"Why Does the Left Hate Israel?"

ChronWatch ^ | Feb.21, 2003 | by Cinnamon Stillwell

[conservativecorner]

I’ve asked myself on many occasions: ''When there are so many countries in the world that do injustice both to their own people and to others, why does the left focus so exclusively on Israel?''

What about China’s occupation of Tibet or Syria’s occupation of Lebanon? What about the repression and tyranny of the Arab nations surrounding democratic Israel, including the Palestinians who, let’s not forget, practice honor killings, lynch ''collaborators,'' suppress the media, and whose leaders funnel funds meant for the people to terrorists?

The real reason the left hates Israel is two-fold. First of all, they have been hijacked by Palestinian Nationalism and secondly, they don’t like uppity Jews. And to mollify those who will immediately claim that anti-Israel sentiments do not amount to anti-Semitism, let me just say that I don’t buy it.

I’m not sure when Palestinian Nationalism began to seep into the left’s dogma, but it appears to have been in the last 15 years or so. I first noticed this trend during a protest of the Gulf War, where I saw pro-Palestinian propaganda with a distinctly anti-Semitic edge to it. It was around this time that the term ''Zionists'' began to be used as a fill-in for all Jews who simply supported the continuing existence of the state of Israel and as such, were deserving of contempt. In short, ''Zionist'' became the politically correct term for ''Hebes.'' The years since have only solidified this pattern and these days, the anti-war protesters are more hateful than ever.

I’ve had the unique experience, while taking part recently in counter-protests, of witnessing the wrath of the Palestinian Nationalists up close and personal. The graying hippies wearing Intifada T-shirts and spitting in my face, women in burkas unfurling Palestinian flags in front of my signs, Arab-American teenagers telling me they want to ''kill all the Jews,'' and being called a ''Zionist Pig,'' are just a few of the precious moments I’ve taken home from ''peace'' rallies. This is the ugly side of the anti-war movement, among others, and they don’t want it publicized.

Indeed, the formerly celebrated Jewish liberal Michael Lerner, has recently been excommunicated for daring to criticize A.N.S.W.E.R., the main organizer of the anti-war protests. This is apparently a no-no among a movement that doesn’t tolerate dissent. Lerner also committed the crime of refusing to consign Israel to the dustbin of history. He didn’t go along with the program and for that, he became persona non grata.

The left only likes Jews as long as they’re victims, passively marching to the Nazi death camps, or in this case, to the Mediterranean Sea. They can deny that they’re anti-Semitic by pointing to their loyal Jewish comrades, who fail to recognize the enemy. These Jews are acceptable because they either want the destruction of Israel, too, or at the very least, won’t stand in the way. But give a Jew a gun or God forbid, a tank, and suddenly they become the enemy. The left, it seems, prefers suicidal Jews to tough ones.

The left demands nothing of the Palestinians and everything of the Israelis. What, besides anti-Semitism, accounts for this double-standard? The anti-war crowd can continue to try and claim the moral high ground when it comes to questions of war and peace, but none of it will ring true, so long as their blatant hatred for Jews festers in the background.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Glad to see someone not mincing any words.....the left is anti-Semitic.

I guess that means David Duke now can be a card-carrying Liberal?

[WorkingClassFilth]

Just a thought...

Because Marxism is the current form of paradise to those of a material mindset, the higher values and absolutes of traditional Western faith are seen as impediments to the 'new' freedom (i.e., self-fulfillment) and global peace (i.e., the harmony of inconsequential beliefs).

In a nutshell, many of the ideals the middle class, those embodied in the American Constitution and the tenets of traditional Judeo-Christian belief are an anathema to those who view the end of all things as an earthly paradise when humanity can reach its greatest potential without the restrictions of ages past. As a result, devout Jews and Christians alike are roadblocks and enemies to this age's brand of humanist.

Israel, despite not being a theocratic state, still represents the concept of Divinity and sacred law. This is the bone in the throat for a generation unable to reconcile itself to absolutes.

Of course, they believe they are cutting edge in their doctrines of universal spiritualism and non-violence (outside of their means and ends) and the erasure of national identities, but they are cut from the same bolt of cloth that bowed to Molech and sacrificed their children so that their crops would be good.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[ChemistCat]

I would love to see what the reaction on DU would be to this.

Denial, denial, defensiveness, and....

[randita]

Netanyahu has said that Arafat has a public relations strategy and team second to none. Arafat and his PR team have, through lies and deception, successfully convinced most of those in the Arab world and quite a few in the Western world that Israel is the agressor and the Palestinian people are helpless victims.

In today's world, if you can convincingly claim victimhood status, you will automatically win the support of the left.

[backhoe]

Locator ^

[GunRunner]

The left hates Israel because the Palestinians are poor and have darker skin. They are conditioned to automatically root for the poorer, uneducated, darker skinned person; its an unconscious reflex for them. They dislike Israel because they view the Israeli people as neo-colonialists who stole the land from the darker skinned people, which is why they also support terrorist enablers like Mugabe and Mandela.

[GunRunner]

I'll bet that 90% of those that you speak are Jewish themselves, like Lieberman and Schumer. But this guy was not talking about the few dozen people you know, but of the whole liberal mindset that was so aptly demonstrated at the protests last week; and the leftist mindset is definitely anti-Israel.

[GunRunner]

In today's world, if you can convincingly claim victimhood status, you will automatically win the support of the left.

Not only that, but they have chucked the whole stolen land argument and grabbed onto the "human-rights" bandwagon. They realized that the way to gain sympathy in the West is not to act like your land has been stolen, but to claim your enemy is guilty of "human rights" violations.

[Austin Willard Wright]

70 billion dollars of aid to Israel! Take Israel (the number one receipient of U.S. taxpayer aid) off welfare? Ooops, I guess that means that I "hate" Israel.

[trebb]

The Left is inherently fascist and endeavors to control everyone it can. It hates it when people stand up for themselves, think for themselves, etc.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

The real reason the left hates Israel is two-fold. First of all, they have been hijacked by Palestinian Nationalism and secondly, they don’t like uppity Jews. And to mollify those who will immediately claim that anti-Israel sentiments do not amount to anti-Semitism, let me just say that I don’t buy it.

The author misses some import points. The left is comprised of collectivists who hate capitalism. Jews span the social-political spectrum from collectivists to entrepreneurs. The wandering Jew of old made his way as a banker and merchant, livelihoods both reviled by the collectivists. It's the entrepreneur that sticks in the mind of the socialist when he thinks of Jews not the collectivist Jew. The one world vision Socialist sees groups as absorbed into one big collective. Here the Jews are distinguished from the disenfranchised “oppressed” groups and do not qualify for empathy from the socialist. Jews stick together too much for the likes of the socialist. Jews have another fault in the mind of the socialist. Jews identify with each other by way of religion as well as ethnicity. The hardest of socialists despise religion, especially the Jewish one that is the source of two major religions.

When analyzing socialists one has to keep in mind the things the socialist hates most – strong individuals, capitalism, and religion – in that order. The socialist thugs first beat up individuals. They then steal from the capitalists. They finally kill the religionists who belong to the next biggest thing to them. It is possible to be a Jew and hate Israel; that is if you buy into the idealism of socialism. One ought to bear in mind whatever ill the socialist deals out to the Jew will be carried out on individuals, capitalists, and religions. The Jew is the canary in the mine of poitics.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Saying that Israel (which has received over 70 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayers aid) "stands up for itself" is like saying that welfare queens stand up for themselves when they pester bureaurcrats for more free money.

[TexanAmerican]

The better question is, "Why does the left hate America?"

[lafroste]

Obviously the totality of the Palestinian problem is simply the raison dujour (dang it, it just occured to me that I have to stop using all those snotty french expressions, perhaps we should translate them into spanish or italian in an effort to drive out the french influence on modern thought.) since the palestinians are a made up group composed of the scum the Jordanians threw out of their country in the late 40's and had no existence before that; whereas anti-semitism has raged unabated for several thousand years.

That kind of animosity through the ages seems to me to be only attributable to Divine intervention. The form is fairly straight-forward:

God throws Satan out of Heaven;
Satan wails and curses God;
God chooses Abraham and his descendents to be His chosen people;
Satan tries to destroy the Jews as payback.

When someone expresses an unreasoning hatred of the jews, I sometimes detect a whiff of who their leader really is.

[stuartcr]

There were anti-Semites long before there were lefts or rights.

[monocle]

The real reason becomes apparent if the left were more accurately called what they truly are - socialists. In Europe for Christian beliefs, the Jewish people became the moneychangers and some Jewish families became very wealth, e.g. the Rothchilds. The Jewish tradition more than most others place a high value on education which always translates into economic success. Economic success is the antithesis of socialism which demands economic parity, regardless if that parity is at a dismal level. Socialism, whether of the Nazi or communist strain, has been the cause of more Jewish deaths than has occurred in the Mideast. Socialism being so contrary to human nature requires scapegoats to survive and grow and what greater scapegoat than a people who give living testimony to the futility of socailism.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Nope. Israel takes the $70 billion dollars and stands up for America -- and does a lot of the dirty work for America that American can't, because of political reality -- like taking out Iraqi nuclear plants ten years before it's politically viable.

[LarryM]

"70 billion dollars of aid to Israel! Take Israel (the number one receipient of U.S. taxpayer aid) off welfare? Ooops, I guess that means that I "hate" Israel."

You don't seem to be complaining about aid to Egypt, Jordan, etc. The total aid given to Arab countries exceeds that given to Israel. I don't hear any complaints from you about money spent on NATO, South Korea, etc. You make the exact point of this article. Why is it that you only bitch about Israel?