Left-wing anti-Semitism has its roots in the 19th century, writes Alan Johnson. In the 20th it was transformed, under Soviet auspices, into anti-Zionism. And now the anti-Zionist left is eager to find common cause with Islamist anti-Semites:

[L]eft-wing anti-Zionism has been converging with some forms of Arab nationalism and even political Islamism—which are both now coded as singularly progressive. The left has its own version of Orientalism, which infantilizes the Palestinians and Arabs, puts them beyond criticism, and makes them the subject of endless Western left-wing delusions. For example, take Jeremy Corbyn’s truly incredible claim that Hamas and Hizballah are “bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region.”

This convergence . . . was smoothed by two developments on the left. In the East, the Communist bloc’s decades-long “anti-Zionist” propaganda campaign injected an “anti-imperialism of idiots” into the global left during the cold war. We are talking about the mass publication and global distribution of anti-Semitic materials through the Communist parties and their fellow travelers. . . . Two-hundred-and-thirty books were published in the USSR alone from 1969 to 1985 about a supposed Zionist-Masonic conspiracy against Russia. These books had a combined print run of 9.4 million.

In the West, . . . anti-imperialism . . . was raised to a radically new status in the 1960s. . . . [The Israeli-Palestinian conflict] was reframed. No longer was one people involved in a complex unresolved national question with another people. Now Israel became “a key site of the imperialist system” and the Palestinians became “the Resistance” to imperialism. . . .

Now, to support Israel’s enemies—whatever these enemies stood for, however they behaved—was a left-wing “anti-imperialist” duty: in other words, anti-Semitism went “progressive.”

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.