Antisemitic cat escapes from anti-Zionist bag

The website of leading American political journal Dissent carries an article by CST's Mark Gardner, examining the

increasingly anti-Semitic anti-Zionism of parts of the left intelligentsia

It compares this, in part, with 

the increasingly anti-Zionist anti-Semitism of American neo-Nazi ideologues.

The Dissent article is entitled Routledge's Journal of Contemporary Leftist Antisemitism. It begins

Routledge, the respected academic publishing house, has published a book review that is a depressing tour de force of contemporary highbrow leftist anti-Semitism. There has long been a sense that “anything goes” in such circles, and this review goes a long way toward proving that—an impression that is only deepened by its carrying a “peer review integrity” logo.

The Dissent article can (and should) be read in its entirety, here on the Dissent website. It demonstrates the extreme antisemitic resonance of an article recently published by one of Routledge's academic journals, derived from an even more extreme polemic that should be read here. 

The original polemic is a crash course in contemporary antisemitic anti-Zionist anti-capitalist rhetoric. It is so convoluted and conspiratorial as to be barely recognisable as being far Left rather than neo-Nazi in its origin and purpose. For example

The career profiles of the all intrusive power of its professionals that are the quintessence of the [Zionist] Fifth Column are to be found in every nook and cranny of Wall Street, the globe-girdling corporate law firms, the insurance industry, the big three stock market rating agencies and the big three accounting oligopoly. A point that the author makes clear when he emphasizes that “in effect pro-Israel career patterns and projections of power have established a kind of Judeo-Zionist hegemony of US public life.”

The Routledge version, however, is not available without payment. CST advises readers to access the Dissent article to see excerpts from the Routledge piece, rather than pay Routledge money to read what is essentially an antisemitic conspiracy theory, falsely posturing as intellectual theory.   

The Dissent article concludes by noting that the Routledge version does not even avoid all of the worst aspects of the original polemic from which it derived.

Perhaps Clairmont’s peer reviewers [at Routledge] were seduced by the relative absence of the word “Jew” from their actual version of the article. After all, Jews (by name) only appear in their article’s conclusion:

"...the preparations for the obliteration of Iran has gathered speed...The vote in Congress was galvanised amongst others by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and acclaimed by all the major American Jewish organizations.

The upsurge of Zionism, as Petras notes, is a virulent form of identity linked to a foreign power. Its overwhelmingly successful hegemonic inroads have been abetted by the abject capitulation of the US ruling class. The US political complex and successive administrations with no exception have become part of the interlaced web of Zionist power that extends into every nook and cranny of all sectors of American capitalism."

There is no distancing here of Jews from this “interlaced web of Zionist power” that holds the “US ruling class” in “abject capitulation.” It is “all the major American Jewish organizations” that are either in the conspiracy or cheering on from the sidelines.

This sudden introduction of “all the major American Jewish organisations” into the closing section of Clairmont’s polemic really lets the anti-Semitic cat out of the bag. The only surprise is that whoever airbrushed Jews from the original article failed to spot this mention of them. Or, perhaps more likely, the anti-Semitic cat had been squirming so furiously in the anti-Zionist bag that it finally, inevitably, escaped.