Israel’s supporters make a serious mistake when they liken ‘Queers for Palestine’ to turkeys voting for Christmas. The put-down wrongly implies woke anti-Israel activists, who express support for Islamist terror groups such as Hamas or Hizbullah, are simply ignorant or stupid. Unfortunately the reality is far more disturbing.
No doubt there is some naivete among self-proclaimed pro-Palestinians but they represent a sinister force not just in relation to Jews or Israel. Although few observers realise it there is considerable overlap between the outlook of Islamists and that of woke supporters of identity politics.
The reason this phenomenon is not widely recognised is that Islamism is generally mistakenly seen as an extreme form of Islam. According to the conventional view Islamists are simply the most extreme followers of a religion that goes back to the seventh century. The orthodox critics often refer to Islamic holy texts, such as the Koran or the Hadith, to make their point. For example, they point to anti-Jewish passages to make the case that they fuel the anti-Semitism of contemporary Islamist groups.
What this misses, as previously argued on the Radicalism of fools, is that Islamism is not Islam. Not even an extreme version. Islamism is better seen as a form of religionised politics which first emerged in Egypt in the 1920s and has subsequently spread enormously. Although it uses the language of religion, and does indeed selectively quote Islamic holy texts, it is better seen as a form of politics.
Islamism’s premises include an avowed hostility to modernity, profound intolerance of alternative views, an attachment to a particular identity and an aversion to the nation-state. If this sounds familiar it should do. In general terms it applies to western identity politics as much as to Islamism. A proper understanding of Islamism makes the commonalties between Islamist and woke ideas much clearer.
Of course to say Islamism and identity politics have much in common is not to claim they are identical. Western identitarians use a different vocabulary than Islamists to express their views. There are also issues on which they arguably differ. The classic example often identified is gay rights with the western woke arguably strongly in favour and Islamists lethally against (although see postscript below on this question).
But the fact there are differences should not blind us to the similarities. In addition, to those identified above anti-Semitism is another notable one. Islamists see Jews as a Satanic force responsible for what they see as many of the world’s misfortunes including the French revolution and the two world wars (an idea which comes not from the Koran but was imported from nineteenth-century European anti-Semitism). Western anti-Israel activists, although they eschew the traditional language of morality, see Israel as the epitome of evil in the world. That is what they mean when they liken it to apartheid, Nazism and settler colonialism.
Anti-Israel activists in the West, and supporters of identity politics more generally, are not characteristically naïve or stupid. They are instead supporters of a world view which is antithetical to freedom and democracy.
Postscript on the new homophobia
Although there remain differences between Islamists and the woke on gay rights – western identitarians are not prone to throwing gays off the rooves of high buildings – they are lessening. The activist class is increasingly taking on board gender identity ideology, a view that denies the reality of biological sex. It follows from that absurd premise that there cannot be such a thing as same-sex attraction.
This ridiculous starting point easily leads to anti-gay conclusions. For example, ‘trans-women’, that is biological men, insisting they have the right to go on to lesbian dating sites. Those who object to this practice are then labelled bigots or transphobes. As Andrew Doyle, a free speech advocate, has argued, “homophobia is back” in such arguments.
The gap between the woke and Islamists, even on this question, is diminishing.
PHOTO: "Wild Turkey strut" by stevevoght is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.