Reposting this from March 23rd, 2017 because understanding the issue of how anti-Semitism entangles with Islamophobia is extremely important. Nothing shows that more clearly than supporters of Assad who openly hate on Jews, ascribe to that Illuminati crap about Jewish bankers, & blame the entire Syrian conflict on Israel & its alleged plans for a “greater Israel.” Those who don’t understand how compromised the antiwar & Palestinian solidarity movements become by ignoring the motivation & presence of anti-Semites use the metaphor of marching with the devil for justice. What they don’t understand is that these anti-Semites & Islamophobes are not marching for justice but only to increase the persecution of Jews & the oppression of Muslims.
It is profoundly disturbing, actually horrifying, to learn the author Alice Walker, a long-time supporter of Palestinian solidarity & a participant in the 2011 Gaza Flotilla, has been a public & ardent apostle of libertarian David Icke since 2013 & advances his ideas on her website & in media.
Icke’s ideas, as deranged as they are hateful, can be called the theoretics of fascism. The core of his ideas, which Walker explicitly defends, is that the world is run by the Jewish Illuminati, a corporate & banking elite of blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptiles trying to create a new world order of global fascism.
Like KKK & white supremacist David Duke, Icke & his apostles like Eva Bartlett & Vanessa Bartlett, associate with Palestinian solidarity only for a platform to spread the hatred of Jews. Their role as propagandists for Assad are manifold: support for his fascism & contempt for working people; hopes the Syrian counterrevolution will help to destroy Israel & massacre Jews; admiration that the Assad dynasty has expelled all Jews from Syria. The struggle of Palestinians against colonialism & apartheid is no part of their considerations. Their goal is not a democratic, secular state for Palestinians & Jews to live in harmony but the extermination of Jews–before they then turn on Palestinians, the Semitic cousins of Jews.
Walker’s association with David Icke absolutely excludes her from participation in Palestinian solidarity events of any kind, including as a forum, rally, or honored keynote speaker, or in any formal capacity at all. She can no longer be allowed to speak on behalf of solidarity because she compromises its integrity in the most despicable way by endorsing the notion that Jewish bankers run the world, which was the ideology of German fascism & the Jewish holocaust. Her presence should be barely tolerated as a participant in public protests open to all.
Walker’s prestige isn’t a good enough reason to tolerate hating on Jews in Palestinian solidarity. That isn’t imposing a purity test on the movement; it is the standard of basic principles social movements employ to protect the movements from disgrace, dissension & destruction. In the same way hating on Jews is incompatible with Palestinian solidarity, the women’s movement of the 1960s-70s distinguished our support for abortion rights from those of eugenicists who wanted legalization for ethnic cleansing purposes.
Walker has taken on the honored status of guru among women, Black, & other progressive activists & is honored by Palestinians & their supporters. Now she should face the music for promoting the wretched hatred of Jews & apparently for Muslims since she has not publicly differed from Icke’s support for Assad. Hopefully her glory days as a guru are over because in the politics of liberation you can’t play both sides of the street.
(Photo is David Icke tweet from September 2016: