In the Soviet Era, many “peace movement” organizations distanced themselves from the Communist Party (Soviet) as they witness the brutality of political repression in the several of the Soviet satellite states whose politics had brought them around to liberation from the Soviet system.
Today’s ultra-nationalist and neo-imperial Moscow have made comprehension of the Kremlin a little more difficult. In Orwellian _Animal Farm_ fashion, the banner of the state has switched to “State Capitalism” and the FSB/KGB, Putin, and the Oligarchs appear to be having a helluva good time! đ
Still, with Moscow’s earlier KGB engineering of Yasser Arafat and the PLO more and more known beyond the wonky circles of “Kremlin watchers”, the model for elite kleptocracy driven by Moscow, which is deeply invested in medieval political absolutism and totalitarian control, has been coming into popular view.
The absence of conscience and empathy in leadership needs protesting worldwide.
The old politics in which the apparent “liberator” turns out the oppressor — and gets away with a lot of loot for doing it — needs a complete historic reexamination and overhaul.
Take a lesson from the Somali experience with the Soviet government in the Ogaden:
While BackChannels delivers the light version of history — much of what is needed is online — it wonders how to further wean from the Soviet Era experience the many remaining Left-Far Left organizations struggling to update their missions in the long shadow cast by the dissolving of the Soviet Union a little more than 25 years ago.
From the outset, BackChannels has invested itself in liberal humanist politics — look to the left of this copy and down the sidebar: the values promoted by this nonpartisan blog seem to the editor to place the humanity of humanity first and foremost in political thought and to be congruent with the advice suggested in the above invention From the Awesome Conversation: “The absence of conscience and empathy in leadership needs protesting worldwide.”
If you know how and when the Soviet KGB groomed Yasser Arafat for his role as leader of The Palestinians — Jordanian refugees in 1948 — can you still swallow the intellectual poison that has been the “alternative narrative” of the same?
Think about it.
Think about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars amassed by Arafat and Abbas (both of whom have had KGB histories) while the Palestinians have been showcased for sympathy?
Apply the same to Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, both of them billionaires.
What if the newest of Far Left fist-raising acolytes had the choice between parroting the claims and narratives programmed within his new social climate and that of independently questing and reading for the truth, would he do choose to balance the former with the latter?
We’re going to find out.
Not only are online resources for research extraordinary today, but obtaining books relevant to the study of history and history and revolution, culture and cultural anthropology and psychology, and so on has never been less expensive!
For a quick pick-up on the previous century’s Cold War and related history, BackChannels recommends all of the volumes listed in “The Russian Section” of its library.
Where the adventurous and social rewards associated with “The Movement” — there are so many of them! — prove rewarding, may the reader of this blog consider also the responsibility of being himself an autonomous, independent, informed, and critically reasoning actor in his own political life.
This curriculum is informed and inspired by many sources, including the Unitarian Universalist Associationâs Standing on the Side of Love campaigns, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Churches for Middle East Peace, World Council of Churches, the American Friends Service Committee, the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Just Vision, Jewish Voice for Peace, Open Hillel, Nakba Education Project, Zochrot, many Palestinian organizations working for peace with justice, the UUJME Newsletter, Kairos Palestine, Steadfast Hope, Zionism Unsettled, Middle East Research and Information Project Primer, and Phyllis Bennisâs Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. Links to information about these and other resources are in the lessons and/or the Resource page at the end of the guide and the UUJME website. We are inspired also by those who choose to implement this part of the UUJME Reflection & Learning Project, and wish you the best in this endeavor to stand on the side of love with the people of Israel-Palestine.
However, and with all that love accepted, let’s have a look at some of the other contributors to the curriculum promoted by the Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME).
To advance their âjustice and peaceâ initiatives, they collude with Islamic and Palestinian friends in a covert scheme to sabotage Israel. Their web of anti-Zionism extends throughout Europe, the Americas and Africa. While this may seem a bold assertion, it is nonetheless worth examining some undeniable evidence.
WCC is among the many coalitions of Christians that embrace the extreme left and the jihad agenda as appeasers and collaborators.
In 2008, the AFSC, along with other similarly minded religious groups, hosted a gala dinner with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the guest of honor, despite Ahmadinejadâs Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, and genocidal threats against the Jewish state. Ahmadinejad, however, is only the most extreme example of the AFSC making dubious friends. The participants in its BDS summer camp were mostly Palestinians or Palestinian-Americans associated with the group Students for Justice in Palestineâan organization notorious not only for its vicious rhetoric against Israel, but for going so far as shouting down pro-Israel speakers on campus and harassing Jewish students.
Washington Presbyterians who engage in dialogue with Jewish groups are scrambling to undo what they say is the damage caused by a congregational study guide assailing Zionism distributed by a group affiliated with their denomination.Â
Related: NGO Monitor. Â “The Role of Antisemitism in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Decision to Support Divestment.” Â June 25, 2014, updated March 31, 2016; Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reporting on tension within the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the offshoot Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church: “Polling data conÂsisÂtently show that âmainÂlineâ ProtesÂtants overÂwhelmÂingly supÂport a safe and secure Israel, even while also being conÂcerned about the sitÂuÂaÂtion of PalesÂtiniÂans in the West Bank and Gaza. The efforts at the PC(USA) and other churches to pass divestÂment resÂoÂluÂtions reflect the views of a minorÂity of activists within those churches who take advanÂtage of the strucÂtures of those churches to press their agenda.”
JVP, like other prominent Jewish anti-Zionist individuals and groups, uses its Jewish identity to deflect allegations of anti-Semitism leveled against the anti-Israel movement in order to provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility. In this guise JVP views itself as the âJewish wing of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement (PSM)â and is an integral part of this anti-Israel coalition, serving as its âJewish shieldâ, espousing the belief that if there are Jews demonizing Israel, it canât possibly be anti-Semitic.
Also like other aggressively anti-Israel organizations, JVP members regularly attempt to shut down dissent by disrupting pro-Israel events such as a 2010 talk by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the events at a 2011 Taglit Birthright reunion in New York and the 2012 AIPAC conference. Brandeis University Prof. Ilan Troen, who calls JVP âself-appointed saints with no mass followingâ, explains that âIf youâve ever dealt with the JVP, they themselves are a semi-terrorist group, promoting the disruption of free speech and the inability of others to conduct public discourse.â
The JVP advisory board includes leaders in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate, such as Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, and Sarah Schulman. All three of these anti-Israel advocates deny the Jewish right to self determination, legitimize the internationally recognized terrorist group Hamas, and support the destruction of the worldâs only Jewish state.
Related in the news: Shahmoon, Shani. Â “Jewish Woman Forced to Hide From Anti-Israel Activists at UC-Irvine.” Â Observer News & Politics, May 20, 2016: “Earlier this month, Jewish and pro-Israel students found themselves caught in what they describe as a âfire of hateâ and feelings of mourning as they observed Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Muslim Student Union, Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine and the American Indian Student Association just happened to organize a week of anti-Israel activity marketed under the title, âAnti-Zionism: The Roots of Oppression,â during the same week.”
 . . . while Open Hillel phrases their intentions in the context of a free and unfettered debate (hence âopenâ), their events, speakers and partners actually seem to be far more interested in institutionalizing a set of radical opinionsâand browbeating the mainstream into accepting it: That far from being a lonely liberal democracy facing daunting challenges from without and within, Israel is actually an illegitimate, oppressive, colonial state that might be better off not existing; and that Jewish students cannot truly understand it without teaming up with extreme pro-Palestinian groups.
While “Nakba” points to disaster it also brings up the uncomfortable matter of whipping legions to genocidal war and losing the same. Â In the immediate aftermath of “1948”, the Arab world took revenge on the Jewish residents of Arab states, and that history may be read about on this blog: Â Point of No Return.
. . . the groupâs founder has written the following about his vision of the future:
When the refugees return, Jews will become a minority in the country. Israel as a Jewish state will change radically, and it will no longer be defined as such. Jews will no longer be able to determine their futureâŚby themselvesâŚ. There may be Jews, most of them of European origin, who wonât be able to adjust to a non-Zionist reality, and prefer to use their other passport to move elsewhereâŚâ
What’s a nice Jewish girl like Phyllis Bennis doing at the head of the class of anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, (anti-Semitic) leaders, the kind who stand shoulder to shoulder with those inclined to label the Jewish-majority state “Israhell”?
Here’s a partial transcript leading to Bennis’s becoming swept up in the radical politics of the Vietnam Era — her further transformation into parroting the catechisms of the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left comes in the back half of the video:
The short answer is the Vietnam War.  I grew up right through highschool with this focus on Zionism.  That was my social environment.  Those were my friends.  That’s who I hung out with.  And then I went away to college.  And I started college in 1968, the big year, if you will, and in that context, I spent my first year being very much a serious student . . . you do grow up as a Jewish kid with . . . it’s all about education, all about getting good grades . . . so here I am, a seventeen year old kid, showing off, linking up with a group of graduate students and taking their courses, their postdoctoral seminars, thinking of myself as quite the intellectual, but by the end of my freshman year I’m suddenly immersed in the student movement, anti-war stuff . . . the Black Student Union had taken over the computer center  the year before in the struggle to get an ethnic studies department on campus — I’m at the University of California in Santa Barbara — and suddenly I’m joining SDS [Students for Democratic Society], I’m part of the new student government . . . we have an alliance with the Latino movement and the Black Student Union, and we take over student government, and suddenly I’m the chair of the lectures committee .  . . you know what the hell is that?  I didn’t really know, but I had a budget of ten thousand dollars, which at that time was really a lot of money, to bring people to campus.  So I brought Angela Davis, I brought half the defendants of the Chicago Conspiracy Trial, and the lawyers from the trial, and suddenly I was involved with meeting all these people I had only heard about, and school suddenly was not really about going to classes  . . . none of us went to class very much.  We were publishing an underground newspaper, and we were doing radio — we took over the campus radio station . . . .Â
In the region of historic anti-Semitism associated with Christianity and Islam resides the concept of “religious succession”, i.e.,the idea that one true church — one true connection with God — will and must displace less authentic, less true competitors, and that includes the Judaism from which Jesus emerged.
BackChannels believes Constantine and Muhammad have made their points and that a medieval portion of their following in legacy continues to take unholy license in the doing of their bidding.
What is to give the new fascists (whether out of the Christian Far Right, the Islamist camps, or the Far Left) pause for reconsideration?
Look to 21st Century sophistication in ethnology, linguistics, and psychology to help us appreciate and comprehend how our species develops and sustains its cultures.  That dawning self-awareness and knowledge may well improve general resistance to medieval manipulation and unintentional support of the ambitions, martial powers, and sadism of feudal tyrants  — the most malign of narcissists — in their contemporary forms.
This post started with but a single paragraph from the introduction to a full multi-part curriculum developed to lead Unitarian Universalist congregants in the discussion of the middle east conflict, but a glance back at the contributors to that program may tell what its politics are really about. Â As had a large portion of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2014, those most responsible in the Universalist Unitarian Association may wish to investigate who — and what — may be served by the subgroup curriculum disseminated through their organization.
Waitstill Sharp was a minister in the Unitarian church in Wellesley, Massachusetts. His wife, Martha, was a noted social worker. During World War II, Martha and Waitstill Sharp helped hundreds of people escape from Nazi persecution.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Israel, honored the Sharps as Righteous Among the Nations in 2006.
Masked off by our own reading and research habits as well as general busyness with information is the history of Russian and Soviet anti-Semitism and its influence throughout the political campus of the Left and Far Left to this day.
There are many portals today through which to pick up on the history of Soviet anti-Semitism, Soviet-supported terrorism, and the relationship of the Soviet to the International and Palestinian Solidarity organizations and their radical movements. I usually — and here may — blog such links as the following:
Where the focus is narrowed to influence of the Soviet on Middle Eastern politics and on Islam, one will find reported by Pacepa the Soviet’s massive promotion of anti-Semitism in the Arab sphere.
The former lawyer has vowed to be âthe British Muslim who takes the fight to extremists.â Yet the Labour Party under leader Jeremy Corbyn has veered sharply to the left on these matters, and Mr. Khan has been an enabler of that transformation.
Abdel-Alâwho lives in occupied East Jerusalemâis visiting Chicago this week at the invitation of the United Electrical Workers (UE), the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and Jewish Voice for Peace to enlist the support of the U.S. labor movement in the Palestinian liberation struggle. He addressed standing-room-only audiences of rank-and-file unionists at last weekendâs Labor Notes conference and again on Tuesday night at the local UE Hall.
The campaign for âBoycott, Divestment and Sanctionsâ (BDS) against the Israeli government gains ground every day while defenders of the Palestinian Occupation seem to be able to do no more that trot out the same tired charges of anti-Semitism against its proponents!
As George Bisharat points out in the article below, the charge of anti-Semitism is completely without substance. Indeed there has been a tragic history of persecution of Jewish people for which all of us Europeans rightly feel a sense of shame. Even so, for Zionist politicians to manipulate this shame to justify the persecution of Palestinian people is reprehensible, and itâs a tactic that is becoming increasingly transparent to the Western public.
Perhaps the most significant thing about Bisharatâs article is that it appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Indeed the BDS is going mainstream!
The above paragraph had been posted as prelude to “Applause for the academic boycott of Israel” by George Bisharat (the two are on the same page, i.e., same link).
Those who read across publications may find similar claims, tropes, and strategies in play. Â The picture is generally stark with the charge of brutality always leveled on the Jews:
U.S. enabling of Israel, particularly in its colonial expansion into the West Bank, has voided the two-state option and fostered a single functioning state there in which only Jews enjoy relative security, prosperity, and full political rights, while Palestinians suffer gradations of oppression.
Never mind the Soviet KGB-invented Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, today’s Palestinian Authority; and never mind the genocidal — and Palestinian plundering — Hamas. Â The presence of the two disappears when Israelis / Zionists / Jews seem much preferred in the target sites.
Corey Gil-Shuster has been video interviewing Israelis and Palestinians — and anyone else within range — for years on the widest variety of questions having to do with the middle east conflict and justice in Israel. Â Here’s a short example from 2012:
Posted to YouTube May 9, 2012.
Finally about the promotion of impoverished Palestinians beneath the “brutal occupation” — there’s a lot more to that story that includes Hamas billionaires, but this may suffice for a glimpse into the reality of luxury development in Gaza: PRICO Real Estate Development Company.
BackChannels 