Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Berkeley Professor: Hamas and Hezbollah are ‘Progressive’ and Part of ‘Global Left’ - Robert Spencer

 

by Robert Spencer

The Unholy Alliance on full display.

 


[Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]

The alliance between the international left and Islamic groups has been strong for years, only suffering some strains recently over the left’s insistence on pushing the trans madness and related insanities upon the rest of us. But leftists have generally tended to ally with victimhood propaganda organizations such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), not with out-and-out jihadis. However, as we see an ugly recrudescence of antisemitism around the world in the wake of the Hamas jihad massacres of Oct. 7, one far-left American professor has crossed the line and unhesitatingly named Hamas and Hizballah as allies of the left.

On the face of it, what Berkeley professor Judith Butler says in a video that began making the rounds on Sunday but dates from before the present war began is howlingly absurd. Speaking haltingly, as if she has some residual hesitation about endorsing groups that are so open and even gleeful about their Jew-hatred and bloodlust, Butler said: “Um, uh, similarly, I think, uh, yes, uh, uh, understanding, uh, Hamas, Hezbollah as, uh, social movements that are progressive around, on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.”

Butler went on to qualify her statement somewhat by adding: “That does not stop us from, uh, being critical of certain dimensions of, um, both movements. It doesn’t, um, it doesn’t stop those of us who are interested in nonviolent politics from raising the question of, um, uh, uh, of whether there are other options besides violence.” That’s swell, but are Hamas and Hizballah themselves interested in “nonviolent politics”? Obviously they aren’t, and Butler clearly doesn’t see that as a make-or-break issue for the left’s alliance with them.

Fittingly for someone who sees criminal gangs as “progressive” partners, a page on the Berkeley website that is devoted to touting Butler’s achievements is a veritable crime against language. It says of Butler: “They received their Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University in 1984. They are the author of several books…” The reader might justifiably wonder what group is being referred to, but all these plural pronouns are meant, of course, to refer to the singular yet “non-binary” Professor Butler, whose name is apparently Legion, for they are many.

Foremost on a list of her research interests are “critical theory, gender and sexuality studies.” If all the Professor Butlers went over to Lebanon and Gaza to visit with her friends and allies, how would they receive this ethnically Jewish lesbian from the Great Satan (that is, the U.S.) who insists on referring to herself in the plural? The answer to that question is as obvious as it is gruesome, and so another question inevitably arises: how can Judith Butler be so myopic as to think that such people are in any conceivable way her allies?

The answer to that question takes us right to the heart of the left’s habits of thinking. Butler is a leading gender studies theorist who complains that the “system” tries to impose upon us “constructions of binary asymmetric gender.” If she can ignore obvious reality and leap into fantasy to that extent, seeing Hamas and Hizballah as “progressive” forces is child’s play. But her affinity for these groups also reveals what the left is all about: it wants to see the destruction of what remains of Judeo-Christian civilization as much as Hamas and Hizballah do. The left shares the jihadis’ taste for authoritarianism and intolerance of dissent. Whenever the far-left has gained political power, it has never hesitated to use terror as a means to keep people in line.

And so it’s useful to remember, when leftists such as Judith Butler speak of themselves and their allies as “progressive,” exactly what they think that they are progressing toward. They want to establish a socialist state in which economic uniformity is enforced through state theft and terror. Terrorist groups might well come in handy to help usher in this workers’ paradise. The fact that those whom she favors might turn on her and her fellow non-binary fantasy-addicted academics never enters into her considerations, any more than the reality of sex and gender do. The left-fantasists among us, such as the eminent Professor Butler, would be comical, if they weren’t so very dangerous.


Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur’an and The Sumter Gambit. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/berkeley-professor-hamas-and-hezbollah-are-progressive-and-part-of-global-left/

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