THE BARRIERS COME DOWN: ANTISEMITISM AND
COALITIONS OF EXTREMES
These
are strange times for the British far right. Long left alone on the political
extremes where they obsessed about secret Jewish machinations behind every
government policy, all of a sudden they think they have noticed the most
unlikely people agreeing with them. The British National Party advised its
members to read The Guardian for information about "the Zionist
cabal around President Bush"(1). Followers of the
neo-Nazi Combat 18 have found themselves publicly supporting the President of
Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, while the National Front found itself in
sympathy with Labour MP Tam Dalyell. No wonder John Tyndall, former leader of
the British National Party, wrote gleefully that "certain things are
coming out into the open which not long ago would have been tightly censored
and suppressed…We are witnessing a gigantic conspiracy being unveiled"(2). But are the
antisemites of Britain's far right correct in thinking that their view of a Jewish-controlled
world is becoming accepted across the political spectrum?
This
excitement amongst Britain's neo-Nazis has been fuelled by the widespread
theory that the war in Iraq was devised and executed by pro-Israeli, mainly
Jewish, neo-conservative lobbyists in Washington D.C.; that this is only one
example of how American foreign policy has been hijacked by a Jewish or Zionist
cabal; and that these neo-cons are pro-Israeli to the point that they did this
not for the good of America, but purely for the interests of Israel and, by
extension, Jews. This idea, which is far from the preserve of extremists, has
been discussed at length in the mainstream media, and is accepted as fact by
many in the anti-war movement. The Guardian published a briefing on the
subject that described neo-conservatism as "Trotsky's theory of permanent
revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism"; referred
to one of the leading neo-cons, Richard Perle, as a "high priest";
and warned that this alien ideology has "no precedents in American culture
or political history."(3) The BBC broadcast
a Panorama documentary on the subject, much of which was devoted to the alleged
Jewish or Israeli interests of "the small and unelected group of
right-wingers, who critics claim have hijacked the White House."(4) The notion that
Jews secretly drive non-Jews into war, from which Jews can benefit, has long
been a staple of antisemites. Both World Wars, the Boer War, the Russian and
French Revolutions, amongst others, have all been attributed by antisemites to
secret Jewish conspiracies. So it is no surprise that many on the far right
have seen the neo-con theory as vindicating their long-held beliefs. After the
Panorama investigation was broadcast, one C18 supporter wrote on the C18
website that "Z.O.G [the Zionist Occupied Government] … has been caught
red handed interfearing (sic) with the most powerfull (sic) nation on the
planet…allow me to introduce you to the biggest puppet masters of them all The
Neo Conservatives. There must be something in it if fucking PANORAMA went
sniffing around Washington."(5) The message was
accompanied by a series of articles about the alleged Jewish origins of
neo-conservatism, and a link to the BBC website where the full transcript of
the Panorama documentary could be found. There is no doubt that The Guardian
and the BBC would be horrified at the thought that they had encouraged the
violent antisemites of Combat 18, but for neo-Nazis, the neo-con theory fits
neatly into their worldview in which shadowy Jewish hands pull the strings of
our elected leaders. Indeed, there is no reason for the far right to see the
neo-con theory as anything other than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
in action, and to expect some benefit from it, even if the subscribers to the
theory include those on the left and in the Muslim community who would consider
the far right to be their political enemy.
Unsurprisingly,
the history of friendly contact and cooperation between the British far right
on the one hand, and either the far left or Muslim and Islamist organisations
on the other, is minimal to say the least. Nor is this likely to change, given
the Islamophobic nature of contemporary far right propaganda, and the
centrality of anti-fascism to the far left's self-definition. But what has happened
is that the rhetoric of far left and Islamist organisations is increasingly
similar to that of the far right whenever Israel, Zionism, Jewish political
activity and the Iraq war are mentioned. The day after the British National
Party claimed that US policy was being driven by "the Zionist and
Christian fundamentalist zealots around Bush"(6), the Muslim
Council of Britain described the war as "part of a plan to redraw the map
of the Middle East in accordance with the agenda of Zionists and American
neo-Conservatives."(7) The Muslim Public
Affairs Committee and the National Front both used an identical photo of George
Bush standing in front of an Israeli flag to illustrate their belief that he is
influenced or controlled by a Zionist or Jewish lobby(8). The Revolutionary
Communist Group, which organises Boycott Israeli Goods pickets outside branches
of Marks & Spencer, published an investigation into the neo-cons which
claimed that Christian Zionists in America are "More Zionist than the
Zionists, they are fervent supporters of Israel and some even practice Jewish
culture." The article went on: "Given the affinity between Zionism
and right wing ideology within the US ruling class, it is no surprise that so
many of the NeoCons are pro-Israeli Jews", and listed "Leading Neo-Cons
in the Bush Administration", most of whom were, of course, Jewish.(9) Tam Dalyell MP
complained about the pressure on Tony Blair from a "Jewish cabal";
Paul Foot of the Socialist Workers Party argued that "obviously he is
wrong to complain about Jewish pressure on Blair and Bush when he means Zionist
pressure"(10), however, a
posting on the National front's Internet guestbook offered another perspective.
"[Dalyell's] crime is that he dared tell the truth which is that people
like Lord Levy whose first loyalty is to Israel dominate the Blair
government"(11). Neither Tam
Dalyell nor the National Front are party to the details of Lord Levy's work on
behalf of Tony Blair in the Middle East; both, however, condemned him as
favouring Israel's interests over those of Britain, purely because he is
publicly identified as Jewish.
The
idea that antisemitism is the commonality of totalitarianisms is amply
demonstrated in the sharing of material by groups who would never stand next to
each other on a demonstration or share a platform at a public meeting. The
Muslim Association of Britain and the General Union of Palestinian Students
have both, since the start of the intifada, published The Franklin
'Prophecy', an antisemitic hoax manufactured by the American Nazi William Dudley
Pelley and first published in his own publication, Liberation, in
February 1934.(12) The Muslim Public
Affairs Committee have used their website to reproduce material taken from the
sites of both David Irving and The Heretical Press (a far right publisher based
in Hull), while the pro-Hamas Palestine Times has promoted work by
Michael Hoffman II, a revisionist historian whose website has links to
Holocaust denial material(13). Often when
Islamist organisations use far right sources it reveals a deeper antisemitism.
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee's reproduction of material from the far
right sits on their website alongside open support for Holocaust denier David
Irving, accusations of Zionist media and political control, lists of Jewish
donors to New Labour and an investigation into whether the Talmud is "the
most Powerful and Racist book in the world". In one example which neatly
illustrates the growing commonalities between political extremes, the Islamist
Muslim Public Affairs Committee published an article by Professor Kevin
MacDonald - who appeared as a witness for David Irving in his failed libel
action against Professor Deborah Lipstadt - on the subject which is currently
of so much interest to the far left and the anti-war movement: the
"International Jewish Origins of Neoconservatism"(14).
Nor is
this traffic one way. Far right websites, particularly those of the National
Front, Combat 18 and the White Nationalist Party, have in 2003 reproduced
articles by John Pilger and the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir; antisemitic
cartoons taken from Arab websites; a call for White Nationalist Party members
to phone the Malaysian embassy in London and express their support for Mahathir
Mohamad after he claimed that "Jews rule the world"; calls to boycott
Marks & Spencer; boycott lists from Islamist or anti-Zionist websites of,
as one White Nationalist Party supporter put it, "Jewish controlled
companies, used to prop up Zionism around the world"; and frequent use of
the logo of the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign, an Israeli flag in a red circle
with a line through it.(15) Spearhead
reprinted a column from The Observer in which the columnist, Richard
Ingrams, claimed not to read letters in support of the Israeli Government
"if the writer has a Jewish name."(16) Meanwhile David
Irving, at his "Real History 2003" conference in Cincinnati, showed
parts of a BBC documentary about Israel's nuclear weapons programme alongside
the usual Holocaust Denial presentations.(17) While it can be
safely assumed that the BBC and The Observer did not give their
permission to Spearhead or David Irving to use their material, and are
probably unaware that they even did so, for the far right it is encouragement
enough that they ever appeared in such mainstream media: as one message on the
Combat 18 guestbook put it, "There are people who, due to the actions of
Israel are already avowed 'anti-Zionists'. All they need is a good solid
argument to push them over the edge into full anti-semitism - something that we
should be able to provide."(18) However this new,
if limited, harmony with far left and especially Islamist ideas has confused
many on the far right, contradicting the certainties on which their ideology is
based. While a faction of the National Front did court Iran, Libya and their
UK-based followers in the mid-1980s, for most of the British far right the idea
of supporting anything Muslim is inconceivable, especially as their recent
electoral success has been built on exploiting conflict between whites and
South Asian Muslims in Britain. Thus in Summer 2003 the White Nationalist Party
website featured a lengthy debate over whether or not it was possible to
support Hamas against Israel, while opposing any Muslim presence in the UK.(19)
While
Islamists and the far right will use each other's material but won't actually
work together, the far right and far left won't even go that far; for both, the
idea of giving any credibility to the worldview and political positions of the
other is unthinkable. Yet as their views converge on the issues of Iraq,
Israel, Zionism and U.S. foreign policy, even the proudest anti-fascists have
found themselves latching onto conspiracy theories developed on the far right.
The story of the Office of Special Plans, a supposed secret unit inside the
Pentagon which, the theory goes, acts as a backdoor channel for Israel, via the
neo-cons, to manipulate American foreign policy, first appeared in Lyndon
LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review, a magazine replete with far
right, antisemitic conspiracy theories.(20) This story, despite
its dubious origin, has since appeared in the Guardian, the New
Statesman and the Morning Star - the latter two written by John
Pilger.(21) Even if Pilger et
al were unaware of the far right origin of this particular conspiracy theory,
the simple fact that they were so receptive to its content is itself indicative
of how much things have changed.
For
Islamists and the far left - the third side of this totalitarian triangle -
there has been a headlong tumble into each other's arms. A series of anti-war
rallies in 2003 - Britain's biggest ever political demonstrations - were
organised jointly by The Stop the War Coalition, which is led by Lindsey German
of the Socialist Workers Party and Andrew Murray of the Communist Party of
Britain, and the Muslim Association of Britain, an offshoot of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The apparent contradictions of socialists and Islamists forming
political coalitions have been either ignored or overcome in their desire to
form a broad political front. While the majority of marchers on the anti-war
rallies were ordinary, non-political people for whom these doctrinal
differences do not matter, the leaders of the Stop The War Coalition and the Muslim
Association of Britain have had to put aside serious differences over, for
instance, homosexuality and women's rights, in order to work together. Until
recently, the far left ignored the Muslim community, and particularly political
Islamists, as possible allies, viewing them with suspicion as not only
religious but also socially reactionary. This changed with the start of the
second intifada, when the far left and Islamist groups regularly found
themselves on the same anti-Israel demonstrations. Many on the far left view
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as being in the romantic tradition of
anti-imperialist liberation movements, despite the fact that their radical
Islamist ideology and agenda are entirely at odds with those of the left. Spark,
published by the youth wing of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, hailed
Asif Mohammed Hanif, a British Muslim who carried out a suicide bombing in Tel
Aviv in April 2003, as a "hero of the revolutionary youth" who
carried out his bombing "in the spirit of internationalism"(22). A British
delegation from the Che-Leila Youth Brigade, a radical left wing student group
named after Che Guevara and Leila Khaled, held a meeting with Palestinian
Islamic Jihad the day after an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber had killed 17
people on a bus in Megiddo in June 2002.(23)
The
irony of this coalition is that the far left sometimes ends up working with
groups whose antisemitism is no different from that of the far right. The
Boycott Israeli Goods pickets outside Marks & Spencer stores are regularly
staffed by activists from the Revolutionary Communist Group and its offshoot
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, on the one hand, and the Holocaust Deniers of
the Muslim Public Affairs Committee on the other. It does appear that Islamist
Holocaust Denial is a blind spot for many on the left. When George Galloway MP
wrote the Guest Editorial for The Missing Pages, a magazine published by
the Islamist group Students for Justice in Palestine, he may have been
embarrassed to discover that the magazine recommended Roger Garaudy's Founding
Myths of the State of Israel - the book for which Garaudy was found guilty
of Holocaust Denial in France - for a "thorough understanding of the
Israeli Palestinian conflict"(24). Another problem
for British anti-war activists is that the movement in other countries is not
always as strict about excluding fascists. When Galloway led a British
delegation to a conference in Baghdad in May 2002, he may not have expected
that his fellow speakers would include Vladimir Zhirinovsky, French far right
activist Serge Thion and James Thring, a friend and confidant of the late Lady
Jane Birdwood, a veteran hate propagandist of the British far right.(25) But perhaps
Galloway should not have been surprised: at a conference in Italy the previous
month, he appears to have participated in a round-table discussion with Olivier
Wyssa, an elected official of the French Front National, and Belgian Vlaams
Blok MP Francis van den Eynde.(26)
What
the far left and Islamist groups have found is that the areas they agree on are
mainly international issues: opposition to Israel, opposition to the war in
Iraq, and, at a more general level, opposition to American and British foreign
policy and how it impacts on the Muslim world. Throw in a more general
anti-Americanism and also anti-globalisation, and you have a common set of
positions - although not policies - not only for the far left and Islamists,
but for the far right as well. Yet the views of each extreme do differ in
subtle but important ways. For the far right, for instance, their opposition to
Israel is wholly a consequence of their overt antisemitism: Israel is Jewish,
therefore they don't like it. Deeper and more complex analyses of Israel and
its place in the global Jewish conspiracy emanate from this initial position.
For the far left, on the other hand, it is the other way around: expressions of
antisemitism are usually a consequence of their opposition to Israel, which
then strays into areas which slander or offend Jews per se - the
comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany being a prime example. Islamist
antisemitism bears undeniable similarities to that of the far right. Their
belief in Jewish conspiracy theories, for instance, even uses the same texts:
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The International Jew are
more easily purchased from Muslim bookshops than from far right booklists in
present-day Britain. Islamist opposition to Israel is driven by theological
belief rather than the political analysis of the left, and is therefore less
amenable to compromise or change. Islamists do lack the racial antisemitism of
the far right, although this does not stop al-Qaeda from pursuing their
murderous antisemitism, nor does it prevent British Islamist groups like
al-Muhajiroun or Hizb ut-Tahrir from calling for Jews to be killed.
Again,
while all three extremes see America as either a danger or an enemy, the particularities
of their hatred of America differs for each. All three are contemptuous of, or
even disgusted by, American society. The far right sees an America that is
multiracial, multi-cultural, riven by ethnic violence and run by Jews. As for
how this impacts on the rest of the world, the two totems of American cultural
and financial dominance, Hollywood and Wall Street, are seen as central tools
of the Jewish conspiracy, and symbols of everything that is not only wrong, but
also dangerous, about America. Islamists see nothing but decadence, corruption
and perversity in American materialism and sexual freedoms; but, more acutely,
they feel humiliation at the weakness of the Muslim world in the face of
Western military, economic and technological dominance, and believe America is
leading the Western effort to permanently subdue, and eventually destroy,
Islam. Whereas the far right sees America as the vanguard of the multicultural
assault on the purity of the white race, Islamists believe the United States is
leading the West's economic, imperialist and socio-cultural attack on the
Muslim world. Like the far right, Islamists believe that those parts of
American policy they consider hostile to their interests are the result of
Jewish influence or control. For the far left, America is the epitome of
consumer capitalism, and its engine on a global scale. At a deeper level,
though, many on the left are still in the grip of the cold war politics that
shaped their axiomatic anti-Americanism; indeed, the cold war is one that the
left cannot forgive America for winning. George Galloway, for one, is clear
about this: "I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance
of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life".(27) The far left will
always support third world peoples against what they view as an imperialist
West, led by America. The interesting thing is where antisemitism fits into the
far left's anti-Americanism.
That
antisemitism should be a consequence of far left hostility to America is not
necessarily a coincidence. According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former Romanian
intelligence officer who defected to the United States, "'imperial-Zionism'
was a Moscow invention, a modern adaptation of the 'Protocols of the Elders of
Zion', and long a favorite (sic) tool of Russian intelligence to foment ethnic
hatred. The KGB always regarded anti-Semitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source
of anti-Americanism".(28) Differing views of
the relationship between America and Israel reveal much about the relationship
between anti-Americanism and antisemitism. The traditional far left view was
usually that Israel was a creation of the imperialist powers, left behind in
the Middle East to look after their interests. This naturally led to the idea
that Israel was a servant of American policy, most clearly expressed in the
Socialist Workers Party pamphlet, Israel: The Hijack State, America's
watchdog in the Middle East. This theory has been shaken up by the Iraq war
and the wider War on Terror, which are supposedly - according to the new
conspiracy theory - driven by Israel and its surrogates the neo-cons. The
policy of the anti-war movement to link the issues of Iraq and Israel/Palestine
has raised questions about whether Israel or America is the main enemy; who is
pulling whose strings; to what extent the respective occupations are part of a
single phenomenon; and, equally, to what extent 'resistance' in Iraq and Israel
are part of the same struggle. Some on the left still cling to the old
analysis: Jeremy Corbyn MP argued that Israel/Palestine and Iraq "are inextricably
linked because of the issue of US policy that runs through them ".(29) Others have added
new twists: the New Communist Party insist that there is no Zionist lobby
dictating American policy, but still can't resist a good conspiracy theory,
arguing that the myth of the Zionist lobby is actually all part of the
imperialist plan: "The tail doesn't wag the dog and Israel and the
American 'Zionist lobby' does not dictate American foreign policy. They serve
it. They provide Anglo-American imperialism with a convenient alibi to play
the role of 'honest broker' in the Middle East. They enable the feudal Arab oil
princes whose thrones are propped up by imperialist bayonets to claim that the
Arabs' enemy is not imperialism as such but Israel and this supposedly
all-powerful 'Zionist lobby' which pulls the strings in the United
States."(30) For the
Revolutionary Communist Group, American arms manufacturers are an important
plank in the relationship, using the Israeli army for "live fire testing
of weapons systems" on Palestinians.(31) For Islamists,
though, Zionist or Jewish control of America plays a much more dominant role in
the relationship. Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood, who has visited the UK several times at the invitation of the
Muslim Association of Britain, claimed that America wanted "to destroy
[Iraq] for the interest of Israel." As for who was controlling whom, he
thought this was a meaningless question: "Israel and America are
intermixed like a chemical compound. America is Israel, and Israel is
America."(32) Rashid
al-Ghannouchi, a Tunisian Islamist based in the UK, described "the war
hawks in the Pentagon" as "a mixture of Zionists and Zionised
evangelists, weapon traders, oil companies, and others", and argued that
the Palestinian intifada is "the main source of inspiration for the
resistance against American and Zionist hegemonic plans" in Iraq.(33) Even within
al-Qaeda's amorphous global network, there are differences of opinion over the
America-Israel relationship. While one of the 9/11 hijackers, Sa'id al-Ghamidi,
claimed in his video will that "The enemies of Islam, including Jews,
Christians and others, are arms of an octopus, whose head is represented by the
United States, and branches of a tree, whose trunk is the United States"(34), the radical
Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir thought differently: "I hate the
American Government", he said, "but not the American people because
they are being manipulated by Jews to fight against Islam."(35)
Not
everyone on the far left supported the idea of working with Islamists in the
anti-war movement. The Alliance for Workers' Liberty, a Trotskyite faction in
the Stop The War Coalition, objected to working with the Muslim Association of
Britain due to its links to the Muslim Brotherhood, and argued that the left
should be working with secular, progressive Muslim groups instead.(36) The Weekly Worker
newspaper took a similar stand, pointing out in one article that "At the
same time as our secularist and Marxist comrades are being murdered by groups
allied to the MAB, we are lining ourselves up as co-sponsors of demonstrations.
This is like communists lining up with Nazis sympathisers on demonstrations
during World War II, because we are both against British imperialism"(37). There were also
Islamists who objected not just to working with the left, but also to the very
idea of engaging with Western-style secular democratic politics. Muhammad
al-Mas'ari, a Saudi Islamist living in London, is one who believes that
democratic politics, by giving primacy to the will of the people, stands in
direct contradiction to the Islamic belief that Allah is the ultimate source of
authority.(38) Hizb ut-Tahrir objected
to any Muslims marching under the Stop The War Coalition banner: "It is
clear that many of the heads of the Stop the War campaign are atheists,
communists, anarchists and believers in sexual freedoms. These are people who
believe that Allah does not exist, that the Prophet Muhammad was an impostor,
and that religions such as Islam are barbaric, oppress women, forbid sexual
expression and remain as the 'opium of the masses'…their agenda and vision for
what values, systems and policies Iraq should have, are as corrupt to Muslims
as any right wing hawk residing in Washington"(39). The Islamist
writer Iqbal Siddiqui noted that "The anti-US trend [amongst non-Muslims]
is strongest among those who are also the most anti-religious and - in
particular - anti-Islam", and that persuading such people "that
Islamic principles offer a better basis for creating moral and just societies
is perhaps unrealistic."(40) Siddiqui's last
comment hints at the subscript to this alliance: that both sides see it as an
opportunity to convert members of the other, from one set of fixed certainties
to another. Islamists and the far left are both opportunistic by nature,
tactically entryist and proselytise to all who will listen. However incongruous
it may seem, both will view the other as a source of potential converts.
Undeterred,
the Socialist Workers Party and the Muslim Association of Britain, enthused by
their ability to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people to demonstrate
against the war, have gone a step further and taken their new alliance to the
electorate in the form of Respect, the Unity Coalition, led by George Galloway.
For those on both sides of this red-green coalition, this involved the prospect
of dropping policies and principles that had previously been central to their
worldview. Lindsey German, when challenged on the attitude of Islamists to
homosexuality, told a Socialist Workers Party conference that "I'm in
favour of defending gay rights, but I am not prepared to have it as a
shibboleth"(41). The same
principle applies, in reverse, for the Muslim side of the coalition: clauses in
Respect's founding declaration opposing discrimination on grounds of gender,
religious beliefs (or lack of them) and sexual orientation, and specifically
insisting on the right to self-determination in sexual choices, represent
serious compromises for the Islamist side of this alliance.(42) The reasons why
both sides are prepared to make these compromises are not hard to fathom. For
Muslim groups who have previously felt, with some justification, excluded from
mainstream politics, the anti-war cause has provided an unprecedented public
platform for their views. Meanwhile the anti-war movement resonated with large
swathes of the British public in a way that few campaigns led by the far left
ever have done, and the obvious temptation is to try and harness this into a
more permanent political front. Lindsey German, Respect's candidate for London
Mayor, is one who was seduced by this prospect: "The anti-war movement
marks a new politics in Britain and has created an atmosphere in which
socialists can build…We brought together the left, the peace movement and the
Muslim community…We are prepared to discuss with the different components of
the anti-war movement an electoral alliance that puts forward an
anti-imperialist, anti-cuts, anti-neoliberal agenda."(43) While Respect's
economic and social policies are largely socialist in content, it is their
positions on Israel/Palestine and Iraq that form the core of their intended
appeal to Muslim voters. Galloway - whose Glasgow Kelvin seat will disappear
due to boundary changes at the next General Election - made this clear enough
when describing which seat he will target next: "where we're strong and
the Member of Parliament is a pro-war, pro-Israel activist, then we'll
stand."(44)
Respect
superseded the Socialist Alliance, Britain's previous far left electoral
vehicle, and many of the SWP's former Socialist Alliance partners were aghast
at the prospect, not just at working with Islamists, but at working with any
religious representatives of the Muslim community. The SWP's determination to
work with the MAB revealed deep divisions on the left over how to relate to
both Islam and Islamism, with which the left shares several superficial
positions, while having deep doctrinal differences. Asad Rehman, who worked as
Galloway's political assistant for the June 2004 elections, is obviously in
favour: "My political background is Marxist, but I'm also a Muslim. In the
past on the left you would have had to stay quiet if you believed in God. Now
you've got people who are saying, 'I'm for the Muslim community and I also
believe in the left'."(45) Others disagree:
according to David Osler, a former Executive Committee member of the Socialist
Alliance, "Revolutionary socialism and political Islam have no common
cause. Some differences really are too important to split, and this is one of
them."(46) Tony Greenstein, a
founder member of the Socialist Alliance, condemned the SWP for "its
desperate attempt to gain a quick fix electoral programme, [by forming] an
unprincipled pact with Islamic clerics and mosques."(47)
In the
end, Respect failed to gain a single seat in any of the European, council and
London Assembly elections, and polled poorly in most areas of the country. The
one area where they did get encouraging support was East London, where they
polled around 20% of the votes cast. Many on the left expect Respect to be a
short-lived coalition, a feeling that will be strengthened by their initial
failure to win any seats. The task now facing Respect's leadership is to
persuade the grassroots activists and supporters on both sides of their
coalition that the political compromises they made at its formation are worth
maintaining through to the next General Election and beyond. Having overcome
their initial differences, Galloway will rely on their commonalities - however
superficial - acting as a glue in what he hopes will be a powerful new
political movement of "all those people who are against imperialism,
against Zionism and against globalization (sic)"(48). Of course, the
far right would easily fit this description of who Galloway would welcome into
Respect, but an electoral pact with the BNP may be a step too far, even for
him.
Anti-globalisation
is a perfect example of how these new allies may agree on the overall concept,
but have totally different ideas about the details. Sheikh Qaradawi, in a
lecture on "Our Islamic Rhetoric in the Globalization Era", described
globalisation as "spreading the culture of seduction, sex, pornography,
and deviation, the culture of abortion according to the wishes of the pregnant
woman, and the culture of peace that Israel wants…economic invasion is always
followed by cultural invasion by the United States and the West. There is the
culture of fast-food restaurants, like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza
Hut, and others…all these globalization efforts serve the interests of Israel
and Zionism."(50) Qaradawi's
opposition to abortion and sexual freedoms puts him at odds with most of the
anti-globalist left (apart, interestingly, from Galloway, who has used his anti-abortion
stance to attract Muslim support). Furthermore, what Qaradawi objects to is
mainly cultural globalisation, whereas the anti-globalist ideas of the left are
mainly economic and anti-capitalist. The far right is also opposed to
globalisation, for reasons of preserving national and racial purity.
The
danger is that, by working with radical Islamists, the far left risks its
opposition to Israel slipping further into obviously antisemitic positions. The
Morning Star published an article by Azzam Tamimi, a Muslim Association of
Britain spokesman who previously filled the same position for the Jordanian
Muslim Brotherhood, in which Tamimi warned that "the end of US
imperialism…will be very bad news for Israel and the Jewish lobbies that support
them in the US and Europe."(51) A column by John
Pilger in the New Statesman began by blaming Israel for causing the
Madrid train bombings and for being "the guiding hand" behind American
foreign policy, then smoothly drew "middle-class Jewish homes in
Britain" into the circle of "destructive" Zionist complicity .
This kind of implicit threat against Diaspora Jewish communities will
inevitably generate a more permissive attitude on the left towards anti-Jewish
hostility, from which antisemitic incidents will surely follow. This may
already have happened: a far left anti-capitalist march in Strasbourg in July
2002 came to a standoff when it passed by a synagogue, with some marchers having
to physically restrain others from desecrating the synagogue building.(52) In Britain, a
Jewish Labour MP who supported the Iraq war found her constituency office
daubed with swastikas and Stop The War Coalition flyers the morning after the
Stop The War Coalition had picketed a dinner she attended.(53)
The
coalescing of political extremes that were previously separate from, or even
opposed to, each other, creates dangers for the Jewish community when these
extremes express their unity by attacking Israel and America's support for it.
This is not just because most Jews support Israel - but because a new
ideological position that sees Israel and Zionism as a global danger which
manifests itself through control of, or influence over, the most powerful
nation on earth, unavoidably raises traditional antisemitic themes. Add in the
Islamist view of Zionism as a danger to "the Islamic nation and the
world…a threat to values, family and religion. It aims to get rid of everything
good about humanity"(54), and you have a
view of Zionism, Israel and, by extension, most of diaspora Jewry that comes
straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This idea that
Zionism is not just limited to the arena of the Israel/Palestine conflict, but
is also the malignant force behind global events, brings the far left neatly
into line with far right and Islamist antisemitism. All three are wedded to
belief systems that are too inflexible and ideologically sterile to keep up
with the complexities of the modern world; none of them can resist the magnetic
pull of the conspiracy theory to explain those events that challenge their
blinkered worldviews. Perhaps the single common factor between the far left,
far right and Islamists is that all three are chasing their version of a
utopian society, and all see America as the biggest impediment to their
creation of a better world. Once they accept the idea that American policy is
set by Jews, the link to antisemitism is clear. During the first Gulf War of
1991, Colin Jordan, the godfather of the British far right, was a lone voice
when he claimed the war was only being fought for the Jews. In 2003, when the
United States led a second invasion of Iraq, Jordan could hardly be heard above
the clamour.
Notes
1 Nick Griffin, "Back to the
future", Identity issue 26, Nov 2002
2 John Tyndall, "Conspiracy Unveiled!", Spearhead
no. 414, August 2003
3 Editor briefing, "The rise of the Washington 'neo-cons',
The Guardian 14 April 2003
4 "The War Party", BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3021001.stm
5 Combat 18 website http://www.skrewdriver.net, 27 May 2003.
"Z.O.G." is the acronym for Zionist Occupied Government, a standard
far right term for supposed Jewish control of Western governments.
6 "Against the war, for our troops", BNP website http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/2003_march/news_mar15.htm,
19 March 2003
7 "A Black Day In Our History", MCB website http://www.mcb.org.uk/presstext.php?ann_id=33,
20 March 2003
8 NF website, http://www.natfront.com; MPAC leaflet, "Some
say Lobbying the Government doesn't make a difference"
9 Steve Palmer, "US zealots prepare for world
domination", Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no. 173 June/July
2003
10 Paul Foot, "Worse than Thatcher", The Guardian
14 May 2003
11 Posting on National Front internet guestbook, http://www.natfront.com/, 6 May 2003
12 "Benjamin Franklin, 'The Jewish Threat on the American
Society'", The New Dawn, monthly newsletter of the MAB, issue 2 Oct
& Nov 2000; also G.U.P.S. leaflet, Prophecy of Benjamin Franklin in
regard of the Jewish race, distributed at Manchester University, March 2002
13 "Two Jewish authors underscore Israeli holocaust against
Palestinians", The Palestine Times Nov 2002
14 For all MPAC postings see http://www.mpacuk.org/
15 All postings and quotes from internet guestbooks at http://www.skrewdriver.net;%20http://www.wnpuk.org;%20http://www.natfront.com
16 "The things they're saying - extracts from the mainstream
media", Spearhead no. 414 August 2003
17 "Real History came to Cincinnati", http://www.fpp.co.uk/cinc/2003/report.html
18 http://www.skrewdriver.net, 2 May 2003
19 http://www.wnpuk.org, various postings June - Aug 2003
20 David Rose, "Iraqi defectors tricked us with WMD lies, but we
must not be fooled again", Observer 30 May 2004
21 Julian Borger, "The spies who pushed for war", Guardian
17 July 2003; John Pilger, New Statesman vol 17 issue 799 22 March 2004,
reproduced in Morning Star 20 March 2004
22 "Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall and Asif Mohammed Hanif: heroes
of the revolutionary youth!", Spark issue 15 May 2003
23 Katherine Cremer, "A Bristolian reports from Palestine",
Bristol indymedia website http://bristol.indymedia.org/front/php3?article_id=1083&group=webcast%20
24 The Missing Pages, editorial & reading list (no issue
number or date; probably published mid-late 2002)
25 Baghdad Message special issue May 2002, published by the
Permanent Secretariat of Baghdad Conference, http://www.uruklink.net/iraqnews/emessage.htm
26 "Programma ASEFI 13/2002", http://www.asefi.it/ProgrammaASEFI/documenti/archivio/2002/200213.htm;%20for%20details%20on%20Wyssa%20and%20Van%20den%20Eynde%20see%20http://votants.free.fr/ra/01/Owyssa.htm%20&%20http://www.vlaams-blok.be/vbkamer/fractie.asp?id=6
respectively
27 Simon Hattenstone, "Saddam and me", Guardian 16
Sept 2002
28 Ion Mihai Pacepa, "The KGB's Man", Wall Street
Journal 22 Sept 2003
29 Jemma Wayne & Bernard Josephs, "Londoner launches anti-war
group", Jewish Chronicle 7 Nov 2003
30 "The road to nowhere", New Communist Party leaflet,
undated
31 Steve Palmer, "US zealots prepare for world domination",
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no. 173 June/July 2003
32 Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, "On America and its 'noble'
intentions in bombing Iraq", Student Re-present Iraq campaign edition,
published by Union of Muslim Students
33
Shaykh Rashid al-Ghannouchi, "The Repercussions of the American War on
Iraq and the way to confront them", Student Re-present Iraq
campaign edition, published by Union of Muslim Students
34"Al-Jazeera
TV broadcasts 'last will' of alleged 11 September hijacker", Al-Jazeera TV
12 Sept 2003; transcribed and translated by BBC Monitoring, 13 Sept 2003
35 Alex Spillius, "Dismay at militant cleric's four-year
sentence", Daily Telegraph 3 Sept 2003
36 "What is the Muslim Association of Britain?", Alliance
for Workers' Liberty leaflet, April 2003
37 Martyn Hudson, "Fight islamism, not islam", Weekly
Worker no. 461 19 Dec 2002
38 James Abdulaziz Brown, "A common cause", Emel
Sept/Oct 2003
39 "Don't Stop The War Except through Islamic Politics",
Hizb ut-Tahrir - Britain, 22 Jan 2003
40 Iqbal Siddiqui, "The potential and pitfalls of working with
non-Muslim critics of America and the West", Crescent International
1-15 Nov 2001
41Nick Cohen, "The lesson the left has never learnt", New
Statesman 21 July 2003
42 For details of Respect's Founding Declaration and other policies
see http://www.respectcoalition.com/
43 "The Future of the Movement", Socialist Worker 12
July 2003
44 "AMW correspondent Victor Kattan interviews Galloway",
Arab Media Watch website http://www.arabmediawatch.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1669,
9 June 2004
45 Naima Bouteldja, "Why Respect Matters", Red Pepper
June 2004
46 David Osler, "Respect? Unity? They must be joking",
Tribune 21 May 2004
47 Amanda May, "Socialist Alliance hit by splits and
recriminations", Tribune 18 July 2003
48 "AMW correspondent Victor Kattan interviews Galloway",
ibid.
49 Imam Muhammad Imam, "Qatar: Speakers at Islamic Conference
Discuss Globalization Effects on Islam", Al-Sharq al-Awsat 17 Jan
2003, translated by FBIS
50 Azzam Tamimi, "Zionism must be renounced", Morning Star
26 Sept 2003
51 John Pilger, New Statesman vol. 17 issue 799 22 March 2004,
reproduced in Morning Star 20 March 2004
52 "No-borders-camp demonstraitors (sic) attacked
synagogue", report on UK Indymedia website at http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=38142&group=webcast,%209%20Aug%202002;%20original%20report%20on%20German%20Indymedia%20website,%20%22versuchter%20angriff%20auf%20strasbourger%20synagoge%22,%20http://germany.indymedia.org/2002/07/27007.shtml,
29 July 2002
53 Mark Scodie, "MP's office daubed with swastikas", Jewish
Chronicle 31 Oct 2003
54 Rashid al-Ghannouchi, "Islamic Movements self-criticism &
reconsideration", Insight vol 1 issue 5 May/June 2002
About the author
David Rich is a senior analyst at the Community
Security Trust (CST). The Community Security Trust provides security and
defence advice for the Jewish community throughout Britain. It was established
as a charity in 1994 with the backing of the Home Office and the Metropolitan
Police.
© JPR/Institute for Jewish Policy Research 2003
________________________________________
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