Right Wing Nut House

To my mind, it is one of the most amazing transformations in recent political history. After working tirelessly in the post World War II environment to assist in the establishment of the state of Israel, many on the left have forgotten the original noble impulses that spurred their advocacy for a Jewish homeland and, in some cases, replaced it with a virulent, nauseating anti-semitism.

The dichotomy has its roots in the transformation of the old left to the new. While it is true the old left embraced Soviet Stalinism, it nevertheless rejected the Soviet state’s overt anti-Semitism the same way it ignored other human rights obscenities under Uncle Joe’s regime - such things just didn’t happen in the “worker’s paradise.” But it was the refugee crisis in post war Europe that galvanized the left and spurred their support for United Nations action on establishing the State of Israel.

The war ended with millions of displaced persons including 1.5 million Jews who refused repatriation or were denied re-entry to the countries of their birth. This was due in large part to a vicious anti-Semitism, especially in Eastern Europe. It was especially true in Poland where there were several pogroms carried out against returning Jews including a massacre of 42 Holocaust survivors in Kielce. The US and Britain also failed these unfortunate refugees in American restrictions on immigration and the British refusal to allow unrestricted immigration to Palestine. The UN had put the British in charge in Palestine and the local Arab population was not keen on having hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into what they claimed were their ancestral lands.

By 1947, the situation in the camps was getting desperate. This led to the formation of several Jewish quasi-military units who began spiriting the more than 250,000 displaced persons out of camps and onto ships bound for the Holy Land. Intercepting most of these ships filled with Holocaust survivors, the British set up detention camps on the island of Cyprus to deal with this crush of humanity. These camps were administered by the British Army, not the United Nations and the conditions - little shelter, horrible food, inadequate medical care - were a disgrace.

Led by socialist groups in Europe and America (a large and vocal segment of which were Jews), the resulting international outcry spurred the United Nations into action. The British pawned the problem off to the UN at the urging of President Truman and a special session of the UN General Assembly voted on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine into two new states, one Jewish and the other Arab. The solution was embraced by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs. On May 14, 1947, the State of Israel was born.

On May 15, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded.

Fighting for their lives, outnumbered 10-1, the Israelis nevertheless prevailed. Over a nine month period, they pushed the Arab armies out of Israel while forcibly displacing some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs. This was a solution backed by the western left at the time because the armistice agreement between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria allowed for the formation of an Arab state in Judea, Samaria, and the West Bank of the Jordan River. The problem was that it was not the Palestinians who would be administering that state. The UN-brokered accord called for Jordan and Egypt to share in governing the Palestinian territory.

For the first 25 years of its existence, the State of Israel’s greatest champions in the west were on the left. Through the wars in 1967 and 1973, liberals in America lobbied for strong American support for Israel against its enemies who were seeking to destroy it.

But something happened that transitioned the left’s strong support for Israel into opposition to Israeli policies and even tipping over into anti-Semitism. And the answer can be found in the transition from the tolerance, coherence, and nobility of thought of the old left into the intolerant, riot of conceits and unabashed hatred spouted by the new left.

It wasn’t just the radicalization of politics during the 1960’s that gave the new left traction. More than anything, it was their bold forays into political advocacy that gave them real power and caused a sea change in American liberalism that booted the old left to the sidelines. Immersing themselves in Democratic party politics, the new left’s anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, statist (later anti-globalist) message that became ascendant saw the state of Israel as just one more rich state oppressing poorer ones. Forgotten was the reason for the formation of the State of Israel. Instead, the grievance culture of the new left identified with the Palestinian cause (as they identified with the bloodthirsty North Vietnamese during the war) and saw Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine a travesty of justice.

This is how the new left can look at Hizbullah and rather than seeing a terrorist group wishing to kill every living Jew in Israel they see instead a “resistance” to Zionist neo-colonialism. The Ward Churchills and Cindy Sheehans of the new left are only the most incoherent examples of a kind of virulent anti-Semitism disguised as opposition to capitalism and “racism” (as if Arabs and Jews are of a different race) that is now accepted on the new left as gospel. In fact, it is now perfectly acceptable to daydream about ridding the world of the Jewish state while making the jaw-dropping denial that this is in any way anti-Semitic.

This diary at Daily Kos sums it up perfectly: Does Israel Have a “Right to Exist?:

Might doesn’t make right, but it does determine who acts as they please.

The problem is the nations that get no respect and get anti-social as a result. It won’t help Israel to become a giant of bombers and tanks, because they cannot use their nukes.

We hope. What happens if Goliath strikes first, before David winds up his slingshot?

My answer? Evacuate Israel. Take everything that ain’t screwed down. Buy Baja, or some other available property. If it can’t be done anywhere in the world, change the culture to one of assimilation.

He is not alone. As this excellent article in The Weekly Standard by Dean Barnett points out, Daily Kos (which is the largest meeting place for the new left on the web) reveals much more of a casual, obscene anti-Semitism in its numerous diarists and commenters:

Perhaps sensing that this issue could highlight just how far removed the Kos community is from the American mainstream, Moulitsas and his other front-page bloggers have opted to ignore Israel’s war. Combined, the half dozen front-pagers have written exactly one post on the subject. And that post, authored by Moulitsas, simply declared that he wouldn’t write anything further on the subject. So while the most important story of the year develops, the nation’s leading progressive blog has chosen to focus on the Indiana second district House race between Chris Chocola and Joe Donnelly. Nothing wrong with that; it’s their prerogative to blog about whatever they like.

But inside the Kos diaries, it’s been a different story. The conversation in the diaries has been overwhelmingly anti-Israel–and potentially disastrous for the Democratic party.

One diarist labeled Israel “a destabilizing force in the region” and saw “no difference between Iran’s support of Hezbollah and Hamas in the form of finances and even arms and The United States’ financial support of Israel.” Before modifying this diary into a more moderate form, the author opened his essay with the declaration, “Israel is showing the entire world why the Iranian President was absolutely right to suggest that Israel cease being a sovereign state as is.”

Echoing the themes of moral equivalence and hostility towards the Jewish state, another diarist observed that, “War is nothing but terrorist attacks. Call it what you will, whatever rhetoric you want to use . . . when it comes down to it, that’s all it is. Israel committed terrorism today. And we helped to fund that terrorism.” [Ellipsis in original.]

It must be stressed that there is a difference between opposing the policies of the American and Israeli governments and anti-Semitism. But try as one might, it becomes virtually impossible to take such critiques as simple political disagreements when the very same rhetoric used by the anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying Arabs to call for the destruction of the State of Israel is used by the new left in their hateful rants against the Jewish state.

Clearly this metamorphosis by the left from strong support to hateful opposition towards the State of Israel can have a disastrous political effect if exploited by Republicans. However, since no prominent Democratic politician has actually come out and condemned Israels actions in the latest conflict (even though 8 House Democrats including ranking members Conyers, Dingell, Rahall, Stark and Abercrombie - all in line for Committee chairmanships if the Democrats take control - voted no on the House Resolution supporting Israel) it seems unlikely that the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic mouthings of the Democratic base will play any role at all in the November elections.

As Sir Thomas More said in Robert Bolton’s play A Man for All Seasons regarding the switching between Protestantism and Romanism by Will Roper, “Let us pray that when your head stops spinning, it ends up facing the right way.”

One can only hope that the left in America once again will face the “right way” and come home to its original lofty and noble support for one of its truly decent impulses of the 20th century - giving a battered and oppressed people a place that they could call home and where the words “Never Again” would have real as well as symbolic meaning.