#right wing islam

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Fern Oppenheim, David Bernstein and Eran Shayshon

Published: Jun 14, 2024

While the Jewish world was reeling from the inhumanity of the Oct. 7 massacre, an immediate aftershock came in the form of the anti-Israel rallies on college campuses and on the streets of major cities. Since that time, the protests have only intensified. Opposing Israel has become fashionable in some circles. Campus activists feel imbued with a sense of historic mission, perceiving themselves as the modern embodiment of the protest movements of the 1960s. Many Jewish professionals and lay leaders remain overwhelmed and unclear as to how to proceed. Years of investment in countering various forms of antisemitism have been proven inadequate. It should be clear by now that we need a new strategic approach and a comprehensive plan to enact it.

The post-Oct. 7 reality dictates a strategy that counters underlying ideological currents, places Jewish concerns in the context of broader American interests and upholds American and Western values. The current focus on antisemitism makes it appear that the strife on and off campus is a Jewish problem rather than an American problem. Antisemitism is low on the relevance scale for most Americans, but the health of American society is central. Based on our assessment of what went wrong, current survey data and key trends, we believe that the Jewish security is inextricably linked to firming up larger support for American values and a renewed commitment to the U.S.’s key geopolitical interests. We further argue that American Jewish organizations should prioritize work with new partners in civil society who share this mission and who should take center stage in effecting a larger cultural shift. In short, we believe the best defense against antisemitism is restoring the commitment of Americans to the nation’s founding principles under which American Jews and other minorities have thrived.

What went wrong?

The anti-Israel narrative — Israel as an apartheid, colonialist enterprise — gained limited support on college campuses over the past few decades. Yet trends in survey data indicate that while the anti-Israel narrative caused a slow erosion of support for Israel, the overwhelming majority of college students remained neutral and attitudes towards Jews were largely unaffected. In fact, the data through 2016 indicates that, even in the face of hostile campus rhetoric, most college students and most Americans cared little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The issue was just not relevant to them and they remained in the “middle” — neither “core supporters” nor the “unreachable.” Likewise, antisemitism among college students remained low. Research indicated that the large group in the middle represented an opportunity as it could be swayed towards Israel once it was shown the broader face and humanity of the Israeli people.

So if the same anti-Israel narrative has been around for decades, what explains the dramatic increase in its acceptance now? Simply put, anti-Israel forces have found a way to make their cause relevant to a growing swath of Americans by linking it to the significant cultural and ideological shifts over the past ten years.

With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014 and changes in the social media landscape, a binary ideology that divides society into oppressors and oppressed, skyrocketed in popularity on campuses. Anti-Israel groups successfully aligned themselves with activist groups representing marginalized communities, thereby significantly expanding the cohort of young Americans sympathetic to their cause. For the first time, Jewish students found themselves excluded from student social justice activities due to their sympathies towards Israel.

In the heated aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, this binary, oppressor-oppressed ideology found new audiences outside campuses. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, which frequently enshrined the oppressor-oppressed ideology, gained broad-scale penetration into numerous mainstream institutions including business, government, media, science, medicine, culture, K-12 schools, etc. So while the State of Israel and, now, Jews are seen by many as white, privileged oppressors in a broad swath of institutions, Hamas is increasingly seen as a legitimate resistance movement representing the marginalized.

It is important to note that notwithstanding the titular expression of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, protests against Israel on U.S. campuses are about far more than the Jewish state. Instead, they are often part of a larger agenda that aims to reshape the power structure, dismantle the larger social order, defund the police, undermine the very notion of meritocracy and undo the market economy and concept of private property. Many protesters on campus explicitly cite this larger worldview as a motivation for their campus activism. 

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that in the wake of Oct. 7, most surveys of young people show high levels of support for Palestinians/Hamas and declining support for Israel. The majority are no longer in the swayable middle. Moreover, for the first time since the Anti-Defamation League began measuring such trends, young Americans are more likely to believe antisemitic tropes than older Americans. In short, by aligning with cultural shifts occurring among the progressive left, anti-Israel forces — many representing extreme Islamist perspectives — have successfully made their narrative relevant to many young Americans.

While the Jewish community was busy maintaining support for Israel in the political arena, ideologues sought to and succeeded in changing the culture. We are now experiencing the downstream effects of our collective failure to counter dangerous cultural trends.

A strategic pivot

If Israel is to retain American support down the road and if Jews are to be safe in this country, then action must be taken to reverse these cultural shifts. For the most part, the Jewish community has responded to the post-Oct. 7th onslaught with well-funded efforts to counter antisemitism and anti-Zionism. It is not doing enough to make its case more relevant to Americans than it was years ago, unlike the anti-Israel camp, which broadened its appeal in the intersectional arena.

Yet there is good news amid the bad. In this highly charged environment, Israel and its allies have lost support among college students, but not among most Americans. Raucous anti-Israel protests on campuses have alarmed many Americans, who are concerned that these anarchists pose a clear and present danger to the U.S. The Jewish communal world needs to take a page from its enemies’ playbook and make its cause more broadly relevant by aligning with the significant percentage of Americans who believe in the American dream, oppose chaos and support the principled use of American power in the world. Jews represent only 2% of the American population; we cannot win this battle on our own.

The Jewish community needs to work with those who are already fighting back on various fronts and to catalyze the energies of those who may be concerned but are not yet taking action. The focus of such coalitional efforts must be on strengthening the American narrative and values, not on antisemitism or Israel. And these efforts need to be led by diverse American voices rather than Jewish groups, as they will be seen as more believable and less likely to have an agenda. In short, the Jewish community needs to lead from behind.

We are currently developing a white paper that lays out in greater detail the needed strategic shift and will be holding sessions in person and online in the coming months. For more information, email: americanvaluesstrategy@gmail.com 

[wildfeather5002]

Progressive & inclusive Christians I love you 💙

Progressive & inclusive Muslims I love you 💜

Progressive & inclusive Jews I love you 💚

Progressive, inclusive & accepting religious people in general I love and cherish you ❤💞❤

Have a blessed day/night!

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

This is real.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Hope I don't bother but like, what the fuck do Khazar, Yakubianoid and Paraglided even mean?? None of these words are in the Tamuld

Dear anon,

"None of these words are in the bible" is a christian phrase, the Jewish saying is "this too is torah and I must learn" and learn you SHALL

Khazar Theory the theory that ALL Ashkenazi Jews are converts because a bunch of turkic people converted to Judaism and converted back to christianity later. The eugenicist reasoning for the appeal of this theory is "so what IF none of them are actually ethnically Jewish and it's ok to kill Jews because they're all icky turkic race traitor liars, right?"

A paraglider is basically a large kite that can hold a person. Hamas used them to get over the wall and attack the Nova festival. "Get paraglided" is basically "your nerdy peacenik Jewishness is an offense to me personally because it destroys my idea that all zionists right wing fascsist so my cognitive dissonance and dregs of compassion at our simularitty is pushed down and I hope that you get brutally raped and murdered by antisemitic terrorists like the peaceniks at the nova festival"

"Oid" is a eugenicsit and incel prefix that means someone is a pale imitation of something or a lesser race. Mongoloid means someone who looks like asian and someone who has down syndrome because the coiners thought looking mongol means you're intellectually disabled. Nazis love it

Yakub is a NOI dogwhistle for the evil god mad scientist that created the white man (read Jews who these see as the same thing) versus allah the god good scientist who created the black people

So this means "I believe in eugenics AND NOI" since the NOI has no white members this is a black Nazi I'm guessing

I hope the leopards eat that anon's face once they're done with Candace Owens

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

I had a dream I went to my old church because I needed somewhere to sit and read (??) and everyone was like “hey we are Jewish now btw.” And I’m like that makes zero sense, the whole church is not Jewish. And they are like yep, those of us who didn’t have jewish parents just converted. And I was like, really? All of you? At once? Decided that? And they were like yep. And so I was sticking around trying to figure out what was going on and then people from my shul showed up to do jewish things. And I was like !! They aren’t Jewish ?? And most people were like “wow Rory is being a huge dick to these new Jews.” But there were a few people from my shul who were like “pssst I believe you, there’s something weird happening.”

And now after waking up I feel a strengthened bond with the members who believed me lol.

[chronicallyuniconic]

A lie can cause a riot faster than the truth can calm it

stay safe to all right now, especially Muslims. We are getting dragged out of cars and homes, being set on fire, acid attacks, physical assault like pulling off hijab or niqab, being told we are oppressed as women & the white man will save us.

stay safe❤️🤲🏽

[canichangemyblogname]

Israel ignoring Egypt's warnings, Israel's chaotic "recovery" (a.k.a. their explicit non-recovery and bombing of hostages), and the IOF's chaotic engagement with Hamas fighters on Oct. 7th and 8th that caught hostages and civilians in crossfire should be proof enough that Israel cannot and will consistently fail to provide for the security and welfare of Jewish people. It should also be proof enough that Netanyahu's government doesn't give a shit about Israeli lives unless they can be weaponized to serve his political and regional goals.

The argument that the only way for Jewish people to have safety and comfort is through a Jewish ethnostate ignores how the violence necessary to establish an ethnostate breeds extremism and a cycle of violence. It ignores how Israel consistently fails to protect and provide for its citizens, how vulnerable the Israeli state would be without US support, and how politically and numerically insecure settler-colonial populations are without ethnic and genocidal violence to reproduce their position in the social hierarchy. This argument also allows countries in the Global North to wipe their hands of their own country's antisemitism. For them, Israel is the solution to their country's "Jewish Question."

Some of Zionism's basic assumptions about Jewish people and the need for a Jewish state come from antisemitic assumptions. Advocates for a Jewish state frequently invoke antisemitic stereotypes to make their case. Like... literal fucking fascists in the US support Zionism because they want to empty their country of Jewish people and then watch them die in Israel.

The largest group of Zionists in the US are Evangelical Christians. Not just in sheer numbers, but as a percentage of their population. And you know what they believe? They believe that all Jews need to return to the Holy Land to be massacred and raptured so Jesus can return. The majority of Zionists in the US are Zonists because they're antisemitic. Their antisemitism informs their support for Zionism, and their belief in Zionism informs their antisemitism.

It boggles me how the US government, literal fascists, and Evangelicals have so many of you legitimately believing that critiquing a man and a government that throws their lot in with Holocaust deniers is antisemitic.

There are experts out there who attest that Zionism encourages and spreads antisemitism around the globe and that it is a contributing factor to increases in antisemitism in the Global North. Some have gone so far as to say it is a literal threat to the well-being of Jews worldwide and a roadblock in the fight against antisemitism.

[agentfascinateur]

Fanatic settlers transgress Al Aqsa Mosque

Eyewitnesses reported heavy deployment of Israeli troops in Al Aqsa's courtyards to facilitate the settlers.

Another violation of the Geneva Convention.

[nando161mando]

I feel like this belongs here...

[pet-shop-of-horror-fan]

It is good to talk about the dissonance of right-wingers supporting Israel, as they love the idea of an ethnostate but hate Jewish people. But a lot of you are missing the fact that they hate Muslims and Arabs.

A big part of their support of Israel is that they like it when Palestinians die. It is easier for them to tolerate Jewish people if it kills other "undesirables."

They want genocide and Israel is giving it to them.

[menalez]

I honestly don’t get the niqab addition to the tif post cause yeah I guess both ideologies seek to separate women’s personhood from their bodies but one ideology is ‘I am more ~complex~ than womanhood therefore I don’t personally identify with it’ and the other is men deciding the female body is too inherently sexual to be seen in any way and so all women should cover themselves from head to toe…they’re really not that similar imo

i don’t think so either, but this person has a history of saying racist things about brown people and racists have a tendency to relate everything back to their racism so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ofc a post with nothing related to the niqab or hijab was then made to be about it, bc these ppl can’t help but always take it back to what they deem as the largest threat to their societies

[diabetesnscoliosis]

I had thought that the rhetoric of "I'm a part of x group and don't think y is xphobic" would eventually come crashing, but I didn't anticipate it would take oct 7 to do that. Not that it doesn't make retrospective sense.

from my perspective over the years, there were all sorts of conversations around this: is criticism of Islam racist? Is Queer a slur? The concept of "identifying" as disabled, which then expanded to various sexualities, gender, sex and incredibly rarely... race.

My experience looking at these circles showed me that the answers to these questions and concepts lied in who thought it was OK, rather than critical analysis of the questions and concepts itself. It was the priority of token representation than dealing with the issue itself; the bigotry in question.

This would culminate in the US 2016 election, with many justifications for voting in one of the most dangerous and impactful presidents in the world boiling down to "I'm Mexican and I agree" or "I'm gay and I agree". No discussion of why agreeing with a politician that has tangible, negative impacts on the target demographic would render one individual protected from rhetoric or policy.

What am I seeing post October 7 is similar . "My statement isn't anti semitic, x jewish person agrees with me!" This statement doesn't address why the statement isn't antisemitic, but shuts down criticism by tokenising the Jewish person and dehumanises them; they are a prop to use to "prove" the point of someone else and no more.

The use of tokens to prove arguments instead of facts and reasoning is probably the byproduct of the US "culture wars" ideology that's been forcibly exported to every anglicised state. That doesn't mean i don't expect better from leftists, who should be the group to use facts and reasoning to argue against individualist right wing policies. It is such a shame to see my political ideology become downtrodden by intellectual laziness.

If you cannot use reasoning to prove your point, who are you acting for?

That's a rhetorical question. If you cannot use reasoning, you use ideology, and ideology only serves to divide the "believers" and "unbelievers"; it's about power.

Bigotry is irrational and can always be argued against.

[pissmoon]

I think the funniest far right internet persona i encountered on the internet lately is this white blonde hair blue eyes guy who converted to islam, changed his name to Ibrahim and photoshopped his icon to look more dark-skinned and half of what he says is bitching about degenerate western women who listen to Cardi b. He says something about Cardi b every single time dude converted to islam bc he is this obsessed with Cardi b

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[magnoliamyrrh]

everyone can call me crazy but i dont think that suspected terror attack at the us-canada border w the car w explosives is a coincidence right as us population support is at an all time low for sending money to israel and a temporary 4-5 day break and hostage exchange is supposed to go down in palestine. im sorry. ive got no proof of this its just a feeling. i just would not be surprised if they tie this back somehow to idk hamas is in the walls (hamas Most Definetely does not have the resource power to be operating outside of palestine&israel) or idk the islamic terrorist are in the walls (not saying terorrism in the name of islam isnt an actual thing) and then they use this all as justification to wipe gaza off the map and continue support and keep letting israel get away w bombing several other countries as well

im sorry. proof? no. just a feeling. and my feeling is i have zero trust in the government and the idea that they wouldnt be involved in staging something like this rn

[lilithism1848]