The Red-Green Alliance? How Long Will it Last?

This article first appeared in New English Review. 

Those of us who have watched the growth of anti-Semitism on our university campuses first-hand have seen how the modern-day brownshirts, in this case, the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, largely Muslim agitators, have been supported by various forces from the radical left. To be more specific, I am referring to anarchists like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, radical leftist academics, and various Marxists. Speaking of Marxists, I also include the National Lawyers Guild, established in the 1930s as a legal arm of the Communist Party USA.  For several years, they have participated in anti-Israel events on campuses, either as speakers or as so-called legal observers, accompanying anti-Israel disruptions and protests around the nation. If you have ever noticed people with lime green baseball caps at anti-Israel protests, that’s the National Lawyers Guild, always there to document any improper statements or actions by counter-protesters or police.

The explosion in anti-Semitism on our campuses is due to the well-organized pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movement that found fertile ground on our campuses and has metastasized into our society at large. When I first got involved with this as a teacher at the University of California at Irvine around 2007, the primary instigators were members of the Muslim Student Union. They were just one of many Muslim Student chapters in universities around the nation, most of which go by the name of the Muslim Student Association. It’s the same thing. In addition to the Muslim Student Union/Association chapters, we also have the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), with over 150 chapters, and more recently, Faculty of Justice in Palestine (FJP). Throw in the various Middle East Studies Departments, which are usually propaganda centers for anti-Israel, anti-West indoctrination, and what you have is a toxic cocktail of groups dedicated to helping bring down the state of Israel and the West in general.

It should be noted that SJP and FJP are not exclusively Muslim in membership, though SJP was co-founded by UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, who also co-founded American Muslims for Palestine and various other questionable entities like the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Center, located on the UC Berkeley campus.

Despite the obvious link between Islamists, anti-Israel groups and the non-Muslim, radical left in America (and Canada, and Europe as well), it is shocking that so many would prefer to lay the blame for the rise of anti-Semitism on the right, people like Maga folks, Trump voters, the KKK and neo Nazis. It is undoubtedly true that the KKK and neo-Nazis have a documented history of Jew hatred, but can one seriously claim that they are the main problem today? Just how many Americans do they represent? How often do you see them marching around university campuses? The notable exception was the University of Virginia, Charlottesville episode during President Trump’s first administration. That said, it is clear that among non-Muslims, the radical left is a much bigger problem, no matter what the Anti-Defamation League or Islamist apologists (like CAIR) would have you believe. When you look at the disgusting images of pro-Hamas mobs in cities like New York, abusing police officers and on campuses like Columbia, you don’t see conservatives and people in Maga caps running amok in keffiyas and waving Palestinian flags, you see radical leftists and Islamists. That is why many call it the Red-Green alliance, the red representing Marxism and the Green representing Islam. 

How can we conquer a problem like anti-Semitism unless we are willing to name its biggest purveyors? Setting aside the age-old Islamic anti-Jewish hatred and its present-day manifestations, who else can be found marching arm in arm with today’s Hamas supporters and people who would wipe Israel off the map if they could? It is the radical left. They see Israel as just another facet of fighting against the US and Western civilization-even though it is their country and their civilization, respectively! Israel is arguably America’s strongest ally, so it is natural for the far left to side with the Arabs in the Middle East conflict. And since October 7, 2023, the far left in America has reached its lowest point in supporting the monsters who carried out the atrocities of that day, including the inhuman holding of hostages, including some Americans, to this very day!

Coming back to our universities, it is this very segment of society, the radical left, that has as its stronghold the campuses. This also includes, sadly, some Jewish professors and SJP members who have been marching arm-in-arm with the very people who would love to murder every Jew living in Israel. By their fanatical condemnation of Israel, they show themselves to be the total misfits that they are. Tragically, many are standing in classrooms, teaching our children, and using their classrooms as soapboxes to spout their personal political views. 

The question begs: How long will this marriage last? I think it’s here for a very long time. What would it take to bring about an end to the marriage? In my view, only if Israel falls to the Palestinians, if the West collapses, and Islam actually realizes its dream of a worldwide caliphate under sharia law ( a very hypothetical scenario). That is to say that once the Red useful idiots are no longer useful to the Green, the Red will be faced with a choice: Either they become Green or suffer the consequences.