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Benjamin Weingarten

@bhweingarten

May 22

As the left and Islamic supremacists jointly wage war -- both information war and kinetic war -- on the Judeo-Christian West today, the following explainer, adapted from my book on this subject, American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party, may be helpful.

***

The left and Islamists seemingly have little in common on paper.

The former is largely anti-religious, while the latter is religiously fundamentalist.

The former accepts lifestyles and condones conduct that the latter considers intolerable and blasphemous.

But they are able to set aside their differences and partner in a bid to triumph over common foes who stand in the way of their respective totalitarian visions.

The biggest stumbling block for each has been traditional, Judeo-Christian Western civilization, of which Judeo-Christian America is the “Great Satan,” and Jewish Israel is the “Little Satan.” Anti-Americanism has always gone hand in hand with anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.

The Ideological Basis for Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism
Legitimate criticism of a government does not constitute hatred of the people it represents. Anti-Zionism however seeks to legitimize hatred of Jews under the guise of targeting the Jewish nation-state. It manifests itself in the harassment of, and holding of Israel to, an unreachable double standard to which no other nation is held. This double standard proves ruinous by privileging and effectively sponsoring those who seek its destruction. At root, it denies to the Jewish people their theological, legal and historical claims to the homeland in which they have maintained a continuous presence—bases on which other claimants cannot compete. This in spite of the fact that Jews have been a maligned minority since antiquity, which would otherwise seem to have made them a favored cause of “progressives.”

Anti-Zionists do not criticize Israel in good faith, but rather out of prejudice, which separates them from critics whose positions in this author’s view may well be wrongheaded and naive, but who genuinely wish to see Israel not only survive but thrive. And what is best for Israel—living in peace and prosperity in a part of the world marked by hostility towards it, and the West that it represents—would indeed be best for the U.S. and all free nations, given the dangers in the region, Israel’s strategic importance, and the remarkable contributions Israel has made to the world’s progress in spite of the perilous position in which it finds itself. Anti-Zionism in actuality plays out as a cudgel not only against Jews and Israel, but against all Americans, and the West itself, who, even setting aside moral and spiritual considerations, richly benefit from its existence.

The historical roots of anti-Zionism are integral to understanding today’s “Islamo-Left” of France, “Corbynization” in the United Kingdom, and its Ilhan Omar incarnation here in America. The original purveyors of anti-Zionism introduced it to make anti-Semitism viable in a post-Holocaust world, as part of a broader anti-Western project. It appealed to and linked the Left and the Islamists, who again share sometimes-overlapping worldviews and ambitions, but perhaps most importantly today, common enemies. They will stay allied in their mutual quest to overcome their enemies at least until the point at which they collectively triumph, when they will logically turn on each other given their multiple points of departure.

Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn made the connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and the Left and the Islamists, several decades ago, predicting the threat that has now metastasized. Professor Alan Johnson’s 2019 report on anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party notes that Hobsbawn:

…issued a warning in 1980 that a new form of antisemitism was emerging. Across huge tracts of the world, he noted, antisemitism had never gone away, surviving in two major regions in the post-war years – ‘under Islam and, unfortunately, in some countries committed to an ideology which rejected racism, notably the Soviet Union.’ Today, almost all the cases of antsemitism (sic) are Islamist or Stalinist in inspiration, whether the perpetrator knows it or not. Though he was a lifelong member of the Communist Party, Hobsbawm pointed out that in Stalinist Eastern Europe, ‘antisemitism ... was ... tolerated and sometimes encouraged’ after the Holocaust, ‘albeit now dressed up as anti-Zionism’ in the era of the Jewish state. Hobsbawm predicted that this ‘new’ form of antisemitism – antisemitism ‘dressed up’ as anti-Zionism as a camouflage in a post-Holocaust world – would grow in influence.

This “dressing up” of anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism conforms to the rhetoric of modern Leftists, Islamists, their mutual admirers and defenders, and the subject of this book. Writes Professor Johnson:

…Antisemitism ‘dressed up’ as anti-Zionism has three components: (i) a political programme to abolish the Jewish homeland (and no other homeland); (ii) a discourse to demonise it as evil and ‘Nazi’ (and only it); and (iii) a movement to make it a global pariah state so it can be ‘smashed’ (an anathema applied to no other state in the world). The old antisemitism – which has not gone away, but is co-mingled with the new form – believed ‘the Jew is our Misfortune’. The new antisemitism proclaims ‘the Zionist is our misfortune’. The old antisemitism wanted to make the world ‘Judenrein’ – free of Jews. The new antisemitism wants to make the world ‘Judenstaatrein’– free of the Jewish State, which all but a tiny sliver of world Jewry either lives in, has family members living in, or treats as a vitally important part of their identity.

As several scholars have argued, Israel has come to represent the collective Jew, with all this entails. How did the Left and the Islamists coalesce around the “new anti-Semitism?”

On Left-Wing Anti-Semitism
Jew-hatred has a long history on the Left. The cruel irony is that this is true in spite of the fact that Jews have often been leading leftist thinkers, and proponents of leftist causes. Karl Marx himself was the descendant of a long line of Rabbis, yet vacillated between virulent anti-Semitism and, to put it politely, unsympathy to Judaism—himself personifying this seeming paradox. Beyond self-hating Jews like Marx, for others, revolutionary socialism became their religion. This is akin to more secular Jews today who effectively equate their faith with progressivism, in large part on the basis of a flawed view of the concept of tikkun olam, which they translate as “healing or repairing the world one central planner at a time.” Socialism was also—seemingly ironically given the dominant strain of Jew-hatred in Leftism—bound up in the Zionist cause. Haters of Jews justified their views on any number of bases, often varying by country. Those who espoused universalist materialist ideologies like socialism may have rationalized their hostility to Jews based on their predominance in “capitalist” fields—ones to which they were ironically relegated due to discriminatory policies—or at a far more fundamental level on the basis of envy of and hatred towards achievement, combined with Jewish particularism. And of course, as an often insular minority community, Jews could easily be scapegoated and attacked on secular grounds as easily as Jews’ great tormenters of yesteryear had done on religious ones. Regardless of how Jew-haters justified their views, the key point is that as Adolf Hitler explained in 1920: “If we are socialists, then we must definitely be anti-Semites—and the opposite, in that case, is Materialism and Mammonism, which we seek to oppose.”

If indeed there is a correlation between leftism and Jew-hatred, it would follow that anti-Semitism would be a primary feature in the world’s preeminent leftist regimes. Paul Johnson tells us in his essential A History of the Jews that “anti-Semitism corrupts the people and societies possessed by it.” According to Johnson, “nowhere were its corrosive effects more apparent than in Russia”—the world’s great (terrible) incubator and executor of Leftism. Johnson’s explication of this point is particularly poignant in light of what we are seeing with today’s anti-Semitism on the Left:

The ubiquitous petty corruption engendered by the Tsarist laws against the Jews has…been noted. More important in the long run was its moral corruption of state authority. For in harassing the Jews, the Tsarist Russian state became habituated to a close, repressive and highly bureaucratic system of control. It controlled the internal movements and residence of the Jews, their right to go to school or university and what they studied there, to enter professions or institutes, to sell their labour, to start businesses or form companies, to worship, to belong to organizations and to engage in an endless list of other activities. This system exercised monstrous, all-pervading control of the lives of an unpopular and underprivileged minority and a ruthless invasion of their homes and families. As such, it became a bureaucratic model, and when the Tsars were replaced first by Lenin, then by Stalin, the control of the Jews was extended to the control of the entire population, and the model became the whole.

None of this is to mention the Jew-hatred in the national socialist Nazi regime, or in contemporary Islamist-aligned Leftist regimes like those of Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, or Islamist regimes that have blended Marxism into their ruling ideologies, like Khomeinist Iran. We will return to this point momentarily.

On Islamic Jew-Hatred
The history of Jew-hatred in the Islamic world predates Marxism by many centuries, deriving in no small part from the Islamic canon, and manifesting itself across Muslim societies worldwide in pervasive Jewish repression. Jews have historically lived in Islamic states at very best as dhimmis, oppressed second-class non-citizens with limited rights and limitless burdens. At worst, they have found themselves massacred. This fate is consistent with Koran 9:29, which as noted earlier instructs Muslims to:

Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya [tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.

Islam’s sacred texts contain many such passages, which contemporary Islamic scholars reiterate in their commentaries.

The proof of this poisonous legacy is in the pudding of the present-day Islamic world, something the first Trump administration’s U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, @ElanSCarr has openly acknowledged. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) 2014 worldwide survey of 100 countries, the 16 countries exhibiting the highest levels of anti-Semitism were all in the Middle East, demonstrating staggering levels of anti-Semitism at rates ranging from 74 percent to 93 percent. 49 percent of all Muslims worldwide were shown to harbor anti-Semitic attitudes. Writing on the massive increase in anti-Semitic violence in France, coinciding with the swelling of its Muslim population, the New York Times noted that in “16 surveys conducted over the last 12 years in Europe, ‘anti-Semitism is significantly higher among Muslims than among non-Muslims,’” per the work of Indiana University German historian Gunther Jikeli. Predictably, such anti-Semitic attitudes correlate with anti-Israel views among new Muslim migrants. Even among American Muslims, per a 2016-2017 ADL survey of 5,100 interviewees, 34 percent were shown to hold extreme anti-Semitic views, versus 14 percent of the general non-Muslim U.S. population. According to Omar Jamal, a self-described Somali community activist in St. Paul, such Jew-hatred also festers among Somalis in Rep. Omar’s Minnesota. Anti-Semitism pervades mosques both globally and in the United States. It has been, and remains ubiquitous in Islamic media, schools and culture.

Though barely a footnote in coverage of the Arab Spring, two poignant examples of Islamic Jew-hatred emerged during its revolutionary days. In a sort of macabre comedy, Islamist opponents of deposed leaders Ben-Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt referred to them pejoratively as “Jews.” In an episode that was dreadfully hideous, as the Muslim Brotherhood ascended to power in Egypt, a mob beat and gang-raped then-CBS reporter @laralogan in Tahrir Square. Though it was not widely reported at the time, the perpetrators of the brutal crime reportedly chanted “Jew!” “Jew!” “Jew!” In other words, these savage men assailed their victim with what they deemed the most vile slur.

These anecdotes are the rule, not the exception in the Muslim world. As the courageous ex-Muslim Brotherhood member-turned-outspoken-apostate, and Somali-born @Ayaan on account of her apostasy and public positions lives under the constant threat of death from jihadists—put it in a speech to the American Jewish Committee:

Ladies and gentlemen I have a confession to make, if you are Jewish. It’s a testimony to my dark past when I lived in ignorance. I used to hate you. I hated you because I thought you were responsible for the war that took my father from me for so long. When the Soviet Union allied with our home-grown dictator in Somalia, I was told the Jews were behind that. In Saudi Arabia I saw poor people from a place called Palestine. Men, women, and children huddled together in despair. I was told you drove them out of their homes. I hated you for that. When we had no water I thought you closed the tap. I don’t know how you did it, but you did it. If my mother was unkind to me I knew you were definitely behind it. Even when I failed an exam I knew it was your fault. I don’t know how you did all these things. But then I didn’t need proof. You are by nature evil. And you had evil powers and you used them to evil ends. Learning to hate you was easy. Unlearning it was difficult. Even after I had learned about The Holocaust in Europe, the terrible outcome of centuries of Antisemitism, I still found it difficult to take a stand against it. When my half-sister told me The Holocaust was the best thing that had happened to Jews, I refrained from arguing with her because I did not wish to risk breaking the family ties. When she showed me holy [Koranic] verses to support her hatred of Jews I feared arguing with Allah for Allah would burn me. Isn’t it ironic that the American Jewish Committee decided to give me the Moral Courage Award? I am ashamed of my prejudices against you in the past. The good news is I am not alone in learning not to blame you for my misfortunes. Many others who are taught in the name of Islam to hate you have stopped hating you. The tragedy is however that those unlearning to hate are far fewer in number than those who still do. As we sit here thousands, perhaps millions are learning to blame you and wishing to destroy you.”

Read 6 tweets

Benjamin Weingarten

@bhweingarten

May 16

Talk about chutzpah:

Whether or not the actions taken by applicants’ attorneys are thought to be justified under the circumstances, delivering such an ultimatum to a district court judge (“Act on my motion on a complex matter within 42 or 133 minutes or I’ll file an appeal and divest you of jurisdiction”) represented a very stark departure from what is usually regarded as acceptable practice.

Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, explains why the Court got its decision in the Tren de Aragua deportation case wrong. To wit, it didn't let the lower courts proceed as they should have proceeded.

Strange, isn't it, when SCOTUS rushes to make a decision, and when it proceeds according to "regular order?"

In the past few months alone, we have vacated or stayed district court orders that granted temporary injunctive relief without adequate consideration of the relevant issues...But in this case, a District Court judge is deemed to have constructively denied an injunction by failing to act within the space of a little over two hours on an application that required consideration of important and difficult questions and that was supported by factual submissions that, as I will explain below, were very weak.

Yikes. It's almost like SCOTUS might be acting politically in the Tren de Aragua/Alien Enemies Act case before it

Read 8 tweets

Benjamin Weingarten

@bhweingarten

Apr 23

🧵Against fierce resistance, the Trump administration is enlisting the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration — leveraging DOGE — in its crackdown on illegal immigration🧵

On April 7, the IRS signed an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that alarmed progressive pro-immigration groups and like-minded advocates – and reportedly prompted the tax bureau’s acting chief to resign in protest.

The deal allows ICE to request the tax return information of migrants who are not in this country legally. In recent days, as part of a push to encourage self-deportation, the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration have also coordinated to strip benefits from otherwise inadmissible migrants granted parole during the Biden administration – a group posing national security concerns who have now had their parolee status revoked.

Read 9 tweets

Benjamin Weingarten

@bhweingarten

Feb 21

🧵In a recent Executive Order, @realDonaldTrump declared it the policy of his administration to "commence the deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state."

The size, scope, and scale of related efforts -- and the rapidity with which the administration has undertaken them -- represents nothing short of a counterrevolution.

The Trump admin is seeking to take on a fourth branch of government put on steroids over the last century that has usurped and combined the powers of the legislative and judicial branches with those of the executive branch -- the definition of tyranny.

Below, a thread chronicling some of the admin's most significant moves against the administrative state to date.

*Note that this excludes the restructurings of agencies, freezing of programs, zeroing out of contracts, firing of woke and weaponized officials, and mandates for transparency in government spending and operations that represent attacks on the administrative state all their own.

Day One: Personnel is policy.

To that end, on Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump issues three EOs:

1) Freezing hiring, in advance of the executive branch developing a plan "to reduce the size of the Federal Government's workforce through efficiency improvements an attrition."
2) Re-establishing "Schedule F in the Excepted Service," allowing the federal government to make more easily fireable Resistance forces in positions "of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character"
3) Establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will coordinate with OMB and agencies not only on shrinking the federal workforce, but myriad other aspects of the plan to deconstruct the administrative state

On Inauguration Day, President Trump also issues an executive order freezing regulations.

It orders executive departments and agencies:

-Not to propose rules until Trump appointees review and approve them
-To withdraw rules not yet published in the Federal Register
-To consider postponing certain other rules for 60 days for review

This will serve as a precursor to far more dramatic deregulatory action.

Read 11 tweets

Benjamin Weingarten

@bhweingarten

Jan 13

The Special Counsel that wasn't supposed to need special counsel authority, David Weiss, calls Joe Biden's comments attacking the prosecution of Hunter Biden "gratuitous and wrong."

Weiss adds that while "[o]ther presidents have pardoned family members...none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations."

The Pox on Every House Report should be a doozy

Weiss says that Hunter Biden’s money came from “using his last name and connections to secure lucrative business opportunities” from Ukraine, China, etc. for “limited work.”

He says nothing about FARA issues though, nor the nexus to his father, who was managing the China and Ukraine portfolios

Weiss notes that there was “no evidence” Hunter repaid Sugar Brother Kevin Morris’ purported loan to satisfy some of Hunter’s outstanding tax bills.

What did Kevin Morris get for making Hunter partially whole?

Read 5 tweets

Benjamin Weingarten

@bhweingarten

Dec 13, 2024

Something to remember in reading DOJ IG report clearing feds of involvement with J6 directly/via sources. Beyond fact IGs often appear to be captured by their agencies, consider that one FBI whistleblower's disclosure informants were at Capitol led to massive retaliation. Why?

Decorated Marine Corps veteran and award-winning FBI Staff Operations Specialist Marcus Allen reported up the chain in Sept. 2021 that confidential FBI informants may have been at Capitol on J6 -- calling into question veracity of FBI Director Wray's testimony

The day he made the protected disclosure FBI seemingly opened a security clearance reinvestigation into him. Despite being cleared, he would enter a world of weaponization hell

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