Wrong-headedness of the Left
Wrong-headedness of the Left
By
Sally F. Zerker
The Left has been wrong about everything. Well, maybe not about absolutely everything, but about everything that matters most. The Left has been consistently and disgracefully wrong about the murderous governments of the twentieth century.
Leftists in the thirties professed pacifist ideology, except in relation to the civil war in Spain, where they justified war on the ground of anti-fascism. But then when Stalin made his pact with Hitler no longer were they anti-fascists, and they resumed their pacifism posture, opposing any war against Hitler. But this was followed by yet another about-face when Hitler attacked Stalin. Now American and Canadian leftists became super patriots, attacking any former political friend who failed in their eyes to support America’s war effort with sufficient zeal.
But with the end of WWII, when they became apologists for the new dictatorship that Stalin was creating in Eastern Europe, the deceptions and hypocrisy of the Left became glaringly obvious, especially after the revelations by Khrushchev in 1965 about the KGB and the Gulag. Noam Chomsky became the voice of the New Left, to be distinguished from the old left that concentrated its program around the USSR.For all his outspoken in-principle disdain of communism, when it came to the real world of international politics, Chomsky endorsed the brutal leaders of communism in Cuba—Fidel Castro and Che Guevera—as well as Mao Zedong and the founders of the Chinese communist state. Bear in mind that Guevera was not only a despot but a notorious anti-Semite who endorsed the fraudulent “international Jewish conspiracy” theory. As for Mao, the New Left following Chomsky, claimed that China had become a “just society” under Mao Zedong, dismissing reports coming out of China that Mao was a mass murderer. A recent publication by Jung Chang called Mao: the Unknown Story, estimates the number of deaths perpetrated by Mao at seventy million—and this was during peace time—and that Mao knowingly starved his own people in order to realize his dream of becoming a nuclear power.
The wrong-headedness of the New Left is blatant when we look at Chomsky’s response to the Khmer Rouge when it took over Cambodia in 1975. Both Chomsky and the New Left welcomed it. And when news emerged of the complete evacuation of the capital Phnom Penh accompanied by reports of widespread killings, Chomsky offered a rationalization similar to one he had also provided for the terror in China and Vietnam, that there might have been some violence, but this was understandable under conditions of regime change and social revolution. Astounding too, the New Left touted the wonders and miracles of Kim Il Sung of North Korea, that mass starver of his people.
It’s bizarre but true that there is never any recognition by leftists that their own passionately held beliefs have been proven wrong again and again. On the contrary, my experience with academics on the left, which is in the majority in most universities, is disdain for any opinion other than that approved by the leftist fraternity/sorority. Open-mindedness is not a characteristic of the Left.
The effect of such blindness is now impacting Canadian and other western universities in a most prejudiced way, taking the form of Israel-bashing and denial of free speech to any and all representatives of the “unanointed” point of view. Hence, two former Israeli prime ministers—Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak—were prevented by violent protest from speaking at Concordia University in 2002-3.
At York University, when the Middle-East scholar, Daniel Pipes, was invited to speak, he was attacked by York’s leftist-dominated faculty union (YUFA) which charged that Pipes was a racist and therefore should not be allowed to address the student body. This bogus charge induced historian Irving Abella to defend Pipes but also to write to YUFA as follows: “If you really wanted to protest a racist speaker, why was there such a deafening silence from YUFA when a visiting academic who has called Israel a Nazi state and described Jews as "little Hitlers" recently lectured on campus.” (Feb. 10, 2003)
The atmosphere in Canadian universities is such that harassment of Jewish students is taking on the modes and methods of distressing, though familiar, anti-Semitism. Jewish students are afraid to expose themselves as Jews, are therefore apprehensive about wearing kipas and the like. They are targeted with open hostility by anti-Zionist groups, and they fear reprisals if they challenge pro-Palestinian anti-Israel views, not only from other students but from their leftist course directors.
The Big Lie perpetrated by the combined forces of leftist academics and pro-Palestinian factions at the University of Toronto, York University and McMaster University, is the linking of Israel with South African apartheid. It’s a lie—and they know it’s a lie—because there are no similarities between the power of Arab Israelis and what used to be the oppressed South African blacks. Not only are there Arab citizens elected to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), but they have often represented the balance of power. Rabin’s passage of the Oslo Accords occurred with a majority of one, and it required the votes of five Arab members to put it over the top. As for Palestinians outside of Israel proper, they long ago could have had a state of their own through numerous efforts on the part of Israel, with the assistance of the United States, to implement a peace agreement and to build a Palestinian state, but they chose instead to reject those agreements and to carry on their war against the Jews.
The administrations of these universities have done nothing to stop a week-long assault on Israel’s right to exist under the banner of Israel Apartheid Week. On the contrary, strong protest on the part of non-leftist professors have been spurned by these administrations. It is incumbent upon the presidents of these universities to stop these libelous and vicious attacks on Israel because the sponsors of the Israel Apartheid programs have openly offered their own “final solution”, which is nothing less that the destruction of the Jewish state.
The Left is once again wrong, this time with respect to Israel. However, I’d better not hold my breath waiting for a signal from that contingent that they recognize the error of their ways.
By
Sally F. Zerker
The Left has been wrong about everything. Well, maybe not about absolutely everything, but about everything that matters most. The Left has been consistently and disgracefully wrong about the murderous governments of the twentieth century.
Leftists in the thirties professed pacifist ideology, except in relation to the civil war in Spain, where they justified war on the ground of anti-fascism. But then when Stalin made his pact with Hitler no longer were they anti-fascists, and they resumed their pacifism posture, opposing any war against Hitler. But this was followed by yet another about-face when Hitler attacked Stalin. Now American and Canadian leftists became super patriots, attacking any former political friend who failed in their eyes to support America’s war effort with sufficient zeal.
But with the end of WWII, when they became apologists for the new dictatorship that Stalin was creating in Eastern Europe, the deceptions and hypocrisy of the Left became glaringly obvious, especially after the revelations by Khrushchev in 1965 about the KGB and the Gulag. Noam Chomsky became the voice of the New Left, to be distinguished from the old left that concentrated its program around the USSR.For all his outspoken in-principle disdain of communism, when it came to the real world of international politics, Chomsky endorsed the brutal leaders of communism in Cuba—Fidel Castro and Che Guevera—as well as Mao Zedong and the founders of the Chinese communist state. Bear in mind that Guevera was not only a despot but a notorious anti-Semite who endorsed the fraudulent “international Jewish conspiracy” theory. As for Mao, the New Left following Chomsky, claimed that China had become a “just society” under Mao Zedong, dismissing reports coming out of China that Mao was a mass murderer. A recent publication by Jung Chang called Mao: the Unknown Story, estimates the number of deaths perpetrated by Mao at seventy million—and this was during peace time—and that Mao knowingly starved his own people in order to realize his dream of becoming a nuclear power.
The wrong-headedness of the New Left is blatant when we look at Chomsky’s response to the Khmer Rouge when it took over Cambodia in 1975. Both Chomsky and the New Left welcomed it. And when news emerged of the complete evacuation of the capital Phnom Penh accompanied by reports of widespread killings, Chomsky offered a rationalization similar to one he had also provided for the terror in China and Vietnam, that there might have been some violence, but this was understandable under conditions of regime change and social revolution. Astounding too, the New Left touted the wonders and miracles of Kim Il Sung of North Korea, that mass starver of his people.
It’s bizarre but true that there is never any recognition by leftists that their own passionately held beliefs have been proven wrong again and again. On the contrary, my experience with academics on the left, which is in the majority in most universities, is disdain for any opinion other than that approved by the leftist fraternity/sorority. Open-mindedness is not a characteristic of the Left.
The effect of such blindness is now impacting Canadian and other western universities in a most prejudiced way, taking the form of Israel-bashing and denial of free speech to any and all representatives of the “unanointed” point of view. Hence, two former Israeli prime ministers—Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak—were prevented by violent protest from speaking at Concordia University in 2002-3.
At York University, when the Middle-East scholar, Daniel Pipes, was invited to speak, he was attacked by York’s leftist-dominated faculty union (YUFA) which charged that Pipes was a racist and therefore should not be allowed to address the student body. This bogus charge induced historian Irving Abella to defend Pipes but also to write to YUFA as follows: “If you really wanted to protest a racist speaker, why was there such a deafening silence from YUFA when a visiting academic who has called Israel a Nazi state and described Jews as "little Hitlers" recently lectured on campus.” (Feb. 10, 2003)
The atmosphere in Canadian universities is such that harassment of Jewish students is taking on the modes and methods of distressing, though familiar, anti-Semitism. Jewish students are afraid to expose themselves as Jews, are therefore apprehensive about wearing kipas and the like. They are targeted with open hostility by anti-Zionist groups, and they fear reprisals if they challenge pro-Palestinian anti-Israel views, not only from other students but from their leftist course directors.
The Big Lie perpetrated by the combined forces of leftist academics and pro-Palestinian factions at the University of Toronto, York University and McMaster University, is the linking of Israel with South African apartheid. It’s a lie—and they know it’s a lie—because there are no similarities between the power of Arab Israelis and what used to be the oppressed South African blacks. Not only are there Arab citizens elected to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), but they have often represented the balance of power. Rabin’s passage of the Oslo Accords occurred with a majority of one, and it required the votes of five Arab members to put it over the top. As for Palestinians outside of Israel proper, they long ago could have had a state of their own through numerous efforts on the part of Israel, with the assistance of the United States, to implement a peace agreement and to build a Palestinian state, but they chose instead to reject those agreements and to carry on their war against the Jews.
The administrations of these universities have done nothing to stop a week-long assault on Israel’s right to exist under the banner of Israel Apartheid Week. On the contrary, strong protest on the part of non-leftist professors have been spurned by these administrations. It is incumbent upon the presidents of these universities to stop these libelous and vicious attacks on Israel because the sponsors of the Israel Apartheid programs have openly offered their own “final solution”, which is nothing less that the destruction of the Jewish state.
The Left is once again wrong, this time with respect to Israel. However, I’d better not hold my breath waiting for a signal from that contingent that they recognize the error of their ways.
posted by Professor Sal at 2:22 PM
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