The Left's Dark Alliance With Islam

[LeahWill]

Also: I question your assertion that BSG considered / considers you anti-Semitic. If you aren’t accusing Israel of genocide, then I do NOT see BSG putting you in that camp (a camp that DOES exist).

Killing Hamas quickly saves Gazan lives. Hamas want to exterminate all the Jews and yet you support them.

And where do you pull the evidence that I support Hamas from...? Probably the most stupid thing you have ever posted.

To be straight, and as I have already told you - I think their attacks of October 7th were a vile abomination against humanity, and I abhor anyone, or any organisation, that has as a goal the 'extermination' of any race.

I support peace and justice. You support the genocide of Jews.

 

[LeahWill]

It’s that double standard unrealistic purity test from "the left" again: You must be PERFECT (especially when it comes to Israel-Gaza), or you’re unacceptable…

 

[Lazaran]

That is one way to avoid being challenged…

Weak, but it is one way…



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[Lazaran]

You may want to read the two posts that started your tirade a bit more closely:





BSG cited generally accepted numbers FROM HAMAS for the TOTAL number of deaths (casualties) in Gaza related to Israel’s offensive actions (WAR).

That number of deaths (casualties) DID include about 35,000 men of “fighting age” and did NOT differentiate between civilians and fighters. Hamas also did NOT specify whether or not the other 35,000 (or so) deaths (casualties) included underage fighters or persons connected to / affiliated with Hamas.



Meanwhile:

BSG claimed that Iran killed more of its own civilians THIS YEAR (30,000 in just ONE MONTH - but most occurred in a two day slaughter) than the number of civilians casualties related to the Israeli offensive (WAR).

That ^ is NOT far fetched. The numbers may be slightly off in either direction for both instances, but they are close enough to support BSG’s general claim.

And BSG’s PRIMARY claim (argument?) is that: 1) There is NOT a genocide in Gaza, and: 2) There IS a far more egregious ACTUAL genocidal event occurring in Iran (etc) - but "some people" only seem concerned about what Israel is doing / has done in response to the worst mass murder of Jews in a single day (10/7) since the Holocaust.



Side note:

Ironically, all that bogus talk of genocide being perpetrated by Israel during President Biden’s administration helped get DonOld Trump elected.

Is everybody happy NOW???



WE. TOLD. THEM. SO.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

the agenda of “Stealth Jihad” . . . convenient political alliance between the woke left and the Stealth Jihad . . . perpetrated with the help of leftist NGOs and politicians . . . an average IQ of 67 . . . etc.

Some further points on the Brandon Smith screed from which ReichGuide makes his ‘illuminating’ assertions.

Claim 1: There is a coordinated ‘Stealth Jihad’ conspiracy systematically destroying Western civilization from within.

Brandon Smith’s piece rests entirely on the 1991 Mohamed Akram memorandum. He turns a tactical internal Brotherhood planning document into proof of a world-historical conspiracy. The logical leap is enormous.

In the first place, The Brotherhood is a real organization with a real agenda. The memo is a genuine document. It was produced during the Holy Land Foundation investigation. But the claim that it is successfully orchestrating the transformation of Western society by using ‘the left,’ NGOs, governments, academics, and the media as willing or unwitting instruments!? That requires that virtually every liberal or left-leaning institution in the world is, in effect, a branch of a 100-year Islamic conquest plan. Is that a political argument, or is it a paranoid cosmology? Illuminating . . .

The actual explanation of these alarming [Smith and ReichGuide] social changes [secularization, multiculturalism, immigration] lie in the logic of global capitalism itself! Mass migration is driven by the wars and economic devastation that Western imperialism has inflicted on the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, regime-change operations in Libya and Syria, decades of IMF structural adjustment programs — they produced the population flows now reshaping European and American demographics. The US ruling class does benefit from immigration, but not as a tool of ‘Stealth Jihad;’ it is rather as a source of cheap, of exploitable labor and as a wedge issue to divide the working class. That's what articles as Smith's seek to accomplish. These anti-Islamic campaigns aim to divide the working class, to suppress opposition to imperialist war, and direct social tensions into reactionary ends.

Claim 2: Muslim immigrants — specifically Somali immigrants — are characterized by an average IQ of 67 and ‘cannot’ independently carry out complex schemes.

This is pseudoscientific racism, full stop. The claim that population-level IQ statistics [deeply contested methodologically and historically weaponized by eugenicists] explain political behavior and justify exclusion comes from Nazi social Darwinist tradition. When Trump and his ideologues promote fascist claims of genetic inferiority of migrants, they echo language that is functionally identical to what appears in ReichGuide’s piece.

When Smith writes of Somali immigrants ‘coming from a country with an average IQ of 67…are not capable of instituting such a plan on their own,’ he reproduces the same biological-determinist framework the Nazis used to justify genocide. Nazi ideology was rehabilitated in mainstream discourse through precisely this kind of IQ-and-immigration argumentation, as with Germany's Thilo Sarrazin.

Claim 3: "Multiculturalism" is simply Gramsci's Marxist ‘cultural hegemony’ strategy updated for demographic warfare.

This is a stunning misreading of Gramsci. And whereas Smith briefly describes the Prison Notebooks with surface accuracy before grotesquely distorting them, it more likely is deliberate falsification than his ignorance that we see.

Gramsci's analysis of hegemony gave description to how the ruling class maintains power through culture, ideology, and consent rather than naked force alone. His ‘war of position’ was a strategy for the working class to build counter-hegemonic institutions [trade unions, workers' parties, socialist culture] as a necessary complement to eventual revolutionary struggle. It had nothing to do with demographic invasion, nothing to do with Islam, and nothing to do with ‘woke’ politics. Gramsci was a communist who died in Mussolini's prison. To equate his thought with Islamic civilizational conquest is an act of historical falsification worthy of the most cynical propagandist.

More importantly: Gramsci's analysis is fundamentally a class analysis. The cultural hegemony he described was bourgeois hegemony, meaning the domination of capitalist ideology over the working class. Smith rips the concept entirely out of its class content, turns it upside down, and uses it to conjure a ‘left-Islamic [no such animal exists] conspiracy’ against ‘Christian civilization.’ This is no error. Learn the method of fascist propaganda, people: borrow the vocabulary of the left, strip it of class content, and redirect it against manufactured enemies.

Claim 4: Both Muslim immigrants and ‘leftists’ share an ethic of parasitism toward productive ‘western’ people.

This is the purest distillation of Smith’s class character. He writes that both groups ‘view producers as targets for piracy’ and prefer to ‘feed off the production of others.’ This framing [hardworking, civilized producers versus parasitic outsiders] is the foundational ideological move of fascism across its historical variants. In Nazi Germany, the ‘parasite’ was the Jew. In Trump's America and in Smith’s screed, the parasite is the Muslim immigrant and the ‘Marxist.’ The identification of who ‘really produces’ [always and conveniently] maps onto the existing national hierarchy. In reality, it is the capitalist class that appropriates the labor of those who actually produce — while the workers, immigrant and native-born alike, are united by their common exploitation. Smith's framework exists precisely to prevent workers from recognizing this.

Claim 5: ‘Leftist governments’ in Europe are deliberately enabling an ‘Islamic invasion’ to destroy Christian civilization.

The governments of Europe — Labor in the UK, Macron in France, the SPD in Germany — are not ‘leftist’ in any meaningful sense. They are parties of capital and have administered decades of austerity, deindustrialization, and the destruction of workers' living standards. They support immigration primarily because capital requires cheap labor. The actual far-right in France, including the Gaullist camp's endorsement of the Great Replacement Theory, exploits the social crisis produced by these same neoliberal governments. The political beneficiaries of social breakdown are not Muslim immigrants; they are the far-right forces whose rise Smith's article actively feeds.

A Marxist reply will first expose the class character of this attack. Workers must know that the anger Smith seeks to channel toward Muslims and ‘the left’ is anger that belongs directed at the banks that destroyed their communities, the corporations that shipped their jobs overseas, and the governments that cut their healthcare and schools — all in the name of ‘western civilization.’

Second, workers must refuse Smith's framework entirely. The premise that immigration is a ‘civilizational threat’ is false on the face because the working class has NO homeland to defend! Russian, Ukrainian, American, Somali, Syrian – workers are an international class. They are defined and united by their exploitation. Borders and national identity are ruling class instruments, deployed to prevent workers from recognizing their common interest and global proletarian nationhood. More, the answer to the social crisis is not to wall out the world's desperate people. It is to build an international movement to abolish the capitalist system that produces their desperation and the demagoguery.

Third, workers must recognize toward what this material is building. Smith's conclusion, that ‘rights’ do not apply to people ‘waging war upon us,’ and that society must ’separate from’ such groups is not the conclusion of an argument. It is the political program of authoritarian exclusion dressed in constitutional clothing. The logical end of this worldview is a state empowered to define entire working-class communities as enemies and to strip them of rights. That is fascism. It must be named as such and opposed politically, NOT through censorship, but through the mobilization of the working class around a socialist program that addresses the actual causes of social crisis.

Ultimately, the antidote to Brandon Smith is not a better-worded, [uppercase ‘D’] Democrat, liberal rebuttal. It is constructing a mass working-class political movement, independent of both capitalist parties, fighting for the socialist transformation of society. That is the sole force that can drain the swamp from which figures like Smith draw their authority, and to whom lesser-lights pay homage.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

How many Gazans normally died during that period of time?

Normal mortality in peacetime runs about 0.75% a year. Or a little under 1% of the total population dies every year from natural causes.

(This is in the United States. I doubt natural mortality is lower in Gaza.)

The population of Gaza is about 2m, so in a typical peacetime year you’d expect about 15,000 deaths. Over the 2 years of the war, you’d expect about 30,000 Gazans to die from causes unrelated to the fighting.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Some further points on the Brandon Smith screed from which ReichGuide makes his ‘illuminating’ assertions.

Claim 1: There is a coordinated ‘Stealth Jihad’ conspiracy systematically destroying Western civilization from within.

Brandon Smith’s piece rests entirely on the 1991 Mohamed Akram memorandum. He turns a tactical internal Brotherhood planning document into proof of a world-historical conspiracy. The logical leap is enormous.

In the first place, The Brotherhood is a real organization with a real agenda. The memo is a genuine document. It was produced during the Holy Land Foundation investigation. But the claim that it is successfully orchestrating the transformation of Western society by using ‘the left,’ NGOs, governments, academics, and the media as willing or unwitting instruments!? That requires that virtually every liberal or left-leaning institution in the world is, in effect, a branch of a 100-year Islamic conquest plan. Is that a political argument, or is it a paranoid cosmology? Illuminating . . .

The actual explanation of these alarming [Smith and ReichGuide] social changes [secularization, multiculturalism, immigration] lie in the logic of global capitalism itself! Mass migration is driven by the wars and economic devastation that Western imperialism has inflicted on the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, regime-change operations in Libya and Syria, decades of IMF structural adjustment programs — they produced the population flows now reshaping European and American demographics. The US ruling class does benefit from immigration, but not as a tool of ‘Stealth Jihad;’ it is rather as a source of cheap, of exploitable labor and as a wedge issue to divide the working class. That's what articles as Smith's seek to accomplish. These anti-Islamic campaigns aim to divide the working class, to suppress opposition to imperialist war, and direct social tensions into reactionary ends.

Claim 2: Muslim immigrants — specifically Somali immigrants — are characterized by an average IQ of 67 and ‘cannot’ independently carry out complex schemes.

This is pseudoscientific racism, full stop. The claim that population-level IQ statistics [deeply contested methodologically and historically weaponized by eugenicists] explain political behavior and justify exclusion comes from Nazi social Darwinist tradition. When Trump and his ideologues promote fascist claims of genetic inferiority of migrants, they echo language that is functionally identical to what appears in ReichGuide’s piece.

When Smith writes of Somali immigrants ‘coming from a country with an average IQ of 67…are not capable of instituting such a plan on their own,’ he reproduces the same biological-determinist framework the Nazis used to justify genocide. Nazi ideology was rehabilitated in mainstream discourse through precisely this kind of IQ-and-immigration argumentation, as with Germany's Thilo Sarrazin.

Claim 3: "Multiculturalism" is simply Gramsci's Marxist ‘cultural hegemony’ strategy updated for demographic warfare.

This is a stunning misreading of Gramsci. And whereas Smith briefly describes the Prison Notebooks with surface accuracy before grotesquely distorting them, it more likely is deliberate falsification than his ignorance that we see.

Gramsci's analysis of hegemony gave description to how the ruling class maintains power through culture, ideology, and consent rather than naked force alone. His ‘war of position’ was a strategy for the working class to build counter-hegemonic institutions [trade unions, workers' parties, socialist culture] as a necessary complement to eventual revolutionary struggle. It had nothing to do with demographic invasion, nothing to do with Islam, and nothing to do with ‘woke’ politics. Gramsci was a communist who died in Mussolini's prison. To equate his thought with Islamic civilizational conquest is an act of historical falsification worthy of the most cynical propagandist.

More importantly: Gramsci's analysis is fundamentally a class analysis. The cultural hegemony he described was bourgeois hegemony, meaning the domination of capitalist ideology over the working class. Smith rips the concept entirely out of its class content, turns it upside down, and uses it to conjure a ‘left-Islamic [no such animal exists] conspiracy’ against ‘Christian civilization.’ This is no error. Learn the method of fascist propaganda, people: borrow the vocabulary of the left, strip it of class content, and redirect it against manufactured enemies.

Claim 4: Both Muslim immigrants and ‘leftists’ share an ethic of parasitism toward productive ‘western’ people.

This is the purest distillation of Smith’s class character. He writes that both groups ‘view producers as targets for piracy’ and prefer to ‘feed off the production of others.’ This framing [hardworking, civilized producers versus parasitic outsiders] is the foundational ideological move of fascism across its historical variants. In Nazi Germany, the ‘parasite’ was the Jew. In Trump's America and in Smith’s screed, the parasite is the Muslim immigrant and the ‘Marxist.’ The identification of who ‘really produces’ [always and conveniently] maps onto the existing national hierarchy. In reality, it is the capitalist class that appropriates the labor of those who actually produce — while the workers, immigrant and native-born alike, are united by their common exploitation. Smith's framework exists precisely to prevent workers from recognizing this.

Claim 5: ‘Leftist governments’ in Europe are deliberately enabling an ‘Islamic invasion’ to destroy Christian civilization.

The governments of Europe — Labor in the UK, Macron in France, the SPD in Germany — are not ‘leftist’ in any meaningful sense. They are parties of capital and have administered decades of austerity, deindustrialization, and the destruction of workers' living standards. They support immigration primarily because capital requires cheap labor. The actual far-right in France, including the Gaullist camp's endorsement of the Great Replacement Theory, exploits the social crisis produced by these same neoliberal governments. The political beneficiaries of social breakdown are not Muslim immigrants; they are the far-right forces whose rise Smith's article actively feeds.

A Marxist reply will first expose the class character of this attack. Workers must know that the anger Smith seeks to channel toward Muslims and ‘the left’ is anger that belongs directed at the banks that destroyed their communities, the corporations that shipped their jobs overseas, and the governments that cut their healthcare and schools — all in the name of ‘western civilization.’

Second, workers must refuse Smith's framework entirely. The premise that immigration is a ‘civilizational threat’ is false on the face because the working class has NO homeland to defend! Russian, Ukrainian, American, Somali, Syrian – workers are an international class. They are defined and united by their exploitation. Borders and national identity are ruling class instruments, deployed to prevent workers from recognizing their common interest and global proletarian nationhood. More, the answer to the social crisis is not to wall out the world's desperate people. It is to build an international movement to abolish the capitalist system that produces their desperation and the demagoguery.

Third, workers must recognize toward what this material is building. Smith's conclusion, that ‘rights’ do not apply to people ‘waging war upon us,’ and that society must ’separate from’ such groups is not the conclusion of an argument. It is the political program of authoritarian exclusion dressed in constitutional clothing. The logical end of this worldview is a state empowered to define entire working-class communities as enemies and to strip them of rights. That is fascism. It must be named as such and opposed politically, NOT through censorship, but through the mobilization of the working class around a socialist program that addresses the actual causes of social crisis.

Ultimately, the antidote to Brandon Smith is not a better-worded, [uppercase ‘D’] Democrat, liberal rebuttal. It is constructing a mass working-class political movement, independent of both capitalist parties, fighting for the socialist transformation of society. That is the sole force that can drain the swamp from which figures like Smith draw their authority, and to whom lesser-lights pay homage.

Or … the oligarchs of the Middle East need a distraction from their capitalist predations, so they wage a propaganda campaign against Israel. The world’s leftists fall in line because the Soviet Union used this tactic for years, plus the interests of modern Russian oligarchs align with the interests of the Middle Eastern oligarchs.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

Or … oligarchs of the Middle East need a distraction . . . they wage a propaganda campaign against Israel . .. leftists fall in line because the Soviet Union . . . the interests of modern Russian oligarchs . . . the interests of the Middle Eastern oligarchs.

That is pro-Zionist apologetics garbed in the lingo of oligarch critique. This ‘sleight of hand’ seizes anti-capitalist vocabulary [oligarchs, exploitation, predations, etc.] and employs it to defend an apartheid, settler-colonial state propped up by US imperialism. To construct an ‘argument’ you scarcely try to make [preferring to task me to make and then disassemble it] the structure thus presents:

-- Palestinian solidarity is not genuine; it is manufactured by Arab oligarchs as ‘distraction.’
-- The left supports it solely because it was the former USSR line.
-- Therefore, opposition to Israel is anti-Semitic, or at the very least, cynically manipulated sentiment.

Take note, everyone. That is not a theory. It is a conclusion in search of premises. It is a predetermined defense of Israeli state crimes, reverse-engineering itself and seeking ways to delegitimize any opposition to said crimes. Over two decades ago, Marxists documented that conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a noxious example of a political establishment bent on rubbishing all criticism of murderous policy. Nor is any state beyond criticism. On to claims made:

Arab Oligarchs Distract Their Populations:

This is the most cynically dishonest claim we’ve all come to love and expect. Why is that? It’s because this gets the actual facts exactly backwards. The Marxist analysis has long established that Arab bourgeois regimes [Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE] don’t use the Palestinian cause to mask their own exploitation; they systematically suppress, betray, and abandon the Palestinian cause precisely to protect their own class interests and their alliances with US imperialism! The WSWS documented this in meticulous detail. As Jean Shaoul's analysis of the Gaza genocide demonstrates, Arab regimes directly colluded with Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza from day one.

Far from using Palestine as a distraction . . .

Egypt maintained Israel's blockade of Gaza for decades, fortified the border wall, and deployed tanks to prevent Palestinian refugees from crossing into Sinai. This was not out of love of Palestinians, but because El-Sisi fears that a million displaced and enraged Palestinians would become a catalyst for mass opposition to his own dictatorship.

Jordan arrested over 1,000 pro-Palestine protesters and passed cybercrime legislation specifically to silence those calling for solidarity with Gaza.

The UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia signed the Abraham Accords, established a lucrative land corridor carrying goods to Israeli ports during the Gaza genocide, and now account for one quarter of Israel's $12.5 billion in annual defense exports.

Saudi Arabia, which led the 1973 oil embargo in response to the Arab-Israeli war, has made not even a symbolic gesture of an embargo during the current genocide.

Jean Shaoul wrote:

‘Arab regimes, whose populations hold them in contempt, have made a pact with the devil: support for Israel – and by implication US imperialism – in return for Washington's commitment to back their “security” in the event of a new “Arab Spring” or mass movement to unseat them.’

The reality is precisely opposite of the claim in your argument. The Arab oligarchs do not use Palestine to distract from their exploitation — they suppress Palestinian solidarity to protect their exploitation. The masses of Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf despotisms are pro-Palestinian despite their own ruling classes, not because of them. Next . . .

The Soviet Manipulation’ Claim

This attempts to reduce all left opposition to Israel to a Cold War relic — as if the only reason one opposes Israeli apartheid and occupation is that they were fed propaganda by Moscow. That is historically illiteracy and intellectual dishonesty in equal measure.

Marxist opposition to Zionism has naught to do with Stalinist foreign policy, and predates the USSR altogether. How could you not know that? This opposition dates back to the 1880s. But you knew that. Didn’t you. Or did you?

If not a remedy to ignorance, then as a matter of historical record – the most powerful and consistent critique both of anti-Semitism and Zionism emanated from the revolutionary internationalist wing of the workers’ movement. That is authentic Marxist tradition – not Stalinism, but the Fourth International, founded in explicit opposition to it. We always analyzed Zionism as a form of bourgeois nationalism that cannot solve the oppression of Jewish people and that actively creates new victims in the Palestinian people. This has naught to do with Soviet propaganda lines.

More, what anti-Israel postures the USSR struck at various points in its history were inconsistent, instrumentalist, and often accompanied by actual antisemitism: the Stalinist bureaucracy's persecution of Jewish intellectuals and the Doctors' Plot are examples. Conflating genuine, Marxist anti-Zionism with Soviet foreign policy maneuvers is a deliberate falsification meant to discredit opposition to Israeli crimes by association with Stalinism.

Russian Oligarchs Align with Middle Eastern Oligarchs

This tries to introduce a ‘Russian imperialism’ framework to recast opposition to Israeli policy as service of Russian geopolitical interests. In reply to that pure geopolitical mystification, the actual driving force of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is US imperialism, which provided billions in weapons, diplomatic cover, and a Security Council veto to enable permanent slaughter. It funded the lordly little kakistocracy for decades and with billions annually. It made eretz Ysra’el the custodian of US interests in the Middle East. The entire campaign against Gaza was ‘planned, funded and implemented by Biden’s admin, to assert US hegemony over this resource-rich region.

Invoking ‘Russian oligarchs’ to explain why people oppose Israeli war crimes is simply a device to make Palestinian solidarity seem like a geopolitical operation of an adversary power — thereby justifying it being suppressed as a ‘national security’ concern. The identical species of logic is used to brand anti-war protesters as Russian agents.

Class Interests the Argument Serves

That is exactly the kind of argument which typically comes from a distinct social milieu: the liberal-Zionist wing of the upper-middle class. It is found often in academic institutions, mainstream media, and think tanks allied with the Democratic Party establishment. What are its political objectives? These are:

-- Protect Israel from the consequences of its documented crimes by preemptively delegitimizing any opposition as manufactured or antisemitic.

-- Channel any critique of West Asian capitalism away from the actual imperialist architecture [US-Israel alliance, Gulf normalization] and toward vague ‘oligarch manipulation’ narrative which conveniently exonerates Washington.

-- Keep the working class divided on national and ethnic lines by framing the conflict as one between manipulated ethnic and religious blocs rather than as a class question and an imperialist crime.

To reference Jean Shaoul’s piece again, the Israeli state has actively allied itself with far-right and neo-fascist forces in Europe with figures like Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini precisely because they share its anti-Arab chauvinism. The opposing Israel is antisemitic claim that is thus a cover not only for liberals but by sections of the far right itself.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

That is pro-Zionist apologetics garbed in the lingo of oligarch critique. This ‘sleight of hand’ seizes anti-capitalist vocabulary [oligarchs, exploitation, predations, etc.] and employs it to defend an apartheid, settler-colonial state propped up by US imperialism. To construct an ‘argument’ you scarcely try to make [preferring to task me to make and then disassemble it] the structure thus presents:

-- Palestinian solidarity is not genuine; it is manufactured by Arab oligarchs as ‘distraction.’
-- The left supports it solely because it was the former USSR line.
-- Therefore, opposition to Israel is anti-Semitic, or at the very least, cynically manipulated sentiment.

Take note, everyone. That is not a theory. It is a conclusion in search of premises. It is a predetermined defense of Israeli state crimes, reverse-engineering itself and seeking ways to delegitimize any opposition to said crimes. Over two decades ago, Marxists documented that conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a noxious example of a political establishment bent on rubbishing all criticism of murderous policy. Nor is any state beyond criticism. On to claims made:

Arab Oligarchs Distract Their Populations:

This is the most cynically dishonest claim we’ve all come to love and expect. Why is that? It’s because this gets the actual facts exactly backwards. The Marxist analysis has long established that Arab bourgeois regimes [Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE] don’t use the Palestinian cause to mask their own exploitation; they systematically suppress, betray, and abandon the Palestinian cause precisely to protect their own class interests and their alliances with US imperialism! The WSWS documented this in meticulous detail. As Jean Shaoul's analysis of the Gaza genocide demonstrates, Arab regimes directly colluded with Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza from day one.

Far from using Palestine as a distraction . . .

Egypt maintained Israel's blockade of Gaza for decades, fortified the border wall, and deployed tanks to prevent Palestinian refugees from crossing into Sinai. This was not out of love of Palestinians, but because El-Sisi fears that a million displaced and enraged Palestinians would become a catalyst for mass opposition to his own dictatorship.

Jordan arrested over 1,000 pro-Palestine protesters and passed cybercrime legislation specifically to silence those calling for solidarity with Gaza.

The UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia signed the Abraham Accords, established a lucrative land corridor carrying goods to Israeli ports during the Gaza genocide, and now account for one quarter of Israel's $12.5 billion in annual defense exports.

Saudi Arabia, which led the 1973 oil embargo in response to the Arab-Israeli war, has made not even a symbolic gesture of an embargo during the current genocide.

Jean Shaoul wrote:

‘Arab regimes, whose populations hold them in contempt, have made a pact with the devil: support for Israel – and by implication US imperialism – in return for Washington's commitment to back their “security” in the event of a new “Arab Spring” or mass movement to unseat them.’

The reality is precisely opposite of the claim in your argument. The Arab oligarchs do not use Palestine to distract from their exploitation — they suppress Palestinian solidarity to protect their exploitation. The masses of Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf despotisms are pro-Palestinian despite their own ruling classes, not because of them. Next . . .

The Soviet Manipulation’ Claim

This attempts to reduce all left opposition to Israel to a Cold War relic — as if the only reason one opposes Israeli apartheid and occupation is that they were fed propaganda by Moscow. That is historically illiteracy and intellectual dishonesty in equal measure.

Marxist opposition to Zionism has naught to do with Stalinist foreign policy, and predates the USSR altogether. How could you not know that? This opposition dates back to the 1880s. But you knew that. Didn’t you. Or did you?

If not a remedy to ignorance, then as a matter of historical record – the most powerful and consistent critique both of anti-Semitism and Zionism emanated from the revolutionary internationalist wing of the workers’ movement. That is authentic Marxist tradition – not Stalinism, but the Fourth International, founded in explicit opposition to it. We always analyzed Zionism as a form of bourgeois nationalism that cannot solve the oppression of Jewish people and that actively creates new victims in the Palestinian people. This has naught to do with Soviet propaganda lines.

More, what anti-Israel postures the USSR struck at various points in its history were inconsistent, instrumentalist, and often accompanied by actual antisemitism: the Stalinist bureaucracy's persecution of Jewish intellectuals and the Doctors' Plot are examples. Conflating genuine, Marxist anti-Zionism with Soviet foreign policy maneuvers is a deliberate falsification meant to discredit opposition to Israeli crimes by association with Stalinism.

Russian Oligarchs Align with Middle Eastern Oligarchs

This tries to introduce a ‘Russian imperialism’ framework to recast opposition to Israeli policy as service of Russian geopolitical interests. In reply to that pure geopolitical mystification, the actual driving force of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is US imperialism, which provided billions in weapons, diplomatic cover, and a Security Council veto to enable permanent slaughter. It funded the lordly little kakistocracy for decades and with billions annually. It made eretz Ysra’el the custodian of US interests in the Middle East. The entire campaign against Gaza was ‘planned, funded and implemented by Biden’s admin, to assert US hegemony over this resource-rich region.

Invoking ‘Russian oligarchs’ to explain why people oppose Israeli war crimes is simply a device to make Palestinian solidarity seem like a geopolitical operation of an adversary power — thereby justifying it being suppressed as a ‘national security’ concern. The identical species of logic is used to brand anti-war protesters as Russian agents.

Class Interests the Argument Serves

That is exactly the kind of argument which typically comes from a distinct social milieu: the liberal-Zionist wing of the upper-middle class. It is found often in academic institutions, mainstream media, and think tanks allied with the Democratic Party establishment. What are its political objectives? These are:

-- Protect Israel from the consequences of its documented crimes by preemptively delegitimizing any opposition as manufactured or antisemitic.

-- Channel any critique of West Asian capitalism away from the actual imperialist architecture [US-Israel alliance, Gulf normalization] and toward vague ‘oligarch manipulation’ narrative which conveniently exonerates Washington.

-- Keep the working class divided on national and ethnic lines by framing the conflict as one between manipulated ethnic and religious blocs rather than as a class question and an imperialist crime.

To reference Jean Shaoul’s piece again, the Israeli state has actively allied itself with far-right and neo-fascist forces in Europe with figures like Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini precisely because they share its anti-Arab chauvinism. The opposing Israel is antisemitic claim that is thus a cover not only for liberals but by sections of the far right itself.

Antizionism is a hate movement that gets Jews killed. Repeating the standard antizionist libels like “genocide”, “apartheid”, and “settler-colonial” undermines your entire argument.

You’re just another garden-variety bigot mindlessly spewing hate.

 

[Lazaran]

That is pro-Zionist apologetics garbed in the lingo of oligarch critique. This ‘sleight of hand’ seizes anti-capitalist vocabulary [oligarchs, exploitation, predations, etc.] and employs it to defend an apartheid, settler-colonial state propped up by US imperialism. To construct an ‘argument’ you scarcely try to make [preferring to task me to make and then disassemble it] the structure thus presents:

-- Palestinian solidarity is not genuine; it is manufactured by Arab oligarchs as ‘distraction.’
-- The left supports it solely because it was the former USSR line.
-- Therefore, opposition to Israel is anti-Semitic, or at the very least, cynically manipulated sentiment.

Take note, everyone. That is not a theory. It is a conclusion in search of premises. It is a predetermined defense of Israeli state crimes, reverse-engineering itself and seeking ways to delegitimize any opposition to said crimes. Over two decades ago, Marxists documented that conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a noxious example of a political establishment bent on rubbishing all criticism of murderous policy. Nor is any state beyond criticism. On to claims made:

Arab Oligarchs Distract Their Populations:

This is the most cynically dishonest claim we’ve all come to love and expect. Why is that? It’s because this gets the actual facts exactly backwards. The Marxist analysis has long established that Arab bourgeois regimes [Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE] don’t use the Palestinian cause to mask their own exploitation; they systematically suppress, betray, and abandon the Palestinian cause precisely to protect their own class interests and their alliances with US imperialism! The WSWS documented this in meticulous detail. As Jean Shaoul's analysis of the Gaza genocide demonstrates, Arab regimes directly colluded with Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza from day one.

Far from using Palestine as a distraction . . .

Egypt maintained Israel's blockade of Gaza for decades, fortified the border wall, and deployed tanks to prevent Palestinian refugees from crossing into Sinai. This was not out of love of Palestinians, but because El-Sisi fears that a million displaced and enraged Palestinians would become a catalyst for mass opposition to his own dictatorship.

Jordan arrested over 1,000 pro-Palestine protesters and passed cybercrime legislation specifically to silence those calling for solidarity with Gaza.

The UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia signed the Abraham Accords, established a lucrative land corridor carrying goods to Israeli ports during the Gaza genocide, and now account for one quarter of Israel's $12.5 billion in annual defense exports.

Saudi Arabia, which led the 1973 oil embargo in response to the Arab-Israeli war, has made not even a symbolic gesture of an embargo during the current genocide.

Jean Shaoul wrote:

‘Arab regimes, whose populations hold them in contempt, have made a pact with the devil: support for Israel – and by implication US imperialism – in return for Washington's commitment to back their “security” in the event of a new “Arab Spring” or mass movement to unseat them.’

The reality is precisely opposite of the claim in your argument. The Arab oligarchs do not use Palestine to distract from their exploitation — they suppress Palestinian solidarity to protect their exploitation. The masses of Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf despotisms are pro-Palestinian despite their own ruling classes, not because of them. Next . . .

The Soviet Manipulation’ Claim

This attempts to reduce all left opposition to Israel to a Cold War relic — as if the only reason one opposes Israeli apartheid and occupation is that they were fed propaganda by Moscow. That is historically illiteracy and intellectual dishonesty in equal measure.

Marxist opposition to Zionism has naught to do with Stalinist foreign policy, and predates the USSR altogether. How could you not know that? This opposition dates back to the 1880s. But you knew that. Didn’t you. Or did you?

If not a remedy to ignorance, then as a matter of historical record – the most powerful and consistent critique both of anti-Semitism and Zionism emanated from the revolutionary internationalist wing of the workers’ movement. That is authentic Marxist tradition – not Stalinism, but the Fourth International, founded in explicit opposition to it. We always analyzed Zionism as a form of bourgeois nationalism that cannot solve the oppression of Jewish people and that actively creates new victims in the Palestinian people. This has naught to do with Soviet propaganda lines.

More, what anti-Israel postures the USSR struck at various points in its history were inconsistent, instrumentalist, and often accompanied by actual antisemitism: the Stalinist bureaucracy's persecution of Jewish intellectuals and the Doctors' Plot are examples. Conflating genuine, Marxist anti-Zionism with Soviet foreign policy maneuvers is a deliberate falsification meant to discredit opposition to Israeli crimes by association with Stalinism.

Russian Oligarchs Align with Middle Eastern Oligarchs

This tries to introduce a ‘Russian imperialism’ framework to recast opposition to Israeli policy as service of Russian geopolitical interests. In reply to that pure geopolitical mystification, the actual driving force of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is US imperialism, which provided billions in weapons, diplomatic cover, and a Security Council veto to enable permanent slaughter. It funded the lordly little kakistocracy for decades and with billions annually. It made eretz Ysra’el the custodian of US interests in the Middle East. The entire campaign against Gaza was ‘planned, funded and implemented by Biden’s admin, to assert US hegemony over this resource-rich region.

Invoking ‘Russian oligarchs’ to explain why people oppose Israeli war crimes is simply a device to make Palestinian solidarity seem like a geopolitical operation of an adversary power — thereby justifying it being suppressed as a ‘national security’ concern. The identical species of logic is used to brand anti-war protesters as Russian agents.

Class Interests the Argument Serves

That is exactly the kind of argument which typically comes from a distinct social milieu: the liberal-Zionist wing of the upper-middle class. It is found often in academic institutions, mainstream media, and think tanks allied with the Democratic Party establishment. What are its political objectives? These are:

-- Protect Israel from the consequences of its documented crimes by preemptively delegitimizing any opposition as manufactured or antisemitic.

-- Channel any critique of West Asian capitalism away from the actual imperialist architecture [US-Israel alliance, Gulf normalization] and toward vague ‘oligarch manipulation’ narrative which conveniently exonerates Washington.

-- Keep the working class divided on national and ethnic lines by framing the conflict as one between manipulated ethnic and religious blocs rather than as a class question and an imperialist crime.

To reference Jean Shaoul’s piece again, the Israeli state has actively allied itself with far-right and neo-fascist forces in Europe with figures like Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini precisely because they share its anti-Arab chauvinism. The opposing Israel is antisemitic claim that is thus a cover not only for liberals but by sections of the far right itself.

You could have said “NUH-UH!!!” in FAR fewer words.

Just sayin’…



We. Told. Then. So.

 

[Lazaran]

Antizionism is a hate movement that gets Jews killed. Repeating the standard antizionist libels like “genocide”, “apartheid”, and “settler-colonial” undermines your entire argument.

You’re just another garden-variety bigot mindlessly spewing hate.

You can’t win:.. even when you criticize the oligarchs… Weird…

“Agenda uber alles” for "the left", I guess (and quite the rigid agenda it is)…



Related:

It’s becoming increasingly clear that "the left" is determined to execute a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party / platform, a la the MAGAt takeover of the republican party. The problem is if they succeed, they will lose a fuckton of ACTUAL DEMOCRATS (like myself) who have ZERO interest in being part of “MAGA left”. They also don’t realize that THEIR actions and policy positions have ALREADY alienated a fuckton of independent voters, and that the Democratic Party they MIGHT co-opt would NOT have the mindless (cultish) support that the common MAGAts provide to their MAGAt republican masters.



The better move would be for "the left" to compromise with ACTUAL Democrats and embrace pragmatic progress in ALL areas of governance & social / economic justice. But somehow (based on the attitude & comments of posters like Holy_S) I do NOT see "the left" compromising on anything (See also: 2016 & 2024 and the Israel-Gaza-etc issue).



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

Antizionism is a hate movement that gets Jews killed. Repeating the standard antizionist libels like “genocide”, “apartheid”, and “settler-colonial” undermines your entire argument.

You’re just another garden-variety bigot mindlessly spewing hate.

You made three claims without supporting even one of them. Allow me to take them seriously anyway.

You say that 'genocide' is a libel.

The International Court of Justice [no left-wing organization] ruled in January 2024 that South Africa's genocide case against Israel was sufficiently plausible to warrant emergency measures. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food declared the famine in Gaza to be a man-made catastrophe in 2024.

Those are not my definitions — they are the considered legal and institutional findings of bodies whose authority you presumably don't dismiss when they rule in ways you prefer.

You say that 'apartheid' is a libel.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International [still not radical left] published exhaustive reports in 2021 and 2022 documenting Israel's system of legal discrimination between Jewish and Arab populations as meeting the legal definition of apartheid under international law. Israeli historians like Benny Morris [hardly a Palestinian sympathizer] documented the 1948 expulsions in detail.

You say that 'settler-colonial' is a libel.

Israel was established through the documented, deliberate displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population. This is acknowledged by Israel's own official historians. The word for that process, used by scholars across the political spectrum, is ‘settler colonialism.’

You employ a specific, documented rhetorical technique: declaring vocabulary illegitimate so that the facts the vocabulary describes cannot be discussed. It has a name; it is called ‘thought-termination.’ It is not an argument.

You also called me a bigot.

An actual bigot irrationally hates a people.

I made a political and historical argument about a state and its policies. Criticizing the policies of a state is not hatred of a people – unless you also deem critics of the Saudi regime to be bigots against Arabs, or critics of the Chinese government to be bigots against Chinese people. You have not applied this standard consistently, which means it is not a principle; it is a shield.

Have you a factual counter-argument to make? If so, we can dispute the ICJ ruling, the Human Rights Watch report, or the historical record of 1948. I am both open to and genuinely interested in that. So, will you discuss these points or will you withdraw your indecorous remarks with no further censure?

'You're a bigot' is no counter-argument. It is a concession camouflaged as an accusation. Which is it to be?

 

[Lazaran]

You made three claims without supporting even one of them. Allow me to take them seriously anyway.

You say that 'genocide' is a libel.

The International Court of Justice [no left-wing organization] ruled in January 2024 that South Africa's genocide case against Israel was sufficiently plausible to warrant emergency measures. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food declared the famine in Gaza to be a man-made catastrophe in 2024.

In stark contrast to the claims from the right that the term “racist” has been diluted, the claims from "the left" that Israel has committed genocide during a WAR that Hamas / Iran, etc started HAS diluted the term “genocide”.

Those are not my definitions — they are the considered legal and institutional findings of bodies whose authority you presumably don't dismiss when they rule in ways you prefer.

Some rulings are FAR more consequential than others (See also: Recent U.S. SCOTUS rulings).

You say that 'apartheid' is a libel.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International [still not radical left] published exhaustive reports in 2021 and 2022 documenting Israel's system of legal discrimination between Jewish and Arab populations as meeting the legal definition of apartheid under international law. Israeli historians like Benny Morris [hardly a Palestinian sympathizer] documented the 1948 expulsions in detail.

Israel is clearly a unique situation in the world due to the circumstances that led to its creation. To maintain the ONLY Jewish state in the world, there will undoubtedly be conditions that opportunistic enemies would label “apartheid” for geopolitical advantage. That does NOT make what is happening with Israel “apartheid” on the scale of South African apartheid.

You say that 'settler-colonial' is a libel.

Israel was established through the documented, deliberate displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population. This is acknowledged by Israel's own official historians. The word for that process, used by scholars across the political spectrum, is ‘settler colonialism.’

The establishment of Israel was far more complex and nuanced than you have described. And the reasons for the establishment of Israel as THE Jewish state are well… established.

You employ a specific, documented rhetorical technique: declaring vocabulary illegitimate so that the facts the vocabulary describes cannot be discussed. It has a name; it is called ‘thought-termination.’ It is not an argument.

Look at the intellectually dishonest way you have conducted yourself in the post I am responding to. Hypocrite much???

You also called me a bigot.

An actual bigot irrationally hates a people.

I made a political and historical argument about a state and its policies. Criticizing the policies of a state is not hatred of a people – unless you also deem critics of the Saudi regime to be bigots against Arabs, or critics of the Chinese government to be bigots against Chinese people. You have not applied this standard consistently, which means it is not a principle; it is a shield.

You sure seem to be focused on Israel while employing spurious arguments to "win" your point(s). You just might be a bigot when it comes to Israel.

Have you a factual counter-argument to make? If so, we can dispute the ICJ ruling, the Human Rights Watch report, or the historical record of 1948. I am both open to and genuinely interested in that. So, will you discuss these points or will you withdraw your indecorous remarks with no further censure?

I’m not BSG, but those things were addressed above.

'You're a bigot' is no counter-argument. It is a concession camouflaged as an accusation. Which is it to be?

Again, Im not BSG, but Im. going with “You’re a bigot” when it comes to Israel.



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[Cat]

@Lazaran I know that you are white knighting, we all do.

But this is pure silly-no-value-nonsense with the clear objective to be emotional oppressive:

"Israel is clearly a unique situation in the world due to the circumstances that led to its creation. To maintain the ONLY Jewish state in the world, there will undoubtedly be conditions that opportunistic enemies would label “apartheid” for geopolitical advantage. That does NOT make what is happening with Israel “apartheid” on the scale of South African apartheid."

...... There are more than 7 Mio Jews in Israel alone.

A state created for them.

(I do not even want to discuss whether that was a good idea or not, we know that we disagree)

- we are 6 million Danes. We are not getting special treatment in other countries, no one is going to protect us as a special group.

Also this is the only Danish state in the world.. there lots of countries with fewer people. - functioning just as peaceful as we are.

Yet we do not have apartheid.
We do not see ourselves as some kind of chosen people.
(And yes!! All countries and people have a long, bloody and horrible histories, that is what history is. - but after all: we are all the descendants of those that survived! This is not something the Jews can claim as their patent.)

Please do not be patronising or condescending, your "Told them so" ending.. it is as extreme as those you argue against.
And it makes, at least it makes me - I do not know about other people, really exasperated and leaves me cold and dismissive.

 

[Lazaran]

@Lazaran I know that you are white knighting, we all do.

“white knighting”???



Hardly… I have been arguing my points about the Israel "situation" LONG before I knew BSG existed (maybe before she was born), so…

But this is pure silly-no-value-nonsense with the clear objective to be emotional oppressive:

"Israel is clearly a unique situation in the world due to the circumstances that led to its creation. To maintain the ONLY Jewish state in the world, there will undoubtedly be conditions that opportunistic enemies would label “apartheid” for geopolitical advantage. That does NOT make what is happening with Israel “apartheid” on the scale of South African apartheid."

...... There are more than 7 Mio Jews in Israel alone.

A state created for them.

(I do not even want to discuss whether that was a good idea or not, we know that we disagree)

- we are 6 million Danes. We are not getting special treatment in other countries, no one is going to protect us as a special group.

Also this is the only Danish state in the world.. there lots of countries with fewer people. - functioning just as peaceful as we are.

Yet we do not have apartheid.
We do not see ourselves as some kind of chosen people.
(And yes!! All countries and people have a long, bloody and horrible histories, that is what history is. - but after all: we are all the descendants of those that survived! This is not something the Jews can claim as their patent.)

Please do not be patronising or condescending, your "Told them so" ending.. it is as extreme as those you argue against.
And it makes, at least it makes me - I do not know about other people, really exasperated and leaves me cold and dismissive.

I stand by my comment.

And to be clear, my “We. Told. Them. So.” comment has NOTHING to do with “patronizing or condescending”. It is pretty straightforward (though it could also be interpreted as a cautionary tale, as most of the abstract things I post have a bit of a cautionary element to them, so I could / can see how someone with a troubled conscience might interpret them as “patronizing or condescending).



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

@Lazaran I know that you are white knighting, we all do.

But this is pure silly-no-value-nonsense with the clear objective to be emotional oppressive:

"Israel is clearly a unique situation in the world due to the circumstances that led to its creation. To maintain the ONLY Jewish state in the world, there will undoubtedly be conditions that opportunistic enemies would label “apartheid” for geopolitical advantage. That does NOT make what is happening with Israel “apartheid” on the scale of South African apartheid."

...... There are more than 7 Mio Jews in Israel alone.

A state created for them.

(I do not even want to discuss whether that was a good idea or not, we know that we disagree)

- we are 6 million Danes. We are not getting special treatment in other countries, no one is going to protect us as a special group.

Also this is the only Danish state in the world.. there lots of countries with fewer people. - functioning just as peaceful as we are.

Yet we do not have apartheid.
We do not see ourselves as some kind of chosen people.
(And yes!! All countries and people have a long, bloody and horrible histories, that is what history is. - but after all: we are all the descendants of those that survived! This is not something the Jews can claim as their patent.)

Please do not be patronising or condescending, your "Told them so" ending.. it is as extreme as those you argue against.
And it makes, at least it makes me - I do not know about other people, really exasperated and leaves me cold and dismissive.

It's ironic to hear a Dane from an ethnostate like Denmark accuse Israel of "apartheid".

Danes make up about 85% of the population of Denmark.
Jews make up about 75% of the population of Israel.

Israel is more ethnically diverse and egalitarian than Denmark, yet no one accuses Denmark of being an "apartheid state".

Non-Jews always get "the chosen people" wrong. It means chosen to receive the Torah. We were chosen to have special rules that apply only to us.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

really exasperated . . . leaves me cold and dismissive.

A dispassionate word can land precisely where it belongs. And disengagement is better than offering narcissistic supply.

 

[AnomalyLady]

Why do democrats have such a differing opinion about Israel and Gaza? It seems like republicans are not this differing except for the cooks like Carlson and Owens.

 

[glamorilla]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2051937180172329259

 

[ll74]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2051937180172329259

Which specific Muslims are losing their minds?

Is there a list?

 

[glamorilla]

Which specific Muslims are losing their minds?

Is there a list?

may they all soon feel the loving embrace of their promised virgins.

except the women who get raped for eternity.

 

[ll74]

may they all soon feel the loving embrace of their promised virgins.

except the women who get raped for eternity.

So you don't know any Muslims losing their minds?

So really nobody cares except those people who lose their minds over anything Muslim.

And those people post their whiny bullshit to this forum.

Got it.

What's the daily quota for posts about Islam and Muslims here?

 

[glamorilla]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2051829009772622180

 

[HisArpy]

except the women who get raped for eternity.

It's typical of those who only read headlines that they never thought of that small issue.

 

[ll74]

It's typical of those who only read headlines that they never thought of that small issue.

The "headline" was that Muslims were going crazy because of a random video that anti-Muslim users posted.

And yet no evidence of any single Muslim reacting to the video has been provided