Blood Libels, Then and Now
E.M. Rose wrote an exceptional book on this topic, The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe. She explained that the blood libel was unique in several ways.MEMRI: The Formation Of The Anti-Liberal Alliance – But Liberal Is Not A Synonym Of Woke
First, it was a theory that originated and was embraced among the educated elite, not just the unwashed masses. She wrote: “This supposed ‘irrational,’ ‘bizarre,’ ‘literary trope’ was the product of lucid, cogent arguments, thoughtfully and carefully debated in executive councils, judged in detail by sober men who were not reacting under pressure to thoughtless mob violence.”
The original blood libel started with the intelligentsia and became well-accepted.
A second element she points out is that the blood libel put every Jew on trial: “Jewish identity was on trial, rather than any single individual perpetrator.”
Every Jew was guilty until proven innocent.
The 20th of Sivan is sadly once again an important date in 2024. Once again, Israel is guilty until proven innocent. Even a hostage rescue is immediately treated as a wanton massacre of innocent civilians until Israel provides video evidence to the contrary.
Once again, leading the charge against Israel are some well-educated people—professors and students at elite universities who, in their hatred of Israel, are eager to support a group of fanatical, depraved murderers. And like Thomas of Monmouth, the testimony of individual Jews, no matter how tainted, is taken to support horrific falsehoods.
The libel of Jewish ritual murder was accepted by some of the most educated people. And that opened the door to widespread violence.
Medieval antisemites believed awful things about Jews, and that gave them license to do awful things to Jews.
But one more point: The 20th of Sivan also marks exceptional heroism. The 32 Jews who were murdered in Blois died with their heads held high.
Ephraim of Bonn, the great medieval chronicler of antisemitic persecution, wrote, “It was also reported in that letter that as the flames mounted high, the martyrs began to sing in unison a melody that began softly but ended with a full voice. The Christian people came and asked us ‘What kind of a song is this for we have never heard such a sweet melody?’ We knew it well, for it was the song: ‘It is incumbent upon us to praise the Lord of all.’” (“Aleinu” on the High Holidays is sung with a special melody.)
These martyrs died singing “Aleinu.”
This is what defiance looks like.
We are the descendants of those Jews. And we too will hold our heads high and defy Hamas and its slandering sycophants.
We are witnessing the formation of an anti-liberal alliance against the West. For years, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have been trying to shape a multipolar world order, which would put an end to the Western-led unipolar one.Until Palestinians Exorcise the Ghost of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, It Will Continue to Haunt Them
As explained by the anti-liberal philosopher Alexander Dugin, the 20th century was characterized by three political theories: liberalism (the first theory), communism (the second theory), and fascism (the third theory). Fascism emerged later than the other major political theories, and disappeared before them. The alliance between the first political theory (liberalism) and the second political theory (communism) and Adolf Hitler's geopolitical miscalculations were responsible for the demise of the third political theory. Fascism's disappearance cleared the battlefield for the first and the second political theories (liberalism and communism), which during the Cold War created a bipolar world that lasted nearly half a century. The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the victory of the first political theory (liberalism) over the second (communism). Thus, by the end of the 20th century, the only theory left standing was liberalism.
However, the defeated forces did not accept liberal democracy's victory. Furthermore, new poles rejecting the "Western hegemony" emerged, among them Islamism, an anti-liberal force headed by Iran and Qatar; it has been strengthening itself since the 9/11 terror attacks.
The Islamist Pole
As mentioned, the unipolar order began to erode with the 9/11 attacks by Islamic terrorists on the U.S. The need for shaping an Islamist pole is better understood by Iran and Qatar, as both sponsor Islamist groups in the Middle East that aspire to Islamic hegemony. Hamas, sponsored by Qatar and Iran, is now on forefront of the battle for the establishment of an Islamist caliphate. Hamas official Fathi Hammad said: "We shall liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque, and our cities and villages, as a prelude to the establishment of the future Islamic Caliphate. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are at the threshold of a global Islamic civilization era."[9]
It should be noted that the Hamas covenant strongly opposes the "Crusader West." Since it was written in 1988, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the charter also counters the "Communist East." However, in recent decades, since liberal democracy became the main enemy of all the anti-liberal forces, Hamas and its patrons have joined not only modern Russia but also the communist PRC and DPKR, in order to shape a multipolar world order in which the collective West, which includes Israel, will be defeated.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) has reportedly confirmed that Hamas is also using North Korean-made weapons to fight Israel in the war in Gaza. Earlier, in November 2023, media reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had ordered officials to come up with ways to "comprehensively support Palestine."[10]
Newsweek, quoting Guermantes Lailari, a scholar at National Chengchi University in Taiwan and a retired U.S. Air Force officer, also noted that the IDF had found massive amounts of advanced Chinese military equipment and weapons technology in Gaza. Newsweek further wrote: "Chinese tunnel warfare specialists helped design and build the Hamas tunnels... [T]wo tunnel engineers from China's People's Liberation Army were discovered by the IDF, meaning that China helped Hamas significantly in its construction of the massive tunnel networks under the Gaza Strip."[11]
Conclusion
As Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea forge closer ties (Putin recently visited China and North Korea), the alliance of the anti-liberal forces is also trying to gain momentum with the help of progressive liberals, or, more accurately, woke supporters, who are being used as a fifth column to defeat the West from within. As mentioned in a previous MEMRI analysis, "liberal democracy" was the concept that was understood by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, while "progressive liberalism" has nothing to do with classical liberalism and more to do with a new totalitarian Marxist-inspired ideology.[12] It is therefore no coincidence that TikTok, owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, is spreading woke ideology in the West.
Hence, anti-liberal forces are preparing militarily and ideologically for the final battle against liberal democracy.[13] However, one question strongly resonates: Is the collective West ready for this fight?
Besides being the anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence, July 4 this year marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Amin al-Husseini, who was appointed grand mufti of Jerusalem by the British in 1921 and remained the de-facto leader of the Palestinian national movement through 1948. Thereafter, Martin Kramer writes, he faded into obscurity. He explains why:
Many mistakenly believe his collaboration with Hitler and the Nazis discredited him. It didn’t. Not only did the Arabs not care, but Western governments eyed the mufti with self-interest. The general view in foreign ministries held that he had picked the wrong side in the war, but not more than that.
What finally discredited the mufti in Arab opinion, where it mattered most, was his role in the 1948 war. It was a war he wanted and believed his side would win. In late 1947, the British sent someone to see if there might be some behind-the-scenes flexibility in his stance on partition, which he had completely rejected. There wasn’t.
[The mufti’s] underestimation of the Zionists proved disastrous, even more so than his overestimation of the Axis. He later wrote his memoirs, blaming “imperialist” intervention, Arab internal divisions, and world Zionist mind-control for the 1948 defeat. To no avail: his name became inseparable from the Nakba, the loss of Arab Palestine to the Jews. His reputation hit rock bottom, along with that of the other failed Arab rulers of 1948.
Kramer laments “Palestinian reluctance to wrestle candidly with the mufti’s legacy,” concluding:
He personified the refusal to see Israel as it is and an unwillingness to imagine a compromise. Until Palestinians exorcise his ghost, it will continue to haunt them.