To misguided neoconservatives...

Submitted by Pro-Israeli Democrat (United States), May 15, 2006 at 12:20

I am not going to deny that the pictures seen above are, in fact, real. However, I do not believe that there is a convergence between the Western left ( which has, in many cases, been anti-religious) and Islamic fundamentalists like the ones seen above.

The real problem is the opposite: a long-standing and ongoing alliance between radical Islam and the RIGHT wing. I have never read George Michael's "The Enemy of My Enemy", but I certainly would like to obtain a copy within the next week or so. Nevertheless, I know my history. During the second World War, the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini (a relative of Yasser Arafat's), sent Arab/Muslim regiments to the Waffen SS. In fact, throughout the region, support for Adolf Hitler was widespread. The Muslims did NOT want to see the creation of a Jewish state, and nor were they big fans of Joseph Stalin, either. So Hitlers approval rating shot up big time in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt.

That, of course, is why Reza Shah of Iran was deposed by Britain and the USSR in 1941, and in good timing, because he was about the use some of Hitler's methods of extermination on Lurs, Kurds, Azeris, and other minorities. As for Hitler himself, much of his ideas which led to the near-obliteration of Europe's Jews in the Holocaust came from what the Turks had done to Armenian Christians nearly thirty years before; although the Turks killed "only" 1.5 million people; the Nazis around 12 million. So Hitler borrowed from the Ottomans, making genocide a 20th century phenomenom. The fascists had borrowed from the Muslims.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, meanwhile, has more recently backed terrorist attacks by Hezbollah against the Jewish Community Center and Israeli Embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina. To help in the attacks, Hezbollah allied itself with local neo-nazis. The attacks killed 29 and 85 people, respectably. The footage was later released on Al-Manar television.

In the United States, the extreme right is also aligning with Islamic extremists. Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, for example, has praised the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, saying that they were "justified" because America had made homosexuality "legal". He also supported Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War and held a celebrtation when Iraq fired SCUDS into Tel Aviv and Haifa. He expressed happiness that American soldiers had been killed by roadside bombs and IEDs in Iraq and has even picketed their funerals (Although I strongly oppose the Iraq War, I still support the troops and consider them true American heroes).

Now that AIDS patients are living longer and longer lives, Phelps has found other victims to taunt in death...American servicemen, and, as a result, is now willingly playing into the hands of al-Qaeda and other radical Sunni. Times may change, but bigots, whether they be Jewish, Muslim, or Christian do not. They simply find new targets. I cannot imagine someone who hates America more than Fred Phelps, with the possible exception of Bin Laden and Zawahiri. He is no fan of Israel, either, and has called on Jews to "stop dominating the world". Well: Jews, homosexuals, Americans...that sounds like everyone that the Islamists are targeting. If Phelps can't picket Randy Shilts' funeral as he did in 1994 any longer (and if the Matthew Shepard murder was not enough for him), he will certainly crow over the deaths of servicemen, Jews, and other "undesirables". I have never seen a leftist do that. The Islamists have an ally in Fred Phelps, and he should probably relocate his church to a nation such as Pakistan, where this nonsense is tolerated. Former Klansman and Lousiana state senator David Duke, meanwhile, recently made a goodwill visit to Syria. There, he railed against America's occupation by the "Zionists", much to the adulation of the crowd. He has also backed Ahmadinejad's statements denying that the Holocaust occurred.

Meanwhile, I have never seen nor heard of a single leftist who denied the Holocaust. Many are not big fans of Israel, but that alone does not make them anti-Semitic. As stated earlier, those I have known have expressed contempt for all three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many, in fact, adopt polytheistic faiths and East Asian religions. Others are atheists. I have known many leftists. In fact, until about 3 years ago, I was one (I now consider myself a moderate/garden-variety liberal who does not support Bush Administration policies, yet acknowledges that military action in Afghanistan in 2001, although NOT Iraq in 2003, was necessary. I remain an atheist, too.) Even as a leftist, however, I supported Israel (although to this day, I believe that the Palestinians sans a terrorist organization like Hamas or Islamic Jihad SHOULD get their state, and if it came down to it, would support the internationalization of Jerusalem as outlined in the Peel Partition plan of 1937, although not a handover to the Palestinians, with tourist revenues from an internationalized Jerusalem going both to Israel and the hypothetical Palestinian state). More than anything else I want Israel to be a safe, peaceful place. It is a modern, democratic, secular society, not a biblical recreation. Spaniards do not want another Castille and Israelis do not want another Kingdom of Israel. They simply want security.

There is no denying that most leftists have more sympathy for the Palestinians than they do for the Israelis. Yet, that does not mean that leftists HATE Jews. The far right, on the other hand, does. They divide the world into "Jews" and "Aryans", although, ironically, the original Aryans were from Northern India, and not Austria. Case in point: I recently viewed another documentary in which Russian Neo Nazis were claiming that Jews were "bloodsuckers who dominated the world". Certainly, they also harbor pro-Palestinian, pro-Syrian, and especially pro-Iranian sympathies. The far right LOVES the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, in the far right, we have "Jews" and "Aryans". As for radical islam/militant islam/ islamism/ islamic extremism, we have "Muslims", "dhimmis", "kufars", and "zionists". They two sides certainly have a great deal to draw on. They have already done so and will continue to. Islamism is closer to fascism and nazism than it is to communism and other secular, left-wing ideologies. Simply put: Islamism is not a left-wing doctine, but a right-wing one.

On the other hand, Muslims throughout Central Asia and the Middle East loathed the Soviet Union. The invasion of Afghanistan was one reason, but atheism was another. In fact, Ayatollah Khomeini sent a letter to Gorbachev shortly before its death calling on the USSR to renounce Marxism-Leninism and adopt the Sharia. Moreover, the assassinations of high-ranking clerics in Iran have, historically, been carried out by leftist groups like the Mujihadeen-e Khalq (MEK). So, the left and the Islamists have been ENEMIES, not allies. What neoconservatives and Bush supporters are trying to prove is that ANYONE who does not support Administration policies is allied with Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. They will try to crack down on leftists first due to the popular misconception that the far right has been "marginalized". It hasn't, and the ongoing alliance between the David Dukes and Mahmoud Ahmadinejads of the world is something for the West to watch. Even our absent-minded president would probably acknowledge that.

Unfortunately, I do not think that neoconservative authors and "scholars" are paying any attention to such an uncomfortable reality. Instead, they target one form of opposition for political reasons as another, far deadlier form is waiting in the wings. They must turn their attention away from the sickle and crescent and towards the swastika and crescent. With that, this means paying attention to David Duke and Hassan Nasrallah, rather than Noam Chomsky and Hassan Nasrallah. It also means that moderate conservatives and moderate liberals must unite to separate fact from fiction and wishful thinking. They must also unite to defend the liberal values (free speech, woman's rights, universal suffrage, abortion, the rule of law, pluralism, secularism, and countless others) that have made America great. The left is merely afraid of losing them. The extreme right (DO NOT BE CONFUSED, FOR I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT GARDEN-VARIETY CONSERVATIVES), like the Islamists, wants to destroy them. They want to take over the world, and unless we pay attention, we (Jews, atheists, agnostics, liberals, feminists, conservatives, blacks, gays, lesbians, Buddhists, Moderate Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Bahais, Slavs, "Non-Aryans" and "Infidels") may well wind up paying the price. Unfortunately, we cannot avoid this in the absence of a stronger sense of World History.

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