Unholy Alliance – The Left & Fundamentalist Islam

Pro-Palestinian protestors stage die-in in London. No such protest against ISIS.

A strange thing has happened in Left protest circles since the first Iraq war. An unholy alliance has formed between Leftist activists protesting Western wars in the Middle East, including Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, and far-right Islamists. Somehow groups such as Australia’s Socialist Alternative and others see the threat of radical Islam as less harmful than that of Western imperialism, colonialism, Zionism and other ism’s of the 20th Century.

I consider myself a progressive. A leftist. A peacenik. And a pragmatist. But for the life of me, I cannot understand why the (radical?) Left is holding onto outdated philosophies and definitions of conflict that are no longer relevant. Though I do recognise the historic impact of Western influence on the region, make no mistake the biggest threat to the Middle East today is radical Islam. It threatens all progress that marked the Arab Spring, and is now plunging the region again into a deep darkness.

From Libya to Gaza, Syria to Iraq, radical Islam threatens all those that do not ascribe to its values. The ISIS threat of creating a fundamentalist Islamic state across most of the Middle East and a large swathe of Europe is very real. This isn’t the fundamentalism of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, themselves abhorrent on their record against human rights, progress and peace. No, this is a whole new level of horror and hate.

The fading of Israeli democracy/The State vs. The Spiritual Army

It is a dark day for Israeli democracy when a decree by the highest legal court in the land is overturned by the State. When twenty-two ultra-orthodox women convicted of racist conduct do not have to serve jail time because they refuse to turn up for their prison sentences. When a State fearful of a political backlash capitulates to the organized de-legitimization of its rule of law.

Last week, when members of the ultra orthodox Jewish settlement of Emmanual were convicted by the High Court of Israel of illegally segregating a girls’ school between students of Ashkenazi (Jews of European origin) and Sephardi (Jews of Middle East origin) descent, one-hundred thousand of their compatriots marched through the streets of Jerusalem demanding their case be over-turned. Most of whom deem Israel’s secular legal system unholy, unjust and un-Jewish, yet benefit from the same system that protects and provides for it.

A community that due to its perceived political power is allowed to be a law onto themselves – with their own schools, rabbi-led autocratic governance and religious henchmen-style rulings. A community that instead of working and contributing to the Israeli economy, is given a government stipend to spend their days in yeshiva (religious) study. A community that has been given complete control of all matters of religion in the entire country including death, marriage and divorce, and yet does not serve in its armed forces unlike the compulsory conscription for the rest of the country, but expects the army to defend it.