To White Supremacists, Jews Are Responsible for All Ills

Aug. 12 2022

Five years ago today, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a group of far-right fanatics chanting “Jews will not replace us” faced off against a group of counter-protestors chanting “Black lives matter.” The irony that the latter slogan has been adopted by a movement that believes that Jews—uniquely among all the world’s peoples—have no right to sovereignty in their native land was of course lost on those present. As for the first slogan, it did not indicate that the participants in the “Unite the Right” rally were worried that their place in society would be taken by Jews, but instead that Jews would nefariously “replace” white Americans with Hispanics and other non-white immigrants. In race-focused America, this particular combination of anti-Semitism and racism is often misunderstood. James Loeffler, drawing on evidence presented at the civil trial of some of the leaders of the Charlottesville march, adds some clarity:

The Charlottesville defendants were charged with civil conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence against the victims. Their defense strategy consisted of a repeated insistence that they were the true victims, the actual minority pursuing historical justice. They had come to town only to defend a Confederate statue, exercise their First Amendment rights, and confront the totalitarian Left. Any resulting violence was self-defense. The rise of non-white America, through mass migration, Democratic voting machinations, and Communist plots, genuinely imperiled their future.

Given this color-based binary, white Jews might seem irrelevant as a threat. Yet precisely because of their pseudo-whiteness, in supremacists’ telling, Jews constitute racial imposters, who have taken over American society. The proper transformation of American society would restore the demographic and political hierarchy and remove the “Zionist Occupied Government.” Barring that, though, violence was inevitable.

So, why did the Charlottesville marauders skip the town’s synagogue (the community was no less traumatized) to focus on pitched street fighting with Black Lives Matter and Antifa activists? The answer lies in the second dimension of replacement theory. Our enemy, said defendant, Michael Hill of the League of the South, is the “Jew-directed Communist horde” that threatens to destroy the white race.

Read more at Newsweek

More about: Anti-Semitism, Immigration, Racism, U.S. Foreign policy, white supremacy

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy