soleimani. Steele (under a slightly different name, but the same person) has previously written a pamphlet called "Zion in Shiksa-Land: Harvey Weinstein – First Major Jewish Pedophile Domino in the USA." He has written for Tehran Times about the need to unify Muslims and white nationalists against "Zionist Israel."

So why does the anti-Israel Left, who claim to be so sensitive to the white supremacist style of antisemitism that they insist is really the only one, so silent about the white supremacism that is published by Iran's English Language propaganda "news" sites? (Dankof and Steele are hardly the only ones.) Dankof hits all the boxes - former Republican, far right white supremacist antisemite. But when PressTV features Dankof or the other white supremacists who have been interviewed or written for them, and pushes explicitly antisemitic opinions, the Jewish Left who speak non-stop about white nationalist antisemitism is suddenly struck dumb.

Could it be that they hate Israel so much that they support the theocratic, misogynist, terror supporting Iranian regime over Israel, and therefore they are willing to give a pass to white supremacists and pure antisemitism published by Iranian media?

Could they be pretending that since Iran claims to not be antisemitic, its many antisemitic articles published in state-run media are somehow not important?

Or could it be that they claim to be against antisemitism but only when it perfectly aligns with their political beliefs, which are more important than opposing Jew-hatred from any corner, even the far right?

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