Richard Spencer and the eternal Jenin

In the dark night of the soul, said F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is always three o’clock in the morning. And in the lurid fantasies of the anti-Western mind, it is always the Jenin massacre.
— Lawrence Auster, VFR, March 22, 2009

In case you were wondering where the anti-Israel paleocons at Richard Spencer’s “Alternative Right” website would come down on the latest incarnation of the Jenin massacre, the “Peace Flotilla” affair, here’s the answer. Spencer approvingly quotes an article by Stephen Walt, of the anti-Israel team of Walt & Mearsheimer, who buys 100 percent into the Big Lie by the jihadists and the international left that the flotilla was a “humanitarian” mission and that Israel gratuitously initiated deadly force against it. According to Walt, uncritically quoted by Spencer, Israel has no valid reason to blockade Gaza. Gaza is simply an area seeking its legitimate rights of self-government, and Israel is tyrannical for trying to prevent it from doing so. The fact that the blockade exists in order to prevent Hamas from importing weapons and terrorists into Gaza is not mentioned by Walt/Spencer. The fact that the Israelis foolishly believed that the people in the flotilla were peaceful protesters rather than jihad fighters, and that the protesters initiated deadly force against the Israeli soldiers who had boarded the boat before the Israelis finally fired back, is not mentioned by Walt/Spencer. The fact that the entire event was an obvious provocation designed to bring down the wrath of the world on Israel, and so further delegitimize Israel and prevent it from defending itself, is not mentioned by Walt/Spencer.

Never forget: the so-called rightists of the paleocon, Buchananite, and “alternative right” factions hate Israel—and in many cases simply and undisguisedly hate the Jews—more than they love the West. Because opposition to the Jewish State is their controlling passion, they automatically side with the jihadists and the international left who seek the destruction of Israel as well as the downfall of America and the West as a whole. These “rightists” imagine themselves to be Western patriots, but their oppositional stance to the Jews irresistibly leads them to make common cause with the West’s enemies.

- end of initial entry -

June 2

David B.writes:

I know a man who strongly dislikes Israel (and think Jews control America). Some years ago, he told me that he looked forward to Israel being overrun by the Arabs. I told him that if it ever looks like Israel is going under, the whole population of Israel will move lock, stock, and barrel to the United States.

He was taken aback as he had never thought of that

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

I may be reading this wrong, but here is a writer at Alt-Right, who presents herself as “a proud Muscovite” via Canada, who is promoting a fellow-Russian’s Armageddon view of the imminent collapse of America. Every time I read Alternative Right (hardly at all these days), there is nothing traditional (radical or not) or Western about their thoughts. What an odd site.

To link this with this entry, I think anti-Israelism is anti-Americanism at its core.

LA replies:

I think you’re onto something. Let’s look at this way. What are the two main targets of the Muslims? Israel (the Little Satan) and America (the Great Satan). And what are the two main targets of the international left? Israel and America. And what are the two main targets of the paleocons/Alt-Rightists? Israel and America. At this moment The American Conservative and Alternative Right are effectively supporting Hamas against Israel. As I said in another current entry, at a certain point many of the anti-Israel paleocons are going to realize their identity with Hamas and the international left, and consciously embrace it.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 01, 2010 09:47 PM | Send
    

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