Israel Matzav

Surprise: Breivik hated liberal Jews as much as Muslims

Anders Behring Breivik, the 'ordinary Norwegian' who murdered 76 people two weeks ago, had an overriding hatred of Muslims. But many other hatreds grew out of that one, including a hatred of liberal Jews.

The document, which Breivik distributed online just before his killing spree, covers many subjects, including the evil of women's liberation (there are 200 references to feminism and feminists). But it has one central focus: Islam and the Muslim menace. The words "Islam," "Islamic" and "Islamist" combined appear 3,360 times; the word "Muslim," 3,632 times.

Virtually all of Breivik's other ideas stem from this obsession: Feminism is bad because it saps Western civilization's (and its men's) ability to resist Islam; Israel is good because it is an ally in this struggle.

Moreover, Breivik's "Zionism" coexists with a virulent brand of selective anti-Semitism -- one that sees Jews as likely carriers of cosmopolitan, nontraditional values and targets liberal Jews for special loathing. In his discussion of Nazism, Breivik agrees that most German and European Jews in the 1930s were "disloyal" -- "similar to the liberal Jews today." Hitler's error, he believes, was to lump the "good" Jews with the "bad," instead of rewarding the former with a Jewish homeland in a Muslim-free Palestine.

As for the present, Breivik estimates that about three-quarters of European and American Jews, and about half of Israeli Jews, "support multiculturalism"; he urges fellow nationalists to "embrace the remaining loyal Jews as brothers rather than repeating the mistake of" the Nazis. What to do with today's "disloyal" Jews, he does not say.

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Meanwhile, in the anti-Israel camp, quite a few would gladly tar all Zionist views with anti-Muslim hate. Loonwatch.com, a website that focuses on exposing Islamophobia -- and has run intelligent, well-argued rebuttals of extreme anti-Islam propaganda -- has also posted items that portray such extremism as virtually part and parcel of Zionism.

Sometimes, such links are concocted. Last October, England's Jewish Chronicle ran an Internet poll on whether rabbis should work with the EDL. (The answer was a resounding no.) Anti-Zionist blogger Terry Greenstein and York Palestine Solidarity Campaign Chairman Terry Gallogly were caught bragging online about trying to rig the poll for the EDL in order to embarrass the Zionists.

Yes, some Zionists have made statements about Muslims that amount to bigotry, or at least to offensive generalizations. Disturbingly, comments defending Breivik's views have cropped up on Israeli online forums. Such ugly sentiments may be explained in the context of ethnic and religious tensions in Israel, but they cannot be condoned -- any more than anti-Semitism among Arabs and Muslims can be excused by resentment of Israeli policies.

Therein lies the rub: Talk of Zionism and Islamophobia inevitably raises the specter of the far more violent, vastly more rampant Jew-bashing rhetoric in the much of the Arab and Muslim media today.

Unfortunately, not many prominent Muslims have condemned this hate speech. Moreover, some Western leftists have excused Muslim anti-Semitism as a reaction to Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

Read the whole thing.

I think she's far too even-handed. On the Muslim side, I see a genuine desire to murder as many Jews as possible. On the Jewish side, I see mostly fear. But as to Breivik, I think she's right that his Zionism was totally insincere, and there's no reason we should admit people like that to our camp. Let them support us from the outside if they so desire, but do not seek their support.

Labels: Anders Behring Brievik, anti-Semitism, Zionism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:39 AM