Monday 21 July 2014

Hypocrisy of the left

Dudes,

It's Sam here.

One thing that pisses me off in the recent demos against the conflict in Gaza by the extreme left is the blatant hypocrisy which comes with the territory. e.g. whilst the UN, the protesters and informed opinion were criticising Israel's policy, in Iraq, Christians were being told to convert to Islam or die. No outrage there and no outrage against the massacres of Syrian and Iraq civilians which number in hundreds of thousands, but actors who have no care whatsoever in killing civilians or not. That is what gets me most about how this conflict is perceived or argued over. The hypocrisy of singling out Israel and unjustifiably demonising her. 

Especially when Israel was founded as a left wing ideal, is EXACTLY the find of regime a left winger should approve of, in terms of free elections, free speech, equality of all citizens, gay rights etc etc; especially when compared to the rest of the regions governments. But it seems the far left would rather throw its lot in with ISIS, HAMAS, Saudi (where women can't drive) and Iran (run as a theocracy). If any one tried any of these in the west they'd be squealing about it; when the assisted suicide bill was being debated the lefties were highly critical of religions getting involved.

Yet when it comes to foreign policy.... 


25 comments:

  1. Good question. I have no other answer except :


    1) The hard left like "moral" causes to champion and this fits the bill as far as they are concerned.
    2) There has always been a loathing of Jews by the far left because we are successful and despite the shit thrown at us we are able to integrate into society without loosing our religion and culture.
    3) The left has a hard time accepting that the middle east had its boundaries by imperial powers 100 years ago, so practically ALL of the middle eastern states are artificial to some degree (possibly not Egypt or Iran) and are all composed of Arabs. Israel's boundaries don't match the biblical Israel (which could make it much bigger, depending on which period you are looking at), but the people certainly do. And that is the difference.
    4) The left clearly uses minorities for its own purposes, otherwise they'd be mass demos against ISIS and what is happening in Syria.

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  2. Hi Esther


    Very thoughtful insights there ! Thanks for sharing these with us.

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  3. Hi Sam,


    Yes! This is EXACTLY what I don't understand! To me anyone who is remotely left wing or liberal SHOULD support Israel and the right of Jews to have their own self -determination. But it doesn't work like that. I've always struggled with this lack of logic. Is it unwitting or blatant anti-semitism ? Or something else? Hate of the US and seeing Israel as a puppet state of America?

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  4. To me it is a bit of both. Don't forget the Nazi party stands for 'National Socialist', so there has always been an overlap between the far left and far right. What I think makes it feel very anti-semitic is the attention Israel gets. There are larger countries which do worse and don't get comment by the left :mostly in Africa, which has wars and appalling abuses and deaths by war: ever heard of the congo wars in Africa in the 1990s which killed millions?? Bet you haven't without googling it! But also abuses by great powers such as Russia and China which are often overlooked. As to what causes anti-semitism. I just don't know. It really stumps me as to why historically for thousands of years it existed and why today it exists after seeing where such hate leads.

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  5. Esther,


    I'm impressed. An interesting set of arguments, not all bad either and to which I can agree with. I must lie down for a bit whilst I recover from this brief period of consensus....

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  6. Hannah,
    See further thoughts above. I hope that they help( :

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  7. Does the issue of how 'left wing' the Nazis were actually helpful? It is clear they were left wing in so much as the controlled industry and everything was subordinate to the demands of the state, but do left wingers hold such extreme racial views? Yes I know that Nazis considered themselves to be rationalists and scientific when it come to these matters....

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  8. Esther I think you've nailed it there.

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  9. Agreed the left are hypocrites


    Plus ca change ...

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  10. The haters are among the same crowd that wants to impose their narrow, ideological Left - aka Centre - so-called liberal rule and social justice (whatever that means) on us, now infiltrated and established in our institutions, government, education, media.

    They don't merely hate Israel, they hate everybody not like them.

    Israel epitomises freedom of spirit,individual enterprise, guts and determination and resolve, and along with all the Human virtues it has Human flaws, just like the rest of us except of course our self-appointed intellectual betters. Israel is then the antithesis and anathema to the political neo-aristocracy and the ideological parasites they carry with them who lord it over us at present particularly in that authoritarian bag of pus and corruption the EU.

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  11. Atheist Shrugged21 July 2014 at 13:15

    A stupid theme this time. What is there to love in a state which is the living embodiment of apartheid?

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  12. Why does the european left hate Israel? Probably many reasons, not the least of which is the Soviet propaganda Mr West alludes to in the latter part of this post; pretty much all of the mainstream leftist parties in Europe were hugely infiltrated (when they weren't just plain old admirers of Uncle Joe) by Soviet intelligence. And it probably goes right back to Marx's own hatred of his jewish heritage - you can't be much of a Marxist without soaking up some of the ugly, stupid anti-semitism of his ugly, stupid writings.

    Another reason is intellectual lazyness - leftism has a love of easy slogans and, by extension, a lazy, simplistic worldview. So, it's obvious that Israel stole that land, man, look at how poor and downtrodden those poor palestinians are and how rich those Israelis are - they must be the oppressors, man! And, like they all live in refugee camps, man, that must be Israel's fault, just like they said.

    And then there is the plain old european anti-semitism, much in evidence here today, I see.

    A truism which I heard long ago, and have forgotten the origins of - If the Arabs laid down their weapons today, tomorrow there would be peace. If the Israelis laid down their weapons today, tomorrow there would be no Israel.

    There was, has been, is a "two-state" solution, since the founding of the State of Israel - the other state happens to be called Jordan. It was the Arab nations who opted for the permanent war to drive the Jews (always 'the jews') into the sea, it was the Arab leaders who called on the Arabs in the state of Israel to leave, in order for the mighty Arab nation more easily to march in and crush the jews, thus creating the 'refugees', and it those same arab nations who have refused to absorb those same refugees, using entire populations in their permanent war against the jews.

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  13. I'm left wing and I don't hate Israel. The problem is with the far left and this is increasingly becoming mainstream within the left. Which is sad, because as people have noted if you are centre- left or liberal, then you SHOULD be supportive of Israel and the Jewish people for reasons this articles alludes.

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  14. Free Palestine21 July 2014 at 13:36

    Israel are the real terrorists defending themselves don't make me laugh despicable inhumane "people". #freeplaestine #longlivepalestine

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  15. The Secretary General of the organization that just handed Hamas 20 rockets has called Israeli action "atrocious"?? The UN is guilty of a war crime by handing rockets TO a terrorist organization. Obama did NOT call for a ceasefire (not that we'd care if he did) and NO Israeli soldier has been kidnapped. As for a "proportionate" response, this is not a game of chess! Meanwhile Hamas leaders hide out in luxury hotels in Qatar and spend international aid on rockets, tunnels - and their own private jet.

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  16. Lefties hate us because we don't agree to their experimental way of ending conflict resolution, e.g 1 state/2 state. I don't think they understand the history or how Jews feel. After 2,000 years we don't want to go back to ghettos. All we want is national self determination. In the middle east we are a distinct and small minority- 8,000,000 against millions of millions of Arab Muslims. We look at what is happening to the Christians in the middle east and think to ourselves; if we didn't have Israel this is what they'd be doing to us.

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  17. Ruth , you aren't really a leftie. I mean the real hard core shits. Like the ones we get on this blog (see above).

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  18. No, no , no !! Israel is defending itself against terrorists. Why do you think they were firing rockets at us ?

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  19. Hi Sam,


    Thanks for the info. No I didn't realise about those wars in the Congo until you mentioned it. So the emphasis on liberal values only matters depending on where in the world it is happening and who is doing the killing & fighting? Sad.

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  20. Good point. But what is their experimental way of conflict resolution? 1 or 2 states in Israel is the logic, not an ideology!

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  21. Cock, is the only way to describe your pitiful interventions.

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  22. Ruth,
    There is traditional left wing or liberal people then there are these guys who are far left and these are the people I'm discussing here. Alas they are also the most vocal against Israel. More so than the far right.

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  23. Our blog. We'll post as we want. No one forces you to read or comment here.

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  24. Good points Al, thanks for your take on this one.

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