Right / left political shift and Israel

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Agreed that Israel is better, at least in its form of government, than the nearby theocratic dictatorships and kleptocracies. Nevertheless it has one pretty darned big wart. And it really needs to fix that wart, or else it likely will eventually become a total pariah state, no longer able to count on any other country, even the U.S.A., to be its unconditional ally.

"Far right" republicans usually have been pro-Israel.

The demonization and polarization is a psyop to divide.

Plus, a small but vocal part of the hard left views capitalism as a Jewish conspiracy. It's one reason the British Labour party has been tying itself in knots over Israel and Palestine the past few years - if their leadership criticises the Israeli government, some muppet of a Labour MP will chime in with "Yeah, Jews are fundamentally evil!" Meanwhile, the fairly reasonable idea of protesting against the saturation bombing of Gaza has been hijacked by anti-semitic protestors who want to see Israel destroyed completely.

Can you name any specific "hard left" leaders or groups that hold this view?

I could be missing something here, but I've never heard of anyone on the "hard left" saying any such thing. Sounds to me more like something a "third positionist" (hybrid of extreme left and extreme right) ultra-nationalist would say.


Questions:

1) To what extent are these protesters actually anti-Jewish, as distinct from just being labeled "anti-semitic" by Zionists who insist on claiming that anti-Zionism == anti-semitism? (See the following articles on the website of Jewish Voice for Peace: On Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Dangerous Conflations and Understanding and dismantling antisemitism.)

2) What does "Israel destroyed completely" mean? Would Israel/Palestine becoming a single unified bi-national Israel-Palestine, with equal rights for all, count as "Israel destroyed completely"? Or does that expression just refer to the extreme reverse ethnic cleansing goal of expelling all the Israeli Jews?

(Note: Please make sure you are looking at what the protesters themselves are saying, not just at what Zionist commentators say the protesters are saying. Also, please make sure you are looking at what the majority of the protesters, and their leaders, are saying, not just a few extreme outliers.)

A recent example of far-left antisemitism is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_for_Humanity - a mural which got Jeremy Corbyn into hot water.

No shortage of antisemitism from lefties over the years - Karl Marx associated Jews with "hucksterism", Pierre-Joseph Proudhon considered them "the enemy of mankind", and while prominent people wouldn't speak in that way today, left-wing antisemitism remains a serious issue: https://www.adl.org/resources/report/an ... eft-europe

Jean-Luc Melenchon seems to be the biggest figure on the left who is openly antisemitic.

... involving the "Illuminati" grand conspiracy ideology. I see.

Yes, occasionally I've run into left-leaning people who fall for traditional far-right conspiracy theories, mistaking them for class analysis.

However, in my experience, people with a strong ongoing commitment to the Left usually ditch "Illuminati"/"New World Order" conspiracy theories when their history and origins are pointed out. The people who cling to "Illuminati" conspiracy theories, or similar claims, are much more likely to be either right wing populists or fringe left-right hybrids like the Larouchies. Also in my experience, these conspiracy theories are likely to be adopted by culturally conservative Black nationalists -- who are not leftists but may sometimes be mistaken for leftists because they are Black.

Here is an old article, Right Woos Left by Chip Berlet, written back in 1999, about the efforts of various extreme right wing groups to persuade leftists to adopt traditional far-right conspiracy theories. Chip Berlet has done a lot of work to educate leftists about this issue.

Back to Mear One (the artist who created the "Freedom for Humanity" mural): Looking at Mear One's Twitter/X account, I see lots of endorsement of various conspiracy theories, but very little other political commentary besides that. So it's unclear to me what Mear One's political views are, besides being a strong believer in a bunch of classic, mostly far-right conspiracy theories, of the kinds I would expect from the Alex Jones / QAnon crowd. That being the case, Mear One does not come across to me as very left wing at all, much less "far left."


Unfortunately ADL, these days at least, conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish bigotry, so I don't consider ADL a reliable source.


In France. Yes, anti-Jewish bigotry seems to be a big problem in France, from what I've heard.

Admittedly my perceptions are mostly U.S.-based.

As far as I can see, here in the UK, it’s the difference between the establishment and the general public that has been more marked.

Here in the UK, among the general public, I think I can safely say virtually nobody has been turned towards a pro-Israel position by Israel’s barbaric, genocidal behaviour of the past few weeks. On the other hand, I think a great many people who were previously pro-Israel or apathetic about the issue have recently become anti-Israel and pro-Palestine.

By contrast, the last few weeks have really highlighted the pro-Israel bias of large parts of our establishment to a sickening degree as far as I’m concerned. While Israel has been massacring innocent civilians and committing some of the worst war crimes the world has seen in years, our leading politicians have refused to call for a ceasefire, and on top of that, several of our politicians and media outlets want us all to be offended by people who are protesting against what Israel is doing instead.

Even left-leaning mainstream media outlets like the Guardian and the BBC that have traditionally not been slavishly pro-Israel have been whitewashing Israel’s crimes these past few weeks, although I think in recent days that has started to change a bit.

As for the British far right, I think they are mostly still as anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) as they have always been. Most people in the UK probably wouldn’t know this because most far-right activists are heavily censored, and the sort of people the establishment presents to us as “far right” are usually just careerist turds like Tommy Robinson, Douglas Murray and Nigel Farage, who all spout pro-Israel talking points because they’re paid to.