The Blurred Lines between the Anti-Semitism of the Left and the Right

After the massacre at a Buffalo supermarket that left ten dead and three others injured, much attention has been paid to the perpetrator’s repugnant ideas about race and immigration. But, although the shooter deliberately sought to murder African Americans, his manifesto makes clear that he sees Jews as the sinister force behind the world’s evils. The commentator known by the pseudonym Elder of Ziyon, examining the 180-page document, notes the ways that it combines anti-Semitic ideas from both far-right and far-left sources—and that often it’s difficult to tell the difference:

His chapter on Jews in the first section . . . copies both text and graphics from far-right websites. However, there is a bit of cross-pollination between the far-left and the far-right in how they regard Jews. One can see that his sources [on the right] take materials from the far-left anti-Semites and that leftist anti-Semites take materials from the same far-right materials that he quotes. His document includes talking points taken directly from the “anti-Zionist” left. . . . He also takes talking points from the Nation of Islam.

Indeed, Elder to Ziyon points to a graphic, pasted into the manifesto, that contains all the standard accusations of “apartheid,” “illegal occupation,” and the like, next to a picture of Israel with a Jewish star on top of it.

Like the anti-Semitic left, [the shooter] argues that he doesn’t hate all Jews: “When referring to ‘the Jews’ I don’t mean all ethnic or religious Jews. Some can be actually decent, and make significant progress [sic] to humanity. However many of them are not.” Is there any difference between what he says and the anti-Semitic left saying that its obsessive hate of Israel has nothing to do with hating Jews, since they think there are “good Jews” as well?

The far left and the far right might say they hate Jews for different reasons, but neither of them have a problem with using the arguments and methods of the other side.

Read more at Elder of Ziyon

More about: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Nation of Islam, Racism

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023