Norman Geras has published a piece at a new journal called Fathom that is quite interesting. This is the conclusion:
It is a moral scandal that some few decades after the unmeasurable catastrophe that overtook the Jewish people in Europe, these anti-Semitic themes and ruses are once again respectable; respectable not just down there with the thugs but pervasively also within polite society, and within the perimeters of a self-flattering liberal and left opinion. It is a bleak lesson to all but those unwilling to see. The message of ‘never again’ has already proved to have been too sanguine. Genocides still occur. We now know, as well, that should a new calamity ever befall the Jewish people, there will be, again, not only the direct architects and executants but also those who collaborate, who collude, who look away and find the words to go with doing so. Some of these, dismayingly, shamefully, will be of the left.Read the whole thing here.
This is not a hopeful conclusion, but it is a necessary one. The best of hope in politics must always be allied to a truthful realism. We need to know what we are up against.
By this point one would have to be in full on denial not to recognize that outside of political Islam the foremost racist political movement in the west today is the allegedly "anti-racist" progressive movement. The forms of racism coming out of today's left tend to be passive-aggressive in nature. While the Jewish state has replaced the Jewish people as the legitimate target of malice leading to violence and, perhaps, genocide, their contempt for Arab people, and people "of color," more generally, takes the form of thinking them so lowly as to be beneath moral responsibility for either word or deed. This is what Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld has dubbed "humanitarian racism" and it is a distinctly left-wing phenomenon.
And of course, one likely couldn't even bring this issue up in a real way at certain left wing venues, as one would almost certainly be banned as, somewhat hilariously, a 'racist,' themselves.
ReplyDeleteI'll disagree that the progressive movement is "the most" racist movement outside of Political Islam (certain quarters of the right, unfortunately, still have quite a bit of old-fashioned ugly-as-opposed-to-humanitarian-racism racism in their ranks) today, but that's almost beside the point when I think about it. The main thing is that this strain of racism is indeed very much alive and kicking, right in there amongst the self-proclaimed 'anti-racists'...
Well, the thing about "right-wing" racism, to the extent that it still exists, is that the right can't say "boo" without being accused of racism while the "left-wing" can be as racist as it pleases without any blow-back whatsoever.
DeleteThis is why I find left-wing racism to be so much more egregious than right-wing racism, particularly given the fact that the hypocritical left claims to be "anti-racist."
The truth is that for most people on the left charges of racism are basically used as a political cudgel with which to beat up on those who may disagree on policy issues. It's highly immoral, in fact, but this is what they do.
As for the Arab-Israel conflict, the left is constantly calling Israel a racist state while entirely ignoring the far more virulent and ugly genocidal racism coming out of the Arab and Muslim majority population in the Middle East. Meanwhile racist "progressive Zionists" single out their fellow Jews in Israel for the charge of racism, but limit those charges to Jews that they do not like.
The whole thing is insidious, really.
I am not on the right-wing when it comes to the issues, but the left is hypocritical and revolting. As a movement they are also the enemies of Israel who tend to side with the Jihadis and the ayatollahs and the mullahs against the Jews.
btw, I take it you noticed that progressive-left Jewish anti-Semite, David Harris Gershon, had another smear piece up demonizing Israel and throwing red meat to his fellow anti-Zionists.