Luke Ford

“Anti-Semitic” is just a slur. “Racist” and “bigot” are just slurs. These words have no objective meaning. There are only two logical forms of arguments — contesting facts and logic. Every other debating tactic is not honorable.

The Alt-Right is anti-Semitic in the same sense that Judaism is inherently anti-Christian and Japanese nationalism is inherently anti-non-Japanese and Islam is anti-non-Muslims and English nationalists thinks that wogs begin at Calais and Australians who love being Australian think everyone else sucks. “If you ain’t Aussie, you’re nothing” was a perspective I frequently encountered when I lived in Australia. Why isn’t there some fancy word for this Australian hatred of non-Australians?

As internet commentator Maj. Kong put it: “Anti-Semitism is as natural to Western civilization as anti-Christianity is to Jewish civilization, Islamic civilization and Japanese civilization.”

Asking if the Alt-Right is anti-Semitic is like asking if Islam is anti-Semitic. When Jews and Muslims are in fierce conflict for scarce resources, the odds are good that Jews will have anti-Muslims attitudes and Muslims will have anti-Jewish attitudes. In other circumstances, such as in America and Europe today, Jewish groups and Muslim groups will usually have a great deal in common. They are both part of the Coalition of the Fringe as against the native white core.

In some circumstances, Jews and Blacks will be allies. They are both members of the Coalition of the Fringe. In other cases, Jews and Christians will find room to unite. When groups have common interests, they have incentives to work together and to get along. When they have clashing interests, they have incentives to dislike and demonize each other.

In real life, there are no permanent enemies or allies. All such categories depend upon time, place and circumstance. In some times, places and circumstances, whites are going to be anti-Jewish. In other times, places and circumstances, they won’t be. In some times, places and circumstances, Jews are going to be anti-Muslim. In other times, places and circumstances, Jews will ally with Muslims.

In World War I, the Italians and Japanese fought on the side of the Allies. In World War II, they fought on the side of Germany.

Nobody can argue with the Nazis’ anti-Jewish credentials, but they ran a program enabling 60,000 German Jews to move to Palestine.

Wikipedia:

The Haavara Agreement (Hebrew: הסכם העברה Translit.: heskem haavara Translated: “transfer agreement”) was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. The agreement was finalized after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. It was a major factor in making possible the immigration of approximately 60,000 German Jews to Palestine in the years 1933–1939.[1]

The agreement was designed to enable Jews fleeing anti-Semitic persecution under the new Hitler regime to transfer some portion of their assets to their refuge in British Mandatory Palestine. It provided some relief for Jews fleeing by allowing them to recover some of the possessions and assets they were forced to surrender before departing.[2] A portion of those possessions could be re-obtained by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods.[3][4] The agreement was controversial at the time, and was criticised by many Jewish leaders both within the Zionist movement (such as the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky) and outside it.[4] Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, said in 1933 ‘I think I speak the mind of Jews everywhere when I say we hold in abhorrence any Jew, whether in or out of Palestine, who undertakes to make any commercial arrangements with the Nazi government for any reason whatever’.[5] For German Jews, the Agreement offered a way to leave an increasingly hostile environment in Nazi Germany; for the Yishuv, the new Jewish community in Palestine, it offered access to both immigrants and some economic support; and for the Nazis it was seen as a way of breaking the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933, which had mass support among European Jews and was thought by the German state as a potential threat to a fragile German economy.

Many people have argued that Joseph Stalin was anti-Semitic but he instructed his envoy at the United Nations to vote in favor of the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.

If you identify strongly with one group, you are likely to have negative feelings about out-groups. This is basic social identity theory. It applies equally to Jews and to non-Jews. The more strongly a Jew identifies with being Jewish, the more likely he is to have negative views of gentiles. The more a Christian identifies with Christianity or a Muslim identifies with Islam or a white identifies with his race or with his nation, the more likely he is to have negative views of Jews.

Jews living in the Jewish state of Israel tend to have more negative views of gentiles than Jews living in the diaspora.

The more deeply a gentile develops his variety of gentile identity, such as Christianity or white nationalism, the more likely he is to have negative views of Jews.

The Alt-Right in Europe is known as the Identitarian movement. The more strongly a gentile knows who he is, the more likely he is to have negative views of Jews (and vice versa, the more strongly a Jew knows who he is, the more likely he is to have negative views of goyim).

The Wikipedia entry:

The Identitarian movement is a pan-European socio-political movement that started in France in 2002 as a far-right youth movement deriving from the French Nouvelle Droite Génération Identitaire. Initially the youth wing of the anti-immigrant, far-right Bloc Identitaire, it has taken on its own identity and is largely classed as a separate entity altogether with the intent of spreading across Europe. The Identitarian movement advocates for rights for members of specific European ethnocultural groups.

The main Identitarian youth movement is Generation Identitaire in France, a youth wing of the Bloc Identitaire party.

In 2013 Markus Willinger, born in 1992, who grew up in Schärding, Austria and now is a student of history and political science at the University of Stuttgart wrote a manifesto entitled ‘Generation Identity: A Declaration of War Against the ’68ers’, and translated into English from German by Aetius and published in 2013. The book is considered the founding manifesto of the Identitäre Bewegung Österreichs.

In Scandinavia identitarianism was introduced by the now non-active organisation Nordiska Förbundet (Nordic Alliance).[1] It then mobilised a number of “independent activist groups” similar to their French counterparts, among which could be mentioned Reaktion Östergötland and Identitet Väst, who performed a number of spectacular political actions, marked by a certain degree of civil disobedience. A first manifesto, aimed at defining the identitarian movement in Northern Europe, was also published.[2]

German Identitarian at the Pegida march on 5 January 2015
The movement also appeared in Germany converging with preexisting circles centering on the magazine Blaue Narzisse. It is a “registered association” since 2014.[3] Drawing upon thinkers of the New Right and the Conservative Revolutionary movement such as Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt or the contemporary Russian Aleksandr Dugin, it played a role for the rise of the PEGIDA marches in 2014/15.

As their symbol the Identitarian movement uses a yellow Lambda sign.

In August 2016 members of the Identitarian Movement of Germany scaled the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and hung a banner to protest immigration and Islamisation.

The term is used in a broader sense by political theorists like Adolph L. Reed, Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels to refer to any philosophy based primarily on social identity.[5] The head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute Richard B. Spencer though is a self-described identitarian and promotes white nationalist views.

From Breitbart Aug. 13, 2016:

German Intelligence Admits Spying On Identitarian Movement

The Identitarians in Germany have been concerned not just with mass migration and Islamisation, but also with the ever-increasing government censorship of migrant critical comments online. The German government has raided several homes in the last few months due to social media posts they claim are anti-migrant, and sentenced many to fines and prison time.

The programme that reports many of these so-called “hate posts” works directly with a group known as the Amadeu Antonio foundation, who are headed by an ex-Stasi agent named Anetta Kahane. The Identitarians decided to visit the offices of Ms Kahane and her associates to protest their involvement with the censorship of speech online. Several members of the group donned Stasi uniforms and handed out leaflets to the staff.

The German branch of the movement reached out to Breitbart London to counter the claims made by Mr Maasen and were well aware of the irony of protesting Stasi tactics only days before being confirmed to be under surveillance themselves.

“We are alienated by the intelligence service’s announcement which stated that the Identitarian Movement is now being monitored nationwide,” they said adding: “We have always stressed that the Identitarian Movement confesses to democratic and constitutional values and condemns the use of violence. In addition, we point out the federal government’s violations of the constitution.”

The Identitarians also claimed that before they existed there were no peaceful avenues for patriotic European young people to express their displeasure with mass migration and Islamisation, insisting that they are a positive outlet for patriotic young people.

“Every people has the right to preserve their ethno-cultural identity. Every state preserves its sovereignty only by controlling its borders and choosing who may enter the country and who may not,” they said.

They concluded saying: “We are confident that everybody who informs himself on the goals and views of the Identitarian Movement will come to the conclusion that the alleged reasons for the monitoring by the intelligence service are not to be taken seriously and that they just serve as tools to oppress critical voices.”

Watching the Jewish Establishment and the Jewish Media struggle with the Alt-Right is like watching your grandparents struggle to use Instagram or a man teach pre-school or a woman parallel-park.

Different groups have different interests. Sometimes they will have interests in common, but usually there is going to be some tension between groups who live near each other. Organized Jewry has taken to calling any tension or clashing of interests with Jew “anti-Semitism.” I think this game of morally stigmatizing legitimate clashes of interest is about finished. Smart people are increasingly seeing through it. Bullying people by calling them names such as “racist” or “anti-Semite” just does not pack the punch it once did.

Blacks and latinos, for instance, have legitimate clashes of interest. It’s not racism or bigotry that separates them as much as these real life conflicts of interest. Same goes for Jews and non-Jews, whites and blacks, Muslims and non-Muslims, Christians and non-Christians.

There would be something weird and possibly unhealthy about an Arab or Muslim not having some negative thoughts about Jews just as it would be weird for Jews not to have some negative feelings about Arabs and Muslims.

A Palestinian woman whose house has been occupied by Jewish settlers argue with Israelis who came to celebrate Jerusalem Day on May 12, 2010 in front of her disputed house in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Israel is celebrating the anniversary of the “unification” of Jerusalem, marking 43 years since it captured mainly Arab east Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. Thousands of people, mostly nationalist-religious Jews, were expected to take part in an annual march through Jerusalem later Wednesday that culminates in the Old City at the Wailing Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI (Photo credit should read AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images)

FACING A CROWD.

Diversity plus proximity equals conflict. It’s some mystical “anti-Semitism” we are talking about here. It’s all about identity, baby. Different groups have different interests. All the rest is commentary. Go and study.

The Jewish press is filled with articles about the Alt-Right but almost none of them are worth a damn. Why on earth would these Jewish journalists go interview the usual suspects at the ADL, SPLC and SWC for the millionth time? Why are these ethnic activists supposedly disinterested experts? According to whom?

When it comes to the Alt-Right, the Jewish media has a serious lack of imagination and empathy. How much work is it to try to see things from another group’s point of view? The Jewish press does not even try. A few months back, I wrote a series of blog posts on how I would see the world if I were born Jewish or born black or born Muslim, etc. Perhaps Jewish intellectuals should try to see things from an outside perspective once in a while.

Ron Kampeas writes for JTA:

Can you go alt-right without going anti-Semitic?
The movement that has emerged from conservatism — and in some ways has turned against it — appears to be nudging its way into the American mainstream as it attaches itself to the success of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. Its followers and intellectuals have also been associated with anti-Semitism.
Now experts on extremism are contemplating whether the claim the alt-right has on establishment politics through its ride on Trump’s coattails also means a mainstreaming of anti-Semitism.
“You can have some of the ideas of the alt-right, which is anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism and anti-globalism, without it being anti-Semitic,” said Marilyn Mayo, who tracks the alt-right at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “However, a good deal of the people who are talking about the ideology of white identity, white culture, focus on Jews as part of a problem for them.”
The ADL defines the alt-right as “an extremely loose movement made up of different strands of people connected to white supremacy.”
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremists, said that some of the movement’s ideologues explicitly rejected anti-Semitism, seeing Jews as a branch of the “white nationalism” movement they embrace…

The question of Jewish viability within the movement came to the forefront last week when Joshua Seidel, who is Jewish, proclaimed his robust backing for the alt-right, saying its willingness to stand up for Western civilization made it a better protector for Jews than the liberal movements favored by most American Jews.
“I sometimes wonder what Jews who enthusiastically go on about ‘white privilege’ think the endgame is,” Seidel wrote in the Forward.
He acknowledged that the alt-right “is the most aggressively offensive political movement in existence, and it often targets the Jewish community.” (In the essay’s comments section, he engaged with multiple self-proclaimed alt-righters who argued – sometimes in threatening terms imagining Seidel’s elimination — that his Jewishness necessarily excluded him from the movement.)
Alt-righters came to wide attention earlier this year after they targeted Jewish writers and reporters online who criticized Trump, and they have excoriated Jews as being at the forefront of those who would promote diversity. They use images that cross into anti-Semitism; one tweeted by Trump, casting Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as corrupt and accompanied by a six-pointed star spread over a pile of cash, emerged from the alt-right. (Trump’s campaign later removed the tweet, though the candidate said he would not have.)
In targeting Jewish reporters, members of the movement have created illustrations of placing their subject in a gas chamber while Trump, in a Nazi uniform, flips the switch.
Seidel said the movement’s flirtation with anti-Semitism was a function of its willingness to shatter taboos, which was what made it refreshing.
“I enjoy the nasty talk in the alt-right,” he wrote. “I enjoy spending rhetorical time with people who might otherwise hate me. The alt-right has energy, it has vitality, it’s something NEW and creative, it’s honest and forthright.”
Pratik Chougule, who last year served as a policy coordinator for the campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said anti-Semitic expression may be a function of the movement’s exasperation with taboos.
“Any issue that is considered off limits by the mainstream, they gravitate to and relish,” Chougule, who also worked with the Trump campaign and has tracked the movement closely, said in an interview. “Is that an expression of anti-Semitism or more a statement about political correctness?”
He said the movement eventually will need to answer the question.
“If they choose the anti-Semitic path, they will marginalize themselves,” Chougule said.
It may be too early to define the movement, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, but expressions of Jew hatred by some of its adherents need to be watched closely.