From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews and Israel.

Mike L.

Robert Wistrich, the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, has a new book out describing just how it is that the progressive-left is betraying the Jewish people:

From Ambivalence to Betrayal is a historic review and analysis of the abandonment of the Jewish people by the left from the early 19th century until the present. It also relates to the extraordinarily disproportionate number of socialist thinkers and leaders who were of Jewish origin and seeks to explain what motivated so many of them, in the course of their utopian and futile efforts to “repair the world,” to abandon their people and their heritage and frenetically seek to deny their kinsmen the right to self-determination.

This is, of course, exceedingly odd given the fact that I have been repeatedly told that anti-Semitic anti-Zionism is not a left-wing phenomenon.  Apparently the world's foremost scholar on anti-Semitism disagrees.

The introductory essay is a brilliant overview of the contemporary Jewish political arena viewed in the context of the concurrent rise of Zionism, Communism, anti-Semitism and Nazism. It focuses strongly on the hypocrisy of the existing left, which has become obsessed with demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state.

The hypocrisy of the existing left which has become obsessed with demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state? Not possible, I say! The Jewish state of Israel has no better friend in the world than the international left!

Wistrich demonstrates the extent to which today’s radical anti-Zionists, despite purporting to represent the left, often share the identical obsessions and delusions concerning the alleged malignant influence of the Jews in the modern world as classical fascist anti-Semites.

What?! Wistrich is suggesting that progressive-left anti-Zionists might be... anti-Semitic?? Who ever heard of such a thing??

The concluding chapters review the anti-Zionist myths, many of which seem to have been directly replicated from Nazi propaganda and are today enthusiastically promoted by the Marxist Islamist alliance who regard Israel as the “Jew of the nations” fulfilling a dark preordained fate as an eternal scapegoat.

Marxist Islamist alliance?

Does this mean that when we saw the Mavi Marmara challenging Israel on the high seas that it actually did contain both progressives and Jihadis?! In other words, maybe I wasn't hallucinating at the time, because I am pretty sure that's what we saw. When I asked people how it was that a boat filled with Shaheeds seeking martyrdom in an effort to confront Jews on the high seas also contained a great number of progressives I was either ridiculed or ignored.

Well, I don't know about you, but for me it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that anti-Semitic anti-Zionism is predominately a left-wing phenomenon and, yet, somehow against all reason, we are still supposed to view the progressive-left as the home of the "good guys."

The truth is, of course, that the progressive-left has put Jewish people in the position of being forced to choose between the progressive movement and our own people.

For me that choice could not be any easier.