The anti-authoritarian left embraces the anti-Zionist right

09May10

An AnarchistNews post about an awful AdBusters article elicits an appalling comment thread. One commenter, however, gives a nice succint summary of what we are up against in the anarchist milieu, at least in North America:

Lyons at Three-Way Fight says back Hezbollah. Left Turn backs both Hezbollah and Hamas. Norman Finkelstein backs Hezbollah (‘We are all Hezbollah,’ he is fond of saying). Chomsky’s recent book on Lebanon does not contain a single criticism of Hezbollah, but much praise. Judith Butler says Hamas and Hezbollah are ‘progressive social movements’ who are part of the ‘global left’. Dissident Voice posts horrific bullshit; same with Counterpunch, who printed a faked interview with Nasrallah and then left it up after it was exposed. They also are repeating physically impossible accusations that the IDF are harvesting Palestinian organs (a transmutation of the classical antisemitic ‘blood libel’). (btw Counterpunch’s books are co-published by AK Press). Race Traitor prints antisemite Israel Shamir on Israel. ‘Upping the Anti’ seems to back both Hamas and Hebollah, as well.

This is all despite the fact that Islamists helped destroy any possibility of Palestinian reciprocity for a binational state pre-1948; leaders like the Grand Mufti were in alliance with the Nazis; and it was Nazi propaganda, spread by Islamists in the Middle East (specifically the Muslim Brotherhood), which framed Middle Eastern anti-zionism in specifically anti-semitic terms.

Note: I’m not sure that Michael Lyons exactly says “back Hezbollah”; I think his position is a little more complex. I’ve not seen anything pro-Hamas in Upping the Anti either, but haven’t looked hard.

Filed under: Anarchism, the poverty of anti-imperialism   |  4 Comments
Tags: Alison Weir, anarchism, blood libel, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel Shamir, Judith Butler, Michael Lyons, Noam Chomsky, organ harvesting, Race Traitor, Three-Way Fight, Upping the Anti