Progressives Choose Fascist Anti-Semitism
– By Howard Sierer –
Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre of innocent Israeli men, women and children was shocking in two ways: for its bloodthirsty slaughter and for being accepted and supported by cheering Hamas supporters in the U.S. and Europe.
British author Brendan O’Neill’s new book, “After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation,” says that October 7 provided a “moral test” for Western civilization, and we failed it miserably. He places much of the blame on modern progressive ideology that embodies a complete repudiation of the values that liberals once held dear.
O’Neill writes, “The barbarous dearth of sympathy for the dead and raped of Israel is the logical, inhumane conclusion to a pseudo-progressive politics that judges people’s moral worth by their skin color, their presumed privilege, and their placement on a racial hierarchy fashioned by the unaccountable overlords of western opinion.”
His book exposes the hypocrisy of the anti-Israel left, showing how progressives have betrayed the cultural mores they spent the better part of two decades trying to impose on the rest of society.
In his review of the new book, Jesse Kline asks, “How did we get to a point where a supposed anti-war movement is preaching violence; where self-styled ‘anti-racists’ are espousing antisemitism; where so-called anti-fascists are actively supporting Islamo-fascists; where feminists are turning a blind eye toward mass rape by defending some of the most misogynistic regimes on the planet; and where LGBTQ activists are advocating for governments that criminalize homosexuality?”
Kline describes the “perverse political marriage between secular leftists and the religious extremists of radical Islam.” He says, “Having replaced class [economic] politics with identity politics, its old anti-capitalism with a myopic anti-westernism, and its one-time commitment to civilizational ideals with a heavy-hearted angst over the ‘sins’ of our civilization, the left found itself drawn ever closer to those other haters of everything the West stands for: Islamists.” The result: a textbook example of the old adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The book expands on several aspects of progressive hypocrisy. The chapter on feminist organizations who ignored rampant sexual violence is particularly notable. Author O’Neill describes how the feminist mantra #MeToo that urges us to “believe all women” was discarded when images of female hostages with bloodstained sweatpants and corpses with underwear around their ankles appeared on computer screens around the world.
These organizations spent years telling us that something as innocuous as a flirtatious glance or a hug in the workplace was evidence of “rape culture” run amok. O’Neill challenges progressive feminist organizations: “If the thought of a hand brushing a knee unsettles you more than the sight of Shani Louk’s battered body being spat on and hit with sticks by a mob of violent racists, it’s possible you are doing feminism wrong.”
Remember when progressives chastised whites for “cultural appropriation?” They shamed those whom they felt were wearing inappropriate Halloween costumes. They chastised authors for writing about the experiences of other races. Left-wing media outlets published “Dear white people” stories warning them not to wear dreadlocks or use Black slang. A Utah high school student was pilloried in the media for choosing to wear a Chinese dress to her prom.
Yet visit any campus nowadays and you’re likely to see lots of white kids dressed as Arabs. “It is striking that the liberal establishment’s patrician ‘Dear white people’ missives dried up completely in the face of the latest keffiyeh craze,” writes O’Neill. Today, “Keffiyeh chic is all the rage.”
O’Neill argues, “What has happened, it seems to me, is that the old dread and prejudice aimed at Jews is now projected on to the Jewish state. [Anti-Zionism] is the form that Jew scapegoating takes in the 21st century. Where once people pinned their community’s every trouble on the Jews in their midst, now people hold Israel responsible for the ills not only of the Middle East, but of the West, of the world, too.”
I join reviewer Kline who recommends “After the Pogrom” to anyone looking to get a fuller understanding of how woke progressivism has enabled the re-emergence and normalization of antisemitism and provided cover for western elites to side with theocratic mass murders.
Kline says “It should be included among the mandatory reading material on university syllabuses, if only to force students, and their professors, to examine their belief systems and confront whether their hatred toward Israel has created a blind spot that has allowed them to violate all the values they claim to hold dear.”
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