Honourable causes may attract the most disgraceful of supporters. There is no cause which needs the assistance of theocratic totalitarians, extreme racists, or Third Positioners.
The Socialist Workers’ Party, a nominally socialist organisation is, as I have observed once and twice before, in alliance with the theocratic totalitarian Muslim Association of Britain/Muslim Brotherhood, which distributes leaflets advocating the execution of apostates. It is also a promoter and supporter of Gilad Atzmon, a jazz musician who is better known for articulating – I use that term advisedly because Atzmon is often nearly incomprehensible – far right “Third Position” views, which the Socialist Workers’ Party describes as “fearless tirades against Zionism”.
When the nature of these alliances are pointed out to them, Socialist Workers Party members simply dissemble.
For the benefit of any Socialist Workers’ Party members who might be reading this site, this is the way to deal with racists, theocrats and fascists who seek to ally with you. From Oliver Kamm’s site:
The magazine [Think-Israel] reproduces articles, with permission of the authors, from the English-language press and other sources. The May-June issue of this online magazine is here. If you scroll down, you see that it reproduces an article from the early 1980s by one Rabbi Meir Kahane, denouncing the removal of Jewish settlements from Sinai under the terms of the Camp David Agreement with Egypt. The analogy the site wishes to draw is with the opposition of settlers in Gaza to the current Prime Minister’s disengagement plan.
Kahane has been dead (from an assassin’s bullet) for some years, but he was a disruptive and disturbing feature of Israeli politics in the 1980s. As the Anti-Defamation League describes him:
Kahane consistently preached a radical form of Jewish nationalism which reflected racism, violence and political extremism.
….
So what is an established pro-Israel magazine on the Internet doing reproducing the material of a racist bigot? I put the question to its editor, Bernice Lipkin, who suggested I was being unfair to Kahane in describing him in that way and that his article was “very appropriate”. On that point, there is little further to discuss.
I have published just a couple of pieces in the UK press about Israel (here and here). They express sympathy for Israel’s security dilemma, opposition to the campaiging groups that offer ideological apologetics for terrorism, and support for the general position of the present government: cracking down on terrorist groups, withdrawing from Gaza, and aiming for a negotiated settlement with the creation of a Palestinian state. I expect I shall write more from that standpoint. I have forbidden Dr Lipkin from reproducing anything further I may write on this subject at any time. She is one friend Israel could do without.
Socialist Workers Party members, and fellow travellers: now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end.