#as time goes on they will blame palestinians and arabs and muslims and the left and anyone expressing

[militant-holy-knight]

Islamophobia: A “Zionist Plot”?

In response to Hating Muslims, Loving Zionists: Israel a Far-Right Model, where Al Jazeera gets everything wrong

Al Jazeera penned an opinion piece trying to lump anti-Muslim terrorism, rational critics of Islamism with Zionism of all things. The “logic” goes that “x Israeli politician is a far-righter”, many leading political figures in far-right politics that criticize Islam have expressed affection and approval for Israel; Palestine is oppressed by Israel and as such all of these things are related to each other. They even used the censored picture of Brenton Tarrant to drive the point home that “See? if you hate Islam, you are also just like this guy and oh, you support Israel too”. 

I can’t even begin pointing out what is wrong with this “some x are y, some y are z, therefore x are y” fallacy, I am even more surprised that right-winged critics of Israel didn’t even try to debunk it. In one hand, it’s pretty observable that support for Israel is strong among mainstream conservatism than other movements across the political spectrum. On the other hand, there is one figure who is never discussed when the topic of alt-right and Zionism overlap, being very little-known outside of Israel.

This is Meir Kahane, a ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi from the USA who migrated from to Israel and was a co-founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach political party. Also known as “Israel’s Ayatollah”, he urged the establishment of a Jewish theocracy codified by Maimonides (a Reconquista-era Spanish Jew), the immigration of all American Jews to Israel before a “second Holocaust” could take place and was very vocal about advocating the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, violence against Palestinians and those he deemed as “anti-semites”. He was extremely divisive: there were people who found his Jewish supremacist rhetoric intolerable and equated him to the Nazis, while in other camp you had those who supported him largely because of Arab aggression as The Los Angeles Times reported that “[he] is a reaction to the wanton murders of innocent men, women and children in Israel” (which you can find many parallels with modern day politicians supported by the alt-right). Kahane was arrested at least 62 times by Israeli authorities for inciting hatred.

While in prison, Kahane wrote a manifesto titled “They Must Go” where he advocates the complete exile of Palestinians and the necessary process how to do it arguing that if they didn’t they’d begin outbreeding the Jewish population and take over Israel in 20 years (he wrote it in the 80s). His manifesto reads a lot like the anxiety Europeans feel about Muslim migrants which isn’t alleviated in the slightest by them speaking out in the open how they will establish a European caliphate.

Kahane was popular enough with the Israelis that he was elected with one seat to the Knesset. However, he was never really popular with his fellow parliamentarians, whom he regarded as “Hellenists” (Jews who assimilated into Greek culture after being conquered by Alexander the Great), since Kahane thought they weren’t Jewish enough. Most of his proposed laws included: imposing compulsory religious education, stripping citizenship status of all non-Jewish citizens (including Christians) and demanding that relations with Germany and Austria being cut but monetary compensation for the Holocaust being kept.

In 1990, Kahane was assassinated by an al-Qaeda member (it’s believed he was one of the first victims of the terrorist group), who was initially cleared of the murder, but was arrested later for being implicated in the 1993 WWC bombing attempt, where he confessed his first crime and was jailed to life imprisonment. His death made him a martyr leading to Kach member Baruch Goldstein to swear revenge and in 1994, he walked into the Cave of the Patriarchs on the West Bank and shot up the place, killing 30 Muslims before being lynched by the survivors. Given the Cave of the Patriarch status as a important religious site to Islam, this atrocity would have provoked probably worse reactions than Christchurch.

While researching about these things, I couldn’t help but see so many parallels between that and the Christchurch mosque incident. Kahane’s manifesto reads a lot like Tarrant’s own. Even if they were not familiar with Kahane’s own views, it was probably not lost to those that really read into Tarrant’s manifesto that not once he denounces the State of Israel for the current state of Europe - instead he blames Angela Merkel, Reccep Erdogan and Sadiq Khan, straight up calling for their deaths. This seemed enough for many people to conclude Tarrant was an Mossad agent.

To those reading this you may be asking: you listed so many things in common with the alt-right, Islamophobia and Zionism, so what did Al Jazeera get wrong?

Ah, if you actually paid attention to the fringe discourse, you realize that nothing discredits you faster than declaring yourself far-right and voicing support for Israel. I sincerely doubt that white supremacists would have liked a Jewish supremacist like Kahane, specially his demands that Germany to continue paying reparations forever. The fringe right actually finds lots of solidarity with Palestinians and common ground with the liberal left than either side cares to admit. Sure many right-wing politicians happen to be Zionists, but those are the mainstream old guard. 

I also observed that they also are overwhelmingly in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in large part because he is an authoritarian model that stands up against Israel. Does it mean that all people who support Assad are also the same? No. Many support Assad because he is considered a bulwark against Islamism (even though he is a Muslim himself, albeit not considered one by terrorist extremists because he is Alawite). Despite his many flaws, normal people are willing to stand up for him because he represents stability in Syria.

I also take huge issue with Palestinians being referred to as exclusively Muslim because it erases their small and long-suffering Christian minority, which is never on anyone’s minds every time someone discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the fact that Palestinian Christians played a huge role in resistance against Israel before the rise of Islamism ended up alienating them and Christians across the Middle-East aren’t necessarily thrilled about Israel either, not even Israeli Christians themselves.

It’s probably no coincidence that Al Jazeera, who denounces both Israel and the Assad regime who are antagonistic to each other, also happen to be big Islamist apologists which explains why they insist in portraying the Palestinian cause as a religious struggle rather than a nationalist one. It’s in their interest to denigrate critics of Islamism who run across the board in the political spectrum from atheists like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, Christians like David Wood, Brother Rachid and Zacharias Botros and Muslims like Majid Nawaz, Ed Hussein and Mohammed Tawid and many, many, many people worried about the dangers of Islamism, which they use so vociferously the term “Islamophobia” coined by the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization disguised as political party. This way they can lump all the opposition into one camp and paint them as Zionist Islamophobes.

With all that said, the rise of conservatism and nationalism across the world is co-related with the modern liberal left’s weakness to confront the Islamist Question. One of the key reasons that led to Donald Trump’s election were fears of Hillary Clinton increasing immigration as observed by the skyrocketing of sexual abuse cases in Western Europe. Even though he is a more despotic and authoritarian figure than Trump, Erdogan from Turkey is subjected to much less scrutiny from the Western media when he locks up more journalists anywhere in the world.

And this isn’t contained to the West either, the Bharatiya Janata Party characterized as Hindu nationalist and anti-Islamic continues being elected into power because of India’s spats with Pakistan and being formed in the first place because of Indian secularists appeasing to Muslims. And if the future is any indication, you can expect more persecutions of Muslims in Sri Lanka by Buddhists and Christians after the Easter bombings from this year. Those has less to do with Zionism and more with the fear of Islamism.

There is a good reason why I brought up Kahane into this editorial: much like modern day politicians, he was considered too radical by the status quo of the time yet gained the support of a silent majority like modern day because the current status quo proved intolerable. The same thing happened in my country with Jair Bolsonaro, who was already saying absurd things as early as the 90s and would never be considered as President of Brazil yet here we are, though Kahane was assassinated before he got the chance of being Prime Minister.

How many times are we going to deflect the problem like Al Jazeera before we confront it straight in the eye?

[hallsp]

Lions of the Jungle

The trouble with Lebanon is that its greatest strength, its diversity, is frequently also its greatest weakness.

Lebanon recognises eighteen official religious sects: twelve Christian and four Muslim, alongside the Druze and Jewish minorities. The most powerful groups — the Maronites, Druze, Sunni, and Shi’a — have managed to evolve a mutual political understanding, but this delicate balance is often tested.

Saad al-Hariri, Sunni Prime Minister of Lebanon, has today resigned from his position, in a stunning speech from Saudi Arabia, claiming that he fears for his life at the hands of Hezbollah and their patrons, Iran. This is no empty accusation as Saad’s father, Rafic al-Hariri, was murdered in 2005. This will be a testing time for Lebanon, as competing factions deal with the repercussions.

This is all part of a wider conflict between the two local superpowers: Saudi Arabia and Iran. It’s also a struggle for power that goes back to the foundation of the state. Originally a Druze pseudo-emirate, then a Maronite governorate, it is now a mixed confessional republic, the effective leadership of which has passed from the Maronite President to the Sunni Prime Minister. Now, that Prime Minister has resigned due to credible threats from a rival power, the Shia militia of Hezbollah.

Mount Lebanon, traditionally part of “greater” Syria, first gained some measure of independence from the former Ottoman Empire in 1591, as part of a self-governing emirate under the Druze leader Fakhr al-Din ibn Maan.

In 1861, after the imposition of the controversial Ottoman tanzimat reforms, and the resulting explosion of sectarian violence, the area became an autonomous region under a Maronite governor known as a mutasarrif.

Then, in the wake of the Great War, France was given the mandate over Syria. The Treaty of Sèvres, signed in 1920, adumbrated the boundaries of a new State of Greater Lebanon. This expanded the territory of Lebanon to include sovereignty over not just Mount Lebanon but also the coastal towns of Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, and Tyre.

In 1932, the first and only census was carried out. The results were widely held to have been manipulated, but this census found that Christians constituted a slim majority at 51%, while Muslims, including Druze, were at 49%. As a result, parliamentary seats were divided 6:5.

Lebanon achieved its independence in 1943. The National Pact, the confessional foundation of the modern state, was conceived at this time. This was an unwritten agreement designed to keep the peace. Maronites agreed not to seek European intervention, while Muslims abandoned their aim of re-uniting with Syria. In addition, it was agreed that the President of the new state would always be a Maronite, the Prime Minister a Sunni, and the parliamentary Speaker a Shi’a.

In 1948, Lebanon supported the Arab countries in their war against the new state of Israel. Over the course of the war, one-hundred thousand Palestinian refugees fled to Lebanon, completely altering the sensitive demographics of the state.

In 1970, Jordan expelled Palestinian PLO fighters from its territory, and many of them relocated to Lebanon, while simultaneously intensifying their campaign against Israel.

This would lead, among other things, to civil war. The Civil War in Lebanon, from 1975 to 1990, was a brutal affair, involving local Christian, Muslim, and Druze militias, PLO fighters, various left-wing groups, a Syrian-dominated Arab deterrent force, an Israeli invasion in 1982, and a multi-national peacekeeping force.

The war ended with the Taif Agreement in late 1989. “Mutual coexistence” was the aspiration post-conflict, but confessionalism would remain. The powers of the Prime Minister, which belonged to a Sunni, would now surpass those of the Maronite President, so the balance of power-sharing shifted. Another consequence of the war was the creation of Hezbollah in (or around) 1985, a Shi’a militia formed in opposition to Israeli occupation and under the patronage of Iran and Syria.

Israel‘s final withdrawal from Southern Lebanon took place as late as 2000, though they returned in the war of 2006, ultimately defeated by a strengthened Hezbollah. Syria didn’t leave until 2005, twenty-nine years after its initial occupation, and only as a direct result of popular protest: the so-called Cedar Revolution. This movement had emerged in February 2005 after Rafic al-Hariri, then Prime Minister of Lebanon, was murdered, killed in a gigantic car bombing while driving along the Corniche in Beirut. A majority of people blamed Syria and protests led to the final evacuation of Syrian troops in April.

Lebanon is a land of assassinations. Bachir Gemayal, President-elect of Lebanon, was murdered in 1982. In this instance, the killer was a Syrian fascist and fellow Maronite, but the Palestinians were blamed nevertheless, leading to the infamous Sabra & Shatila massacre. His grandson, Pierre Gemayal, was assassinated in 2006. Consider also the Jumblatt clan, traditional leaders of the Lebanese Druze. Fouad Bek Jumblatt was assassinated in 1921. His son Kamal was assassinated in 1977. In that particular case, the Syrians were also widely believed to be responsible, Hafez al-Assad in particular.

Lebanon is still dealing with the legacy of al-Hariri’s assassination. A UN Special Tribunal would later find Hezbollah responsible, likely with Syrian and Iranian accession. Their findings, based upon the truly exceptional work of Wissam Eid, an outstanding Lebanese policeman, are damning. Wissam Eid himself was murdered in a car bombing in 2008.

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, denies all culpability for the murder and blames Israel’s Mossad instead. In 2011, the Lebanese government collapsed as a result of tensions over this very issue. A new unity government was formed just last year, in 2016.

Now, Saad al-Hariri has resigned from his position as Prime Minister. All eyes are back on Hezbollah. Once again, it seems that Lebanon is thrust into crisis. And it is on the day of crisis, to paraphrase the words of the national anthem, that people become like lions of the jungle.