Women’s March anti-Semitism should be a wake-up call.
Two weeks ago I wrote about how American Jews fail to see left-wing anti-Semitism for the true threat that it is, not least because they have not had a problem comparable to the anti-Semitism crisis in the British Labour Party to wake them up to reality.
Perhaps I spoke too soon, for an anti-Semitism crisis of sorts is definitely brewing on the left in America. Remember the Women’s March, the annual national marches in the US (and now elsewhere) ostensibly championing women’s rights, but also hosting all sorts of other left-wing causes? Well, this week, March founder Teresa Shook called upon its current leaders to resign, citing their fostering of anti-Semitism.
Shook’s concern was the close association of these leaders (who include Palestinian American Linda Sarsour) with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, infamous for his vociferous anti-Semitism as well as anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and racism against white people. Last month, Farrakhan dared to declare “I am not anti-Semitic, I am anti-termite”. He has previously described Hitler as a “very great man”.1
So far there has been an official apology from the Women’s March to Jewish and LGBTQ+ members, but there has not yet been any clear condemnation of Farrakhan or obvious disassociation with him. Celebrities are beginning to withdraw their support from the March, a human rights award has been stripped from it and people are starting to ask: why is it so hard for the March leaders to denounce this abhorrent man?2
General Bemusement
The willingness of left-wing activists to associate with radical Islamists in the first place seems utterly contradictory, but prescient commentators have seen it coming.3 Anti-Semitism (or attitudes that tend that way) is part of the common ground between these apparently disparate factions.
People are starting to ask: why is it so hard for the March leaders to denounce the abhorrent Louis Farrakhan?
Many left-wingers fail to grasp this and are left scratching their heads, trying to understand how on earth their ‘progressive’, ‘tolerant’, ‘liberal’ politics is suddenly found housing anti-Semitic comments and behaviours. Like much of the Labour-supporting left in Britain, they just can’t get their heads around it: ‘how has it come to this?’ they ask. Some write it all off as a terrible mistake, an anomaly, or even a conspiracy (as the Women’s March founders did in their initial response to Ms Shook’s comments, accusing her of trying to ‘fracture’ the movement). Their critics call it hypocrisy, but are no closer to understanding it.4
The more astute recognise that though the ‘progressive’ left and Islamists seem worlds apart, they actually have some things in common, which explains their otherwise bizarre tendency to cross-pollinate. This can plunge concerned leftists into an existential crisis, as with many Jewish Labour MPs and supporters in Britain.
In Pursuit of Godless Utopia
As usual, Melanie Phillips is ahead of most in understanding this strange situation. She argues that Islam and the ‘progressive’ left, just like fascism and communism, are utopian in outlook: each in their own way seeking to bring about the perfect world, each believing themselves to be the noblest of causes. This means that each are also totalitarian: “Because their end product is a state of perfection, nothing can be allowed to stand in [the] way”.5
Ultimately, they are each, she goes on to argue, about building heaven on earth without reference to the God of the Bible: they are belief systems that hinge on rejecting him. That is where they begin to find common ground with each other.
For Christians, understanding all this from a spiritual perspective is quite simple. Every political, philosophical or religious movement that rejects God and his ways becomes the domain of “the prince of the air”, no matter how well-intentioned their beginnings. Promising freedom, love and unity, they cannot deliver these things, which are only found in God. Instead, they deliver tyranny, aggressive hatred and division.
The more astute recognise that though the ‘progressive’ left and Islamists seem worlds apart, they actually have some things in common, which explains their otherwise bizarre tendency to cross-pollinate.
They also tend towards a rejection of everything on earth that points to God, whether his created order, his word, his land or all those who are bound in covenant to him, who testify to his existence and truth. And so, sown into the heart of each and every movement of this kind is the intrinsic possibility of both anti-Semitism and Christian persecution.
These tendencies work out differently depending on the movement in question, whether far-right fascism, fundamentalist Islam, or ‘progressive’ secular humanism and its identity politics, included in which is the (frighteningly intellectual-sounding) ‘intersectional feminism’ that underlies the Women’s March.6
No Surprises Here
The Women's March leaders, who have been called on to step down. See Photo Credits.
As I wrote last year, instead of protesting real gender injustice, the Women’s March seeks only to protest and destroy biblical notions of womanhood, family and sexuality. Pro-life women are hounded and ousted. Anti-establishment anarchy and vulgarity are abiding themes, part-funded as it is by hard-left anarchist billionaire George Soros. While likely containing well-meaning individuals, the movement broadly represents a wholesale rebellion against Judeo-Christian values.
In this context, it should really be no surprise that anti-Semitic people and attitudes are welcomed within its ranks, particularly under the guise of ‘legitimate’ criticism of Israel (click here for a list of the kinds of anti-Semitic groups that have joined hands under the Women’s March umbrella). It may not seem on obvious concern for a gender-focused campaign, but the attraction is a common focus on perceived ‘injustice’ and ‘oppression’, underneath which is shared anti-Western, anti-Judeo-Christian, revolutionary sentiment.
Ms Shook asserts that the current leaders have “steered the movement away from its true course”. I beg to differ. This is not a case of a perfectly useful political campaign being maliciously hijacked by a few bad eggs. It’s about root ideological issues pervading the entire movement.
The Women’s March joins hands with anti-Semitic people and groups because of a common focus on perceived ‘injustice’ and ‘oppression’, underneath which is shared anti-Western, anti-Judeo-Christian sentiment.
It should also, therefore, be no surprise when Women’s March figure-heads are found befriending people like Louis Farrakhan. It’s not just Farrakhan: remember also that the 2017 March was co-organised by a convicted Palestinian terrorist (since deported) and a former Communist Party leader who is also a long-time supporter of the violent Black Panther movement. Again, join the dots and you will find a shared ideological revolt against Western civilisation and its founding association with Scripture.7
That is why it is so hard for the Women’s March leaders to denounce Farrakhan. At root, they are in agreement with him, or on their way to being so. It’s also why it’s so hard for Jeremy Corbyn to denounce Labour anti-Semitism: at root, he agrees with it. These hard-leftists are not odd-balls that accidentally found their way into the left-wing: they are simply being consistent in their ideological commitment, following it through to its logical conclusion.
That is why the anti-Semitism crisis in the Women’s March is a shot across the bows for American Jews: it says something about the likely future destination of the entire US left. The question is, will they have eyes to see?
References
1 Firscht, N. The Women’s March and the anti-Semitism blindspot. Spiked, 22 November 2018.
2 Singal, J. Why Won’t Women’s March Leaders Denounce Louis Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism? Intelligencer, 7 March 2018. Left-wing associations with Farrakhan didn’t start with the Women’s March – Obama notoriously fraternised with the Islamist leader back in 2005.
3 I recommend Melanie Phillips’ The World Turned Upside-Down (2010, Encounter Books), particularly chapters 11 and 12.
4 E.g. see note 1.
5 The World Turned Upside-Down, see note 3, pp219-220.
6 Intersectional feminism is a fairly recent move within the feminist movement to take into account other layers of identity that women experience in addition to their gender, including race, sexuality, class, etc. It is an attempt to understand people as multi-faceted, each with a unique experience of power relationships in the world (i.e. each one can claim to be oppressed in their own way/in compound ways). What this translates to practically is the uniting of the feminist movement with other left-wing causes to jointly condemn ‘oppression’.
7 The alliance between the radical left and Islam may be temporarily convenient for both parties, but ultimately Islam has no respect for secular identity politics and its various victim groups. Once dominant, it would undoubtedly crush both feminism and the LGBTQ+ movement.
