“Rightwing” Extremism and Islamofascism
Respect MP George Galloway – a man who has exalted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah – even attended the 74th birthday celebrations of the Syrian Social National Party in Ottowa in 2006. The SSNP is backed both by Syria and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. It was, moreover, molded directly on the European fascist movements of the 1930s, and still retains a swastika (called the “red hurricane”) asits flag, uniforms for its “martyrs,” and an anthem sung to the tune Deutschland Uber Alles. It is, undoubtedly, a rather odd party for an “anti-fascist” to be visiting.
Then there’s the “anti-fascist” Socialist Workers Party, which has promoted Gilad Atzmon, a former-Jew turned anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, who believes that “To regard Hitler as the ultimate evil is nothing but surrendering to the Zio-centric discourse [and to] regard Hitler as the wickedest man and the Third Reich as the embodiment of evilness is to let Israel off the hook.” “Israel and Zionism,” he says, “are the ultimate Evil with no comparison.”
In the West, neo-fascist movements of the “blood and soil” type have – like their Leftwing counterparts – sort to associate themselves with Islamist groups. And on a few occasions all three have joined together. In the Canadian province of Calgary earlier this year, for example, the Aryan Guard marched with Muslims and Leftwing “anti-fascists” against Israel.
There are other troubling partnerships. Britain’s “Conservative” Party has its Conservative Muslim Forum – an organization the party keeps quiet about, but – which is regarded as extremist by many of those who have read its opinions [pdf]. The British National Party – which made gains in the recent EU elections, by attracting mostly former Leftwing, Labour voters – has some openly neo-Nazi members with functional positions, according to a recent report by the Centre for Social Cohesion. The center also found that the party “promotes books by neo-Nazi publishing houses.” Noontide Press in particular – a publishing house that is connected to the US-based Institute for Historical Review (IHR).
All of this is totally and utterly condemnable in itself. Yet, being a Holocaust denial think tank, we should have no doubt that the IHR is a supplier of propaganda to Islamofascist organizations, for the jihad against Israel and the West. Indeed, the IHR has even attempted to form alliances between Western Holocaust deniers and radical Muslims, especially in the Middle East – though it has also forged links with Sweden’s extremist Radio Islam.
Yet, more troubling, some on the mainstream Right also frequently express views, not entirely different to those of the IHR, that reinforce the Islamofascist worldview. A number of US paleoconservatives routinely inveigh against Israel, not to mention “Zionists” and “neocons.” Some have even attempted to cast doubt on the “war on terror,” because they believe that war in the Middle East was initiated at the behest of Israel, or that the “Israel lobby” controls or unduly influences the White House, etc., etc.
Consequently, some paleocons, as Ilana Mercer pointed out recently, “are more devoted to the Palestinian cause than most left-liberals,” and some are even prepared to “go to bat” for them. Most notably, Pat Buchanan has repeatedly endorsed Barack Obama, because of the president’s views on Israel, and his earlier determination to make nice with Iran’s Islamofascist regime.
But, Buchanan also caused quite a stir recently when he commemorated the anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland by publishing an article suggesting that Adolf Hitler was basically a rational guy, and that war with Nazi Germany could have been avoided. AntiWar.com – a kind of online, paleocon version of Stop the War Coalition – chose to mark this year’s 9/11 anniversary by pondering whether “Israelis” might have been responsible for the attacks of 2001.
The point, it would seem, is to make us doubt our morality, our judgment, our actions, and our civilization enough that “neocons” will never dare to attack Iran, and might even recall US troops back to “fortress America.” (Then, of course, there will “be peace in our time.”) Some neocons may well be gunning for a fight with Iran. Most, I suspect, want to see the country’s democratic movement succeed of its own accord. Iran’s youth, after all, is not only pro-democracy, but pro-Western, and especially, pro-US. Iranian youths actually did take to the streets after 9/11 to denounce the terrorists – although, unlike some “patriotic” Americans, they didn’t believe the 9/11 hijackers were “Israelis.”
The “anti-Israeli,” “anti-Zionist” rhetoric of the paleocons plays into the hands of the enemies of democracy, whether in the US, Iran, or elsewhere. Antiwar.com itself publishedone article by CAIR employee Randall Royer (who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorist offenses), although the site is far from unique in this regard.
CAIR representatives are, of course, regularly interviewed on the mainstream US media.
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are, once again, appearing in mainstream European media outlets – such as the recent blood libel published by Sweden’s Aftonbladet.
Now, then, is not the time for “revising” history, or doubting the morality or wisdom of defeating genocidal dictatorships. Now is the time to take stock of the lessons that history has actually given us, and to decide which side we want to be on – the side of liberty or the side of tyranny – because, as history shows us, one cannot to lend support to both for very long.
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