How the Left Became Anti-Semitic Daryl McCann (This essay appeared in our November 2012 issue.)

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/from-our-archives/how-the-left-became-anti-semitic/

Robert Wistrich’s latest work, From Ambivalence to Betrayal, defines Zionism as a national liberation movement. Marx pre-dated Zionism but the analytical tools he bequeathed to his ideological successors predisposed them to sneer at the concept of Jewish national self-determination as a petty-bourgeois folly. Consequently, Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and Trotsky all derided Zionism, and yet Wistrich accuses none of these icons of the Old Left of being overtly anti-Semitic: catastrophically wrongheaded, yes; but anti-Semitic, no. Wistrich has far less sympathy for the anti-Zionist Left of today. Its impenitent pro-Palestinian and pro-terrorist stance marks yet another chapter in the longest hatred of all: anti-Semitism.

Given that Karl Marx accepted in principle the right of Jews in a bourgeois society to demand civil liberties, he was not, in this sense at least, anti-Semitic. Still, these so-called bourgeois privileges were of minor consequence in the greater scheme of things. In a post-capitalist world, Judaism—an antiquated religion of the ego, according to Marx—would become redundant: “Under socialism or communism, there was no need for Jews as Jews to maintain their existence.” Marx’s class-based analysis, insists Wistrich, was a key reason for the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and later the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), to spurn Zionism.

Because Zionism emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century, the SPD had to make sense of a Jewish national movement without Marx, who had died in 1883. It was Karl Kautsky (1854–1934), the so-called Pope of Marxism, who “came closest to applying the Marxist method of historical materialism in a coherent fashion” to the Zionism project. Kautsky concluded that the Jews were “not a race, a nation, or even a people, but a ‘caste’ with certain quasi-national attributes” that would disappear with the arrival of socialism. This expectation that Jews would lose their “illusionary national characteristics” with the fall of capitalism was disproved by the Soviet Union. Even so, says Wistrich, the line taken by Kautsky runs all the way through to present-day neo-Trotskyist and New Left critiques of Zionism.

The revenge of the woke Lionel Shriver on Trump’s stumbles, Mamdani’s rise and why the culture war rages on. VIDEO

https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/the-revenge-of-the-woke/

Lionel Shriver – novelist, journalist and author of Mania – returns to The Brendan O’Neill Show. Lionel and Brendan discuss the insanity of the Democrats, the fall of New York and why Starmer’s Britain is a tinderbox.

What Hamas Says vs. What Hamas Means Seth Mandel Is the terror group really willing to end the war?

https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/what-hamas-says-vs-what-hamas-means/

Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week had a celebratory but unfinished air. The Israeli prime minister and President Trump were somehow chummier and more businesslike than in previous meetings.

There’s a good reason for that: While the two have been working on a plan for postwar Gaza, the cease-fire has to come first—and it’s proving somewhat elusive.

The delay isn’t on Trump’s end. The president plainly was hoping to announce a deal while Netanyahu was in town. And the delay isn’t on Bibi’s part, because the prime minister clearly wants to give Trump the win he’s looking for. After all, Netanyahu nominated the president for the Nobel Peace Prize, gifted him a mezuzah in the shape of an American B-2 bomber and made from an Iranian missile, and showed off a hat in the MAGA style that said “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”

By process of elimination, then, the culprit is our old friend Hamas. Why the cold feet?

One likely reason is that, while Netanyahu has seemingly come to accept the need to end the war in the near future, Hamas has gone in the opposite direction.

Any cease-fire deal that ended the war entirely would likely only do so after a 60-day period, which means that what transpires during those two months is what the two sides (three, if you include the U.S.) are arguing about. Here, it is helpful to distinguish between what Hamas says and what it means.

Hamas says that it suspects Netanyahu will be looking for any excuse to resume fighting even if negotiations for extending the cease-fire are taking place.

What it means is that Hamas’s usual strategy of incrementally violating the cease-fire to test Israel’s restraint is riskier than usual for the terror group because their fighting force and their control over the strip are both at low tide.

Mark P. Mills Zohran Mamdani, AI, and the Job Apocalypse The disaffected laptop class fears the artificial intelligence revolution.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-artificial-intelligence-jobs

Does Zohran Mamdani, an unapologetic socialist, owe his political rise as New York City’s leading mayoral candidate to artificial intelligence?

We’re not referring to whether Mamdani, a TikTok and Instagram virtuoso, used AI to help propel himself to victory in the primaries (he may have). Instead, consider the anxieties that AI is fueling in the demographic that voted for him. Ever since ChatGPT ignited the modern AI era, we’ve seen a stream of headlines and studies predicting that AI will soon perform virtually all knowledge work. Mamdani captured his big majorities among the laptop class of middle- and upper-middle income citizens, not in working-class neighborhoods. Socialism’s central nostrum—that well-intentioned experts and ruling elites should tame the predations of market and technology disruptions—becomes more appealing during periods of social and economic upheaval.

There is no shortage of reasons for anxiety and unhappiness today, not least the intensity of political and cultural debates over “woke” ideas, “social justice,” the impact of social media, natural disasters blamed on human behavior (the climate-disaster thesis), and ongoing wars. Now, added to this already turbulent backdrop, comes the fear of an AI-driven jobs apocalypse. Few concerns, aside from health issues, cause more stress than the threat or fact of job loss. A May 2025 survey by the American Psychological Association found that three-fourths of employees feel stressed over job insecurity.

These worries are not unfounded. Recently, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that the company would hire 30 percent to 50 percent fewer people because of AI, while Amazon CEO Andy Jassy aroused employee ire for observing that, with AI, “we expect the total number of employees to decrease over the coming years.” Ford CEO Jim Farley asserted that AI “is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.” A Wall Street Journal headline echoed the point: “CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs.”

Muslim Doctor Who Tried to Run Jewish Congressman Off the Road Indicted Will Islamic Jew-hate be discussed at the trial of Feras Hamdan? by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/muslim-doctor-who-tried-to-run-jewish-congressman-off-the-road-indicted/

A Muslim physician threatened to kill a Jewish congressman from Ohio, and that’s only one small part of what he did. On Tuesday, that errant doctor was indicted, but the deep hatreds that led to his behavior remain, and we will see them play out again.

The victim, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), says that it was a “bizarre” incident, adding: “The whole thing was weird.” There is no doubt about that. How many times does a man who is professionally dedicated to healing and improving lives threaten to take one? All in all, however, Miller’s characterization is a trifle too cavalier. It was something far worse than bizarre and weird: it was an ominous sign of the times, and of the direction in which our society is heading unless things change, and change drastically, before it’s too late.

It happened on June 19. Miller recounted: “I’m on the freeway. I have somebody who has cut me off, who is flipping me off, who is showing me a Palestinian flag, and is yelling to kill me.” This was Rep. Miller’s introduction to Dr. Feras Hamdan, a physician in Avon, Ohio, who also screamed at him that old standby of ayatollahs and other hate-filled people everywhere: “Death to Israel.”

Cleveland Jewish News (CJN) reported Wednesday that it happened when Miller and Hamdan were both driving on Ohio’s Interstate 90 in Rocky River, and Hamdan started honking his horn at Miller. Miller paid no attention, but Hamdan persisted, pulling his car “window-to-window with me,” says Miller. Once their cars were side by side, the good doctor began “screaming” at the congressman.

Who’s Hungry For The Truth About Food Stamps? (Hint: Not Journalists)

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/07/11/just-how-dumb-are-todays-journalists/

A headline in Axios over the weekend carried this scary warning: “An increasing share of American adults are going hungry.”

Look at what has happened since Trump has been in office. It’s back down to where it was nearly two years ago and appears to be moving sideways.

Axios is hardly the only news site to claim that the One Big Beautiful Bill “slashes” food stamps – which now goes under the euphemism Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – and will cause millions to go hungry.

As The Guardian put it, “the cuts amount to the largest in the program’s history. They come at a time when food insecurity is already on the rise in all 50 states.”

The Guardian apparently got its talking points from the leftist Center for American Progress, which makes the same point. “Moreover, this legislation comes at a time when food insecurity is rising across all 50 states, reaching levels not seen since 2014.”

But look at the sources that the Center for American Progress (CAP) – a favorite “think tank” for many journalists – links to in its screed about the horrors of the OBBB.

The “shocking data point” comes, the story says, “at a time when the stock market is hitting record highs and President Donald Trump just signed a bill slashing food benefits.”

But take a look at the chart Axios published in that tear-jerking story, which is based on data from Morning Consult. Notice anything?

The Culture War Goes to Court Three recently decided SCOTUS cases were family-friendly. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/11/the-culture-war-goes-to-court/

June 1 marked the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters. This landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down an Oregon law that prohibited parents from educating their children in private and religious schools and required public school attendance.

Justice James McReynolds wrote, “The child is not the mere creature of the state,” which summed up the majority opinion in the decision.

A century later, however, the battle continues. On June 27, SCOTUS ruled 6–3 that Maryland parents who have religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons using “LGBTQ+ inclusive” storybooks. The Mahmoud v. Taylor decision maintains that parents have a fundamental right to direct their children’s moral and religious upbringing and that parental rights don’t end at the classroom door.

Children aged 5-11 were required to read or listen to stories such as Prince & Knight, about two male knights who marry each other; Love Violet, about two young girls falling in love; and Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, about a biological girl transitioning to a boy.

It’s important to note that the dissenting parents didn’t challenge the curriculum or demand that the district banish the controversial books. They simply wanted to be notified and have the opportunity to opt their children out of inappropriate and objectionable indoctrination provided at government-run schools. They did not advocate for schools to teach a specific religion or beliefs, but rather, they only asked that schools respect parents’ constitutional right to guide their children’s moral development.

Justices Jackson, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented. In her opinion, Sotomayor incoherently argued that the majority was trying to allow parents to separate their children from experiences that are “critical to our nation’s civic vitality” and would sow “chaos” in public schools across the United States.

Warnings to President Trump on the Future of Gaza by Robert Johnson

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21747/trump-gaza-future

The Trump administration is being sent early warnings of the priorities of its possible “partner,” Qatar, for the future of the Gaza Strip.

“His Excellency” Mohammed al-Rumaihi, Qatar’s former ambassador to the United States, and former Minister of Municipality and Environment, noted on July 5 that he is concerned about “keep[ing] the Palestinian cause alive – and its people,” and slammed Israel: “No major capital—neither Beijing, nor Moscow, nor Washington—has labelled the Gaza campaign as ‘systematic killing,’ let alone moved to punish Israel under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

You are not left to guess which side of the conflict he is on.

Meetings currently appear to be underway to create a possible “consortium” of Arab and Muslim nations to govern the Gaza Strip – basically leaving in place many of the same radical Islamic adherents of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, of which it is an offshoot, as before — most likely to make sure that Israel can be attacked again in the future as many times as necessary to ensure its extinction.

“Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran.” — Udi Levy, former senior official of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, Ynet, April14, 2024.

President Donald Trump — whose initial instincts are often perfect until “advisors” try to talk him out of them – originally suggested an American-built “Riviera” on the Gaza Strip. Combined with a military base, it would greatly serve the interests of the United States as well as Israel – similarly to how the US stations the forward HQ of Central Command and Air Forces Central Command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to protect the oil-rich peninsula. American forces at Al-Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East, effectively serve as Qatar’s private air-force. Qatar might even have snookered some US bureaucrats into thinking that they are doing the US a favor by allowing its troops to be there.

Trump’s original idea of a US “Riviera” in Gaza, stems from an “America First” point of view, may be the most constructive way to successfully deter further military engagement for the United States in the Middle East.

At the moment, however, it is crucial not to allow Qatar, Egypt or any Arab state to get anywhere near Gaza. “His Excellency” al-Rumaihi from Qatar is clearly telling you so.

The Trump administration is being sent early warnings of the priorities of its possible “partner,” Qatar, for the future of the Gaza Strip.

“His Excellency” Mohammed al-Rumaihi, Qatar’s former ambassador to the United States, and former Minister of Municipality and Environment, noted on July 5 that he is concerned about “keep[ing] the Palestinian cause alive – and its people,” and slammed Israel:

“No major capital—neither Beijing, nor Moscow, nor Washington—has labelled the Gaza campaign as ‘systematic killing,’ let alone moved to punish Israel under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

You are not left to guess which side of the conflict he is on.

Kudos to Trump for mentioning the USAF mechanics Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/kudos-to-trump-for-mentioning-the-usaf-mechanics/

An impromptu press conference took place on Monday evening, just as U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and functionaries from both administrations were sitting down to their much-touted working dinner at the White House. It would be the first of several meetings this week between American officials and the Israeli leader to discuss several pressing issues. Among these was the joint defanging of the Islamic Republic’s ballistic-missile and nuclear capabilities.

Asked by a reporter about the U.S. military’s June 22 airstrikes on Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, Trump paused to give credit to the men and women of the U.S. Air Force who carried out the spectacular surprise operation.

“We had the pilots here yesterday, as you know, and they were incredible,” he said. “And we also had the mechanics. There were, I think, 170 people, a lot of people, that had to do with that incredible journey—a journey that could have been horrible. You remember what happened with Jimmy Carter, with the helicopters and all, and ultimately hostages. We had the exact opposite. It went perfectly.”

Trump’s mention of the mechanics went unnoticed, though the people responsible for the literal nuts and bolts of the mission must have been pleased to be acknowledged. After all, it is due to their skill and their diligence that the aircraft performed properly and that all the pilots were able to return home safely.

In a fight between the NEA and ADL, the Jews lose Jeff Ballabon

https://www.jns.org/in-fight-between-the-nea-and-adl-the-jews-lose/

The progressive coalition that the Anti-Defamation League helped midwife now rejects it as impure.

When America’s largest teachers’ union severs ties with the Anti-Defamation League, it’s tempting to reach for the popcorn. After all, few organizations have done more to undermine Jewish security and moral clarity in recent years than the ADL—and few institutions have been more responsible for indoctrinating children with radical, antisemitic ideologies than the National Education Association.

But the spectacle is no cause for amusement. It is, in fact, a grim warning—another signpost on the road to civilizational hell. Because while the NEA and ADL trade rhetorical blows, it is the Jews who lose. Again.

How did we get here?

Once the flagship of Jewish communal defense against hate (though even then embarrassingly tone-deaf, left-leaning, and partisan), the ADL was commandeered and repurposed as a political weapon by its Obama-operative CEO and national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, who transformed the organization from self-important partisan hackery into a focused partisan war room.

Under Greenblatt, the ADL adopted a strategy of ideological weaponization: labeling mainstream conservatives and pro-Israel leaders as extremists if they dared praise friendly Republicans—or, worse, chastise hostile Democrats—while redefining antisemitism to provide cover for progressive politics, partnering with the very forces that enable and spread anti-Jewish hatred and enmity towards Israel.

Now, having helped define deviancy down to the point where silencing Jews based on the hateful and inane ideology of identity “privilege,” indoctrinating whole societies with blood libels, and calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state are considered legitimate forms of expression in polite society, the ADL finds itself—inevitably—on the receiving end of the very Jew-hating culture it helped foster. The NEA, wallowing in the intersectional dogma Greenblatt championed, has declared the ADL insufficiently “inclusive,” i.e., too Jewish.