If you are offended by the term Judeonazi, then don't use the term Islamofascist.
If you are offended by the term Islamofascist, then don't use the term Judeonazi.
They are both part of propaganda campaigns to demonize and scapegoat an alien "Other."
Sorry, I fear I will offend many here today. It is not my intent.
I know a lot about fascism and Nazism.
For the new edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica I coordinated the revision of the entry on Neo-Nazism. The leaders of the state of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora are not Nazis - or neonazis.
I write scholarly articles on Fascism and neofascism, including a chapter in the new testimonial book for the guru of fascist studies, Stanley Payne.
The vast majority of Muslims are not fascists or neofascists - wait for it - even if they support some mandate in sacred text to pursue Jihad. It depend what you mean by Jihad. And I say this having written scholarly articles stating that some relatively tiny totalitarian Islamic sects - that is s-e-c-t-s - qualify as forms of clerical neofascism.
But then I have also written that some relatively tiny totalitarian Christian and Jewish sects qualify as forms of clerical neofascism.
If wanting to convert all nations to your religion makes you a fascist terrorist, then go and arrest the Muslims, as well as the Baptist minister on campus.
If wanting national sovereignty and safe and secure boundaries for your homeland makes you a terrorist, better go around the USA and arrest most Palestinians and their allies --- a significant number of Jews --- and a whole lot of Irish people.
If you think that Mossad, AIPAC, or the Neocons CONTROL US foreign policy SOLEY for the benefit of the state of Israel, I humbly suggest that tomorrow morning you look long and hard in the mirror and confront your stereotypes about Jews.
And lets give students some room to explore. Every Hillel chapter and Muslim Student Association on campus is different. Let's avoid blanket condemnations.
Islamophobia
It is based in xenophobia and fear of external attack and internal subversion. These are old themes in the US. Add in Christian Right demonization based on apocalyptic aggression justified by millennial prophecy.
An Anti-Terrorism Industrial Complex has evolved. On the velvet glove end is the late Samuel Huntington with his Clash of Civilizations thesis. I consider this thesis to be xenophobic, ethnocentric bigotry with a veneer of Ivy League respectability.
Among the worst Islamophobes are the folks who Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting calls the "Smearcasters:" Robert Spencer, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, Steven Emerson, and others. These "experts" are hyperbolic bloviating demagogues.
A good example of hyperbolic fear-mongering is the Paul Sperry book titled Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington. Substitute the word "Communist" for "Muslim", and this book could have been written in the 1950s during the McCarthyist Witch Hunts.
Antisemitism
Based on conspiracy theories that track back centuries. Among those spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are some on the White left, some Black Nationalists, and some Muslims.
Sometimes they even mention the Protocols of Elders of Zion, and not just on Arab & Muslim media overseas, but on left-leaning alternative radio stations and publications in the U.S. and Canada.
In the "progressive" movement against the war in Iraq we find "expert" Webster Tarpley, who delivers a coded form of anti-Semitism. This is via the neofascist cult run by Lyndon LaRouche for whom Tarpley worked as a analyst. The LaRouchites perfected the sly attack on the Neocons in which anti-Semitism is a coded subtext. Take for example their pamphlet titled: "Children of Satan II: The Beast Men."
For centuries, the phrases "Children of Satan" and the "The Beast Men" were used by Christian leading pogroms againt Jews.
The study of the pro-Israel "Lobby" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt? I found it sloppy and insensitive. Let me put it this way, even Noam Chomsky didn't like it.
3000 years ago King Solomon built a Temple to God in what is now Jerusalem where today stands a Mosque. For Muslims it is Haram el-Sharif. For Christians it is also a holy place.
We are the "people of the book," those of us who are Jews, Christians, or Muslims. We are admonished to seek peace and justice.
Yet there is a lack of peace in Jerusalem - and the Middle East. There is a lack of Justice in the United States.
We have failed in our duty to God and Country. All of us in this room have failed, as have all of us in this country of ours.
We can do better.
Without Justice--there can be no Peace.
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