Unholy Alliance: The "Peace Left" and the Islamic Jihad Against

America
By David Horowitz and John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 13, 2005

[Authors’ note: This is the first in a series of articles and visual

maps describing the unholy alliances that have been formed
between American leftists and radical Islam, unlikely allies who
have joined efforts to oppose America’s defensive War on Terror
and its war of liberation in Iraq. These are mainly (but not
exclusively) de facto alliances, much as the Hitler-Stalin Pact was
an alliance of convenience based on a common interest: the
enemy of my enemy is my friend. This article is accompanied by a
"visual map" which displays the actual alliance between the so-
called American "peace left" and organizations that are part of, or
supportive of, the radical Islamic jihad against the United States.
This map is one of the hundreds of similar maps we have devised
for DiscoverTheNetwork.org, our encyclopedic guide to the political
left.]

The present article focuses on the so-called "peace left" – so

called because most of the individuals participating in it are not
pacifists and are not really interested in peace as such, but in
radical agendas that are served by opposing America’s war on
terror. (Thus there were no "peace" demonstrations at the Iraqi
embassy calling on the government of Saddam Hussein to comply
with seventeen U.N. resolutions which the war was undertaken to
enforce.)

The peace left’s core consists of the ideological descendents of

the communist/progressive left that wanted the West to lose the
Cold War to the Soviet Union. This no mere motley crew of
inconsequential fringe extremists, but is in fact the well-organized,
militant, and immensely influential driving force behind the
contemporary peace movement and the enormous anti-war rallies
it has recently staged. Upon the foundation of its hatred for the
United States, the peace left has forged its alliance with radical
Islam, whose wellspring of anti-American hatred runs just as deep.

In word and deed, both of these allies make it plain that they
consider everything about the United States to be evil and
unworthy of preservation; that they wish to see American society
and its way of life crushed by any means necessary, including
violent revolution. Their position was well summarized by the now-
infamous professor Ward Churchill, who asserted that terrorist
violence directed against the United States is a morally justifiable
response to what he characterizes as the U.S. government’s
"rape" and "murder" of other peoples. "If we want an end to
violence," says Churchill, "especially that perpetrated against
civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter
perpetrated by the United States around the world." Churchill does
not, however, harbor any hopes that America might mend its
alleged flaws; rather, he advocates the country’s destruction: "I
want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North
America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether." Toward
this end, Churchill candidly endorses further acts of anti-American
terror. "One of the things I’ve suggested," he says, "is that it may
be that more 9/11s are necessary." Lamenting that the terrorism of
9/11 had proved "insufficient to accomplish its purpose" of
eviscerating the United States, Churchill wrote, "What the hell? It
was worth a try."

These sentiments are echoed by no less a figure than Osama bin

Laden, who in 1998 issued the following edict: "We—with God’s
help—call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be
rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and
plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also
call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the
raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with
them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may
learn a lesson. The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—
civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who
can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

By drawing attention to the alliances between (and the common

objectives of) the radical left and radical Islam,
DiscoverTheNetwork (DTN) has hit a raw nerve for some. Critics
have accused DTN of lumping together all leftists as traitors who
sympathize with America’s jihadist enemies. In an effort to make
clear the distinctions between the most radical and the more
moderate gradations of leftism, DTN has refined the photo grid that
was the source of much indignation. Yet the source of the criticism
– the self-described patriotic left – has failed to draw any similar
distinctions between itself and the radical, anti-American left that in
fact does endorse the permanent evisceration of American society.
Nowhere is this failure to dissociate from America’s enemies more
evident than in the peace movement, where teeming masses of
people have participated in demonstrations organized by hard-line
Communists whose most fervent wish is not to bring about the
establishment of a lasting peace, but rather to see the United
States toppled by an attack from without or a revolution from
within.

The Workers World Party

Islamic jihadist organizations such as al Qaeda openly advocate

the destruction of the United States, on grounds that it is allegedly
a land of infidels that has badly mistreated the Muslim world. Their
contempt for America – the so-called "Great Satan" – is invariably
accompanied by a desire to destroy its ally Israel – the "Little
Satan." This baneful agenda is shared by those American radical
groups that are the major players in the contemporary anti-war
movement, on grounds that the U.S. is allegedly an aggressive,
imperialistic nation that seeks to impose the evils of capitalism on
the rest of the world. Some of these radical groups actually want to
be part of the jihad against the United States; they identify with its
objectives much as the old communist movement identified with
the Soviet Union and its aims. This is a small and somewhat
despised minority on the left but remarkably effective nonetheless.

Among the most important groups to openly espouse the jihadist

ideal of destroying the United States is the Workers World Party
(WWP), a Marxist-Leninist sect that uses the anti-war movement
as the vehicle by which it promotes Communist objectives and
condemns American society, American foreign policy, and
capitalism. This organization was a chief organizer of the major
national demonstrations against the current war in Iraq. It was
founded in 1959 by Sam Marcy, who in the 1960s led
demonstrations against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War
and openly rooted for a Viet Cong victory. Under Marcy’s
leadership, the WWP even coordinated some of its activities with
those of the North Vietnamese Communist forces. For example, an
April 8, 1972 internal letter "To All Branches" of the party exhorted
members to participate in "antiwar" demonstrations that would give
encouragement and moral support to a Viet Cong offensive in
South Vietnam. The man who authored that letter, John
Catalinotto, is today the managing editor of the WWP’s weekly
newspaper, Workers World.
The WWP continues to idolize the former Soviet dictator and mass
murderer Joseph Stalin, and regards Fidel Castro as a hero of the
common man. WWP members who joined the Venceremos
Brigades in the 1960s and early 1970s were trained in
revolutionary tactics by Castro’s intelligence agency. It was during
that era that the party also developed a close ideological bond with
Communist North Korea and its then-President Kim Il Sung.
Moreover, the WWP supported the Soviet invasions of
Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, as well as the regime of
Slobodan Milocevic in the former Yugoslavia. To this day, the party
is a faithful backer of North Korean President Kim Jong Il –
notwithstanding the barbarous atrocities and human rights
violations he has engineered.

The WWP website proclaims, "We’re independent Marxists who

respect the struggles for self-determination and progress of
oppressed nations. We try to understand their problems in a world
dominated by Western imperialism. We don’t jump on the
bandwagon when Third World leaders are demonized. Our goal is
solidarity of all the workers and oppressed against this criminal
imperialist system. . . . We fight hard for a better life right now, but
we know that nothing is secure - not our jobs, our homes, our
health care, our pensions, our civil rights and liberties - as long as
capitalism exists. So our goal is a society run by the workers, not
just as pawns in a capitalist political game but as collective owners
of the social wealth." The WWP seeks to destroy the U.S. so as to
rid the world of what it deems the evils of capitalism, much as the
Islamic jihadists seek to avenge the alleged transgressions of
America’s religious infidels.

International ANSWER

Though it currently has only about 2,000 members, the WWP has
been extremely effective in organizing the massive anti-war rallies
of recent years, some of which have drawn hundreds of thousands
of participants. To achieve its objectives, the WWP uses a number
of front groups, all of which are run by WWP members and
spokesmen. Among the most important of these groups is
International ANSWER, whose name is an acronym for Act Now to
Stop War and End Racism. In ANSWER’s view, the U.S. is the
world’s foremost terrorist nation and, as such, has no right to
respond militarily to any act of war committed against it. This was
the message that ANSWER, through its leaders and other guest
speakers, communicated to the cheering throngs attending its
demonstrations in 2002-03. It is impossible to estimate how many
of the ostensibly well-meaning attendees at such rallies concluded,
from the rhetoric they heard there, that being on the side of
"peace" required them to also embrace all of ANSWER’s scurrilous
assertions about the United States.

Well represented in the ANSWER steering committee are Muslim

organizations that embrace the anti-American and anti-Israel
ideals of the jihadists. These include the following:

· Free Palestine Alliance (FPA): Advocating "justice and liberation"

for the people of "Palestine," this group depicts Israel as an
oppressor nation that tramples on the civil and human rights of
Palestinians, though in fact Palestinians in Israel enjoy more
freedoms and civil rights protections than their Muslim
counterparts in any Islamic nation on earth. FPA also opposes the
post-9/11 anti-terrorism legislation known as the Patriot Act, on
grounds that it allegedly violates the civil liberties of Americans.

· Muslim Students Association (MSA): This is a key lobbying

organization for the Wahhabi sect of Islam. From its inception,
MSA had close links with the extremist Muslim World League.
Various MSA chapters’ websites have featured not only Osama bin
Laden’s propaganda, but also publicity and recruiting campaigns
for Wahhabi subversion of the Chechen struggle in Russia. In
recent years, MSA solicited donations for the Holy Land
Foundation for Relief and Development, whose assets the U.S.
government seized in December 2001 because that organization
was giving financial support to the terrorist group Hamas. MSA
also maintains strong ties to the Virginia-based World Assembly of
Muslim Youth (WAMY), established in 1972 and directed from
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. WAMY’s Virginia offices have been a central
target of the U.S. government’s post-9/11 investigation of Islamist
groups suspected of funding terrorism. Opposed to the American
military incursions into both Afghanistan and Iraq, MSA maintains a
large presence at ANSWER-sponsored demonstrations. At a
March 15, 2003 rally in San Francisco, MSA representatives
displayed and distributed anti-Israel publications, banners, and
placards – many of which replaced the letter "s" in "Israel" with a
swastika, while others likened the Star of David to a swastika.
· Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA): Founded in 1988 by
Barbara Lubin, this group combines humanitarian aid to the Middle
East (primarily to Palestinians and Lebanon) with a consistently
pro-Palestinian militant, anti-Israeli political message. Lubin and
fellow MECA representative Penny Rosenwasser are both allied
with the WWP and occasionally speak at ANSWER rallies and
press conferences. MECA opposes Israel’s construction of the
anti-terrorist security fence in the West Bank, characterizing it as
an illegal "apartheid wall" that violates the civil and human rights of
Palestinians.

As evidenced by the presence of these groups on ANSWER’s

steering committee, the theoretical affinities between the American
left and radical Islam have actual, practical consequences. The
Palestinian jihadists are well represented in ANSWER, as they are
in other major anti-war organizations.

In ANSWER’s post-9/11 anti-war demonstrations, acknowledgment

that the U.S. had been attacked on its own soil was all but absent
from the speeches denouncing America’s consideration, and
ultimate implementation, of military reprisal. The featured speakers
at these events condemned the U.S. for making a "rush to war" in
alleged pursuit of a global empire and control of Middle Eastern oil.
From the podiums of these rallies, America was impugned as a
"rogue state" and a "terrorist state"; President Bush was likened to
Adolph Hitler; the CIA was equated with al Qaeda; and countless
calls were issued for "regime change" in America rather than in
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Many of those attending these rallies were undoubtedly well-

meaning individuals who sincerely wished to express their
personal disapproval of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or
of the larger War on Terror. Surely many were drawn to such
demonstrations by a desire to avoid the bloodshed and loss of
innocent life that, however unintended, all wars necessarily bring.
In our democracy, the right to dissent is sacrosanct, and there is no
implication here than all Americans who do not fall in lockstep with
Bush administration policies necessarily sympathize with America’s
jihadist enemies and wish to see the United States brought to ruin.

But neither can those dissenters be excused for being utterly

uninformed about the nature of the allies whose anti-war chorus
they have chosen to join. Virtually without exception, the major
peace rallies attended by Americans nationwide have been
organized by hard-line communists – representing ANSWER as
well as other organizations that are discussed in the remainder of
this essay – with long track-records of uniformly opposing all U.S.
foreign and domestic policies, and siding with America’s enemies
in the Cold War and in every other international conflict of the past
50 years. This is not an insignificant detail.

The International Action Center

ANSWER is an appendage of the International Action Center

(IAC), a Stalinist organization with a long history of supporting
authoritarian regimes and communist dictatorships. Professing to
stand for "Information, Activism, and Resistance to U.S. Militarism,
War, and Corporate Greed," the IAC is an umbrella foundation for
a host of anti-war radical groups; it is staffed by members who
share a dual responsibility for the WWP. Believing that the United
States can do nothing right, the IAC has indicted every American
president since Harry Truman for alleged war crimes against the
people of North and South Korea, and has charged the U.S. with
war crimes in Iraq. By contrast, it has turned a blind eye to the
barbarities of socialist dictators like the late Yasser Arafat, North
Korea’s Kim Jong Il, and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.
The IAC has represented Milosevic at the International Court and
charged the Court itself – rather than Milosevic – with war crimes.
The IAC has also condemned U.S. involvement in Central and
South America, but holds Cuba in high esteem and never criticizes
Cuban military involvement anywhere.

The founder and current leader of the IAC is Ramsey Clark, who
was the U.S. Attorney General during President Lyndon Johnson’s
administration. Now a defense attorney, Clark has built a career
representing and counseling individuals and groups he
characterizes as victims of U.S. political repression and human
rights violations. In his estimation, Saddam Hussein was not the
brutal tyrant of popular depiction; the real tyrant, said Clark, was
George W. Bush, and the real terrorist nation was America. In an
open letter to President Bush in 2003, Clark stated angrily, "A
huge, all-powerful nation has assaulted a small prostrate,
defenseless people [Iraqis] half way around the world with ‘Shock
and Awe’ terror." After Saddam’s capture in December 2003, Clark
eagerly volunteered to join the legal defense team of the ousted
Iraqi dictator accused of thirty years of war crimes. Retained by
Serbia as U.S. counsel, Clark has also been involved in the
defense of Slobodan Milosevic. His other clients have included
Communist North Vietnam, the theocratic Islamic regime of Iran,
and the Communist dictatorship of North Korea.

Moreover, Clark is a staunch defender of Sheikh Omar Abdel

Rahman, leader of the Islamic Group, an Egypt-based terrorist
organization with close links to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda
network. Rahman was convicted of helping engineer the 1993
World Trade Center bombing as well as a failed Islamic Group plan
(known as "The Day of Terror") to destroy other Manhattan
landmarks including the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the United
Nations building, and the George Washington Bridge. While
Rahman’s ideals on civil liberties and human rights may differ
markedly from Clark’s, their shared hatred for the U.S. is a
common bond that serves as the basis of their alliance.

Not In Our Name

Joining ANSWER and the IAC as a major force in the anti-war

movement is the group Not In Our Name (NION), a self-described
"peace" organization that denounces the post-9/11 "injustices done
by our government" in its pursuit of "endless war"; America’s
greed-driven "transfusions of blood for oil"; its determination to
"erode [our] freedoms"; and its eagerness to "invade countries,
bomb civilians, kill more children, [and annihilate] families on
foreign soil." ANSWER and NION organized all of the major
antiwar demonstrations prior to February 2003.

NION was founded by the longtime Maoist activist C. Clark

Kissinger, a member of America’s premier Maoist organization, the
Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Kissinger began his public
activism in the early 1960s when he was the national secretary of
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the leading radical
organization of its day. In 1969 SDS became the Weather
Underground, America’s first terrorist cult. Kissinger also worked
closely with the Black Panther Party and supported Mao Tse-tung’s
Communist regime in China, responsible for the deaths of at least
50 million people. Kissinger founded the U.S.-China People’s
Friendship Association in 1971, traveled extensively in China
during the Cultural Revolution, and supported the 1979 Khomeini-
led revolution in Iran. In 1987 Kissinger founded the radical group
Refuse & Resist to serve as a recruiting office for the RCP. He
remains a contributing writer to the RCP publication Revolutionary
Worker.

Kissinger continues to enjoy strong support from the Maoist

Internationalist Movement (MIM), which, in its own words, "upholds
the revolutionary communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism," and views the Chinese Cultural Revolution as "the
farthest advance of communism in human history." Chief among
MIM’s objectives is to foment "revolution [in] North America."
Consistent with that aim, Kissinger and the RCP enthusiastically
cheered the 1992 rioting (ostensibly triggered by the court verdict
in the Rodney King case) in Los Angeles, deeming it a justified
"rebellion" against American racism and oppression. On the ten-
year anniversary of the rioting, RCP member Joseph Veale fondly
recalled the violence as "the most beautiful, the most heroic civil
action in the history of the United States." Former LAPD Police
Chief Robert Vernon recounts how the RCP helped instigate the
riots: "The RCP and other people tried to get a riot started [in the
Foothill Precinct, where the Rodney King beating had taken place],
because of the symbolism of having it start at the location of the
King arrest. In the late afternoon on April 29th, over 400 of them
stormed the Foothill [police] station, tried to set fires, and at one
point even fired some shots into the air, we think. . . . It was
unbelievable. The RCP people were there in force. They were
allowed to burn the guard shack and then actually charge the
doors at Parker Center and break the windows."

Kissinger similarly applauded the 2001 Cincinnati riots – which he

called "spirited and righteous protest" – that erupted following a
police shooting of a young black man in that city. He views the
U.S. as a nation where "white supremacy" and "xenophobic
attacks" carry the day. True to his Marxist ideals, he craves the
destruction of America and all its institutions. "The problem in this
country," says Kissinger, is "the oppressive system of capitalism
that exploits people all over the world, that destroys our planet,
that oppresses minority people, that sends people to the death
chambers in droves. That is a problem that has to be done away
with. . . . Revolution is the solution."

Like the WWP and ANSWER, the RCP shares the jihadist goal of
destroying the U.S. The RCP set up terrorist training camps in
Colorado, drawing people from the Iranian Student Association
and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
(ASALA) – the latter of which is known for its involvement in heroin
trafficking. Police have also linked the RCP to heavy-weapons-
trafficking endeavors carried out in unison with the Ohio-based
Outlaws motorcycle gang. In October 1983, the RCP collaborated
with the European terrorist underground to sabotage American
efforts to deploy Pershing and cruise missiles in Germany.
Kissinger led an eight-week tour of Germany to lay the framework
for those efforts. RCP members penetrated Mutlangen U.S.
military base in West Germany, where Pershing II intermediate-
range missiles were stored. In November 1983, RCP members
were involved, along with Red Cells and other German anarchist-
terrorists, in an assault against Vice President George Bush's
caravan during the latter’s visit to Krefeld, Germany. In its January
18, 1984 issue, Revolutionary Worker called for the assassination
of President Reagan. The RCP has ties to both Peru’s Marxist
guerrilla group known as the Shining Path and the Communist
Party of Nepal.

Robert Avakian is the founder and current "chairman-in-exile" of

the RCP. As a result of 1981 criminal indictments issued against
him and several other RCP leaders for their break-in to White
House grounds during a Presidential ceremony, Avakian and his
cohorts fled to Paris, where they have been living in exile ever
since. From his French headquarters, Avakian continues to agitate
for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, embracing the
concept of an intellectual vanguard leading the proletariat in
revolution.

Patriotism As an "Embarrassment"

Such are some of the leading lights of the so-called "peace"

movement today. The self-described patriotic left has, for the most
part, not bothered to dissociate itself from this socialist, radical,
anti-American left whose primary agenda is not to achieve a
lasting peace, but rather to discredit the United States in the eyes
of the world and to condemn America as a racist, imperialist,
aggressor seeking nothing less than world domination and control
of the earth’s oil reserves. Similarly, the leftwing media have all but
failed to distance themselves from these radical elements, or to
bluntly call them what they in fact are: America-hating Communists
who want the nation’s Islamist foes to emerge victorious in the War
on Terror. To their credit, a few media outlets such as Salon and
The Nation have distanced themselves from International
ANSWER; but they have not criticized the equally important and
equally radical Global Exchange or United for Peace and Justice.

These latter two groups, which are discussed below, share with the
Islamists a negative bond of intense anti-American hatred. While
they do not share the Islamists’ religious ideals, they fervently wish
to see the United States and its capitalist economic system
crumble. As Osama bin Laden declared in a fatwa issued on Al-
Jazeera Television just before American and British troops entered
Iraq in March 2003: "The interests of Muslims and the interests of
the socialists coincide in the war against the crusaders." Just as
bin Laden characterizes Americans as "crusaders" seeking to
expand their empire into Muslim lands, so does the socialist left
charge that all American foreign policy is predicated on
imperialistic ambition and a lust for oil. Just as Islamic radicals
wish to impose their brand of Islam on America and institute strict
Islamic law on a global scale, so does the radical left seek to
create a socialist ideal state and abolish capitalism from the earth.
In the lexicon of Muslim fundamentalists, America is the Great
Satan; to the radical left, America is a nation worthy of destruction
because it is the embodiment of evil and injustice. The spirit of
contempt and the impulse to sow the seeds of destruction is
equally intense in both camps.

As Middle East expert Bernard Lewis observes, "the sinfulness

and also the degeneracy of America and its consequent threat to
Islam and the Muslim peoples [have become] articles of faith in
Muslim fundamentalist circles." In The Crisis of Islam, Lewis writes,
"By now there is an almost standardized litany of American
offenses recited in the lands of Islam, in the media, pamphlets, in
sermons, and in public speeches."

The same litany can be found in the writings and oratory of the
American peace left, whose mouthpieces regularly impugn every
conceivable aspect of U.S. culture and policy. Against the
backdrop of their negative view of their country, they consider
patriotism to be nothing short of shameful. This mindset is
explained by Professor Todd Gitlin, a former president of Students
for a Democratic Society and a self-declared "anti-anti Communist"
of the 1960s who chose not to support the West during the Cold
War against the Communist states. Notably, Gitlin did not feel a
positive identification with the Soviet Union, but rather with a
utopian ideal that he expected to emerge in Vietnam, Cuba, or
some other revolutionary state. His rejection of patriotism as an
American did not stem from his love for any particular enemy of
the United States, but rather from a negative revulsion he felt
toward America as a result of its participation in the Vietnam War.

"The war went on so long and so destructively," says Gitlin, "it felt
like more than the consequence of a wrong-headed policy. My
country must have been revealing some fundamental core of
wrongness by going on, and on, with an indefensible war. . . . The
American flag did not feel like my flag, even though I could
recognize—in the abstract—that it made sense for others to wave
it in the anti-war cause." In the early stages of the war, Gitlin
"argued against waving the North Vietnamese flag or burning the
Stars and Stripes. . . . But the hatred of a bad war, in what was
evidently a pattern of bad wars—though none so bad as Vietnam
—turned us inside out. It inflamed our hearts. You can hate your
country in such a way that the hatred becomes fundamental. A
hatred so clear and intense came to feel like a cleansing flame. By
the late ’60s, this is what became of much of the New Left." Adds
Gitlin, "For a large bloc of Americans, my age and younger, too
young to remember World War II—the generation for whom ‘the
war’ meant Vietnam and possibly always would, to the end of our
days—the case against patriotism was not an abstraction. There
was a powerful experience underlying it: as powerful an eruption of
our feelings as the experience of patriotism is supposed to be for
patriots. Indeed, it could be said that in the course of our political
history we experienced a very odd turn about: The most powerful
public emotion in our lives was rejecting patriotism."

This negative view of America, rather than a positive view of

America’s Islamist enemies, is what animates much of the
contemporary peace movement as well. Many of the movement’s
leaders are New Leftists who, like Gitlin, developed their anti-
American hatred during the Vietnam era.

Global Exchange

One such individual is the lifelong Communist revolutionary Medea

Benjamin, a profoundly important player in the anti-war left. Like
Ramsey Clark and C. Clark Kissinger, Benjamin detests the United
States, whose post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq she
sees as evidence of a sinister U.S. plan for global dominance. This
hatred stands in stark contrast to her great affection for Fidel
Castro’s Cuba, a place she has glowingly described as "heaven."
Bitterly anti-capitalist, Benjamin was a principal organizer of the
1999 Seattle riots in which some 50,000 protesters wreaked havoc
and tried to shut down the World Trade Organization meetings.

Condemning America’s post-9/11 attack on the Taliban, Benjamin

said, "We must insist that governments stop taking innocent lives
in the name of seeking justice for the loss of other innocent lives."
Lamenting that Washington had "responded to the violent attack of
9/11 with the notion of perpetual war," she advised Americans to
examine "the root causes of resentment against the United States
in the Arab world – from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil to
our biased policy towards Israel." The bombings, she said, "made
Afghans so upset that some [have] talked about waging a jihad, or
holy war, against the United States. . . . If the Muslim world sees
the United States as willing to bomb but not feed people, it will
deepen the suspicion and mistrust already felt by millions . . . that
the United States doesn’t care about the lives of the Muslim
people." Benjamin draws no moral distinction between the 9/11
attacks and America’s military response against the Taliban. In the
aftermath of the U.S. victory in Afghanistan, she led a delegation of
relatives of murdered 9/11 victims — members of the group
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows — to
Afghanistan to meet with individuals who had lost loved ones to
American artillery.

Deeming America a nation infested with injustice and oppression,

Benjamin sees nothing in the United States that is worth fighting
for or defending. "When most Americans hear of human rights
abuses," she states, "they likely think of atrocities in some far-off
country in a forgotten corner of the globe. . . . [But] abuses against
individuals’ basic rights also occur regularly here in the United
States, and our money-saturated political system hardly deserves
the title ‘democracy.’" Like the radical Islamists, Benjamin would
welcome a revolutionary overthrow of the U.S. government,
American culture, and capitalism.

United For Peace and Justice

Benjamin’s kindred spirit in the peace movement is Leslie Cagan,
leader of the anti-war coalition United For Peace and Justice
(UFPJ). UFPJ was officially created on October 25, 2002 in the
Washington, DC offices of People For the American Way. Prior to
UFPJ’s founding, the anti-war movement – led by ANSWER and
NION – had earned a reputation as a hodgepodge of extremely
radical elements that made many would-be sympathizers uneasy;
UFPJ was created for the purpose of putting a milder face on the
movement. The distinction between UFPJ and the aforementioned
organizations, however, was merely symbolic rather than
substantive. From its inception, UFPJ shared with those groups a
passionate hatred for the United States, a readiness to condemn
any and every American foreign policy decision, and a commitment
to anti-American and anti-capitalist agendas. UFPJ’s initial
membership consisted of approximately 70 organizations; that
number now exceeds 800.

UFPJ’s radical agendas are visible through the transparent lens of

Cagan’s longstanding ideals. A strong supporter of Fidel Castro,
Cagan is a committed socialist who proudly aligns her politics with
those of Communist Cuba. For seven years she directed the Cuba
Information Project, demanding that the U.S. end its economic
embargo of, and travel ban to, Cuba. She was a 1960s radical
who, as a college student, became an activist in the Communist
movement; in 1968 she broke American laws to travel to the
Communist World Youth Festival in Bulgaria. The following year
she joined the First Venceremos Brigade, a project initiated by the
Cuban intelligence agency to recruit American leftists to help
harvest sugar cane. Throughout the 1960s, Cagan was a key
organizer of anti-Vietnam War protests; in the 1970s she continued
to participate in the pro-Castro Venceremos Brigades; in the 1980s
she supported the Communist movements in Central America
while organizing demonstrations demanding an American nuclear
freeze; and she was among the earliest supporters of solidarity
efforts with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian terrorists. She opposed the
1991 Gulf War. Six years later, in violation of U.S. law, she
coordinated the U.S. delegation to the World Youth Festival in
Cuba. Over the past three decades, Cagan has mobilized millions
of demonstrators in rallies denouncing America’s foreign policies;
its military-related spending; and its purportedly virulent racism,
sexism, and homophobia.
In late 2004, Cagan, Benjamin, and a handful of other leftist
radicals delivered $600,000 worth of cash and goods to jihadists
who were fighting American troops in Fallujah, Iraq. This money
was raised jointly by Global Exchange, United For Peace and
Justice, Code Pink for Peace (another antiwar group founded by
Benjamin), and the Middle East Children’s Alliance (whose
advisory board includes Ramsey Clark, Noam Chomsky, and Fathi
Arafat – brother of the late Yasser Arafat).

Benjamin and Cagan also united to establish Iraq Occupation

Watch, whose express purpose is to persuade American troops to
defect en masse as conscientious objectors, thereby weakening
U.S. forces and leading, hopefully, to an American defeat in Iraq.
"Working with local communities where U.S. troops are based,"
wrote Benjamin, "let’s start a ‘Bring All the Troops Home’ campaign
to stop the expansion of U.S. bases and start dismantling some of
the hundreds of existing bases overseas." She also exhorted
"grassroots teams" to "link up with appropriate local and regional
groups" in terrorist states. To run the Occupation Watch Center in
Iraq, Benjamin appointed Nerween al-Mufti, an Iraqi who, for two
decades, had been a journalist for Saddam Hussein’s state-
controlled press.

UFPJ coalition members include many leftwing and communist

groups, as well as a number of organizations sympathetic to the
jihadist aims of the Islamists who seek the destruction not only of
the United States, but of Israel as well. Among these coalition
members are the following national groups or their local chapters:

Al-Awda: Also known as the Palestine Right to Return Coalition

(PRRC), Al-Awda calls for the right of Arabs (and their families) to
return to the homes in Israel which they (for the most part)
voluntarily vacated in 1948. They left during the 1948 war that
began when five Arab armies declared war against Israel on the
very day of its creation. The seemingly benign request for a "right
of return" is in fact a veiled attempt to destroy the state of Israel.
Palestinian authorities place the number of Arabs who ought to be
granted a "right of return" to Israel at 5 million. This is more than
ten times the number of Arabs who actually left the Jewish portions
of the British Mandate in 1948, most of whom are now deceased.
The incorporation of five million Arabs into Israel would render the
Jews a permanent minority in their own country, and would thus
spell the end of Israel. Al-Awda fully understands this, and that is
why it has made this a fundamental demand. Al-Awda sponsors
exhibits, film festivals, lectures, and protests and rallies, all of
which share the common feature of denouncing Israel. In
September and October of 2002, Al-Awda sponsored anti-Israel
rallies where its members sold t-shirts adorned with the infamous
Hamas quote, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea."

Alliance for Jewish-Christian-Muslim Understanding: Stating that

the Koran generally teaches "love and toleration," this group’s
website provides links to the websites of such radical leftwing
organizations as the American Friends Service Committee, the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom, Women’s Action for
New Directions, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,
and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC): The ADC

has become a strident voice against what it depicts as the Bush
administration’s efforts to curtail the civil liberties of Arab
Americans. Characterizing the anti-terrorist measures pursued by
the Justice and Treasury Departments as persecution based on
ethnic discrimination, the ADC charges that "ethnic profiling" is
rampant in official U.S. dealings with Arab and Muslim Americans.
After 9/11, the ADC became a leading defender of Palestinian
"martyrdom" campaigns inside Israel. It also became a strong
defender of Saudi Arabia, whose role in funding Wahhabism, the
extreme sect rejected by the majority of Muslims worldwide, had
come under scrutiny after disclosure that 15 of the 19 suicide pilots
on September 11th were Saudi subjects.

In early 2004 the ADC played a key role in the passage of

measures condemning the USA Patriot Act by the New York and
Los Angeles City Councils. It was a co-plaintiff in the first major
legal challenge to a section of the Patriot Act – specifically Section
215, which allows for government access to such information as
medical, educational, and library records pursuant to a terrorism
investigation. The Georgia and San Francisco chapters of the ADC
were signatories to a February 20, 2002 document, composed by
C. Clark Kissinger’s Refuse & Resist, condemning military tribunals
and the detention of immigrants apprehended in connection with
post-9/11 terrorism investigations.
The ADC's Michigan chapter is headed by Imad Hamad, a member
of the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP). As of October 2003, Hamad was under investigation on
more than a dozen terrorism-related charges. One of those
charges centered around his active involvement with a Detroit
charity that openly declared on its tax forms that it had given a
significant amount of money to the Jordanian operations of the
terror group Hamas. Hamad and the leaders of that charity
traveled to Lebanon, where they met with their friends from
Hezbollah, and to Syria. They are believed to be laundering money
to terrorists in those nations. In 2004 Hamad held a celebration for
Hezbollah terrorists released from an Israeli jail in a prisoner swap.
In his ADC-Michigan newsletter, he referred to the freed convicts,
many of whom had murdered Jews and Americans, as "the
Heroes."

American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ): This organization is

sponsored by six of the most powerful American Islamic
institutions, including those that receive the most frequent
invitations to the White House and are cited most often by the
media. Moreover, AMJ has successfully lobbied such corporate
giants as Burger King and the Disney Corporation. The group led a
boycott against Burger King in response to the fast-food franchise
having built a restaurant in an Israeli settlement community, and
pressured Disney not to list Jerusalem as the "Jewish capital" of
Israel at a World Expo in Florida.

AMJ frequently publicizes false stories about Christians and

Muslims being discriminated against by Israel in Jerusalem, while
behind the scenes it works to support the goals of terrorist groups
like Hamas and Hezbollah. Terrorism expert Steve Emerson has
called AMJ an organization that "routinely involves anti-Zionist
campaigns and has featured calls at its conferences for the killing
of Jews." The group has ties to the American Muslim Council
(AMC), whose leader Abdurahman Alamoudi has publicly
expressed support for Hamas and Hezbollah, the latter of which
has killed more Americans than any other terrorist group, including
241 U.S. military personnel in Beirut in 1983.

At the Third National Student Palestine Solidarity Conference at

Ohio State University, AMJ executive director Khalid Turaani lied to
the audience by claiming that pogroms against Jews in Palestine
never occurred, when the historical record proves otherwise.
According to an August 8, 2001 report, Turaani earlier that year
attended meetings in Beirut and Tehran where more than 400
representatives of the world’s most extreme Islamic terror groups
agreed to aside their differences and unite for jihad against Israel
and the United States. The participants included leaders of al
Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and militants from Egypt,
Pakistan, Jordan, Qatar, Yemen, the Sudan, and Algeria.

American Muslim Society (AMS) of the Tri-State Area: This group’s

website presents only the most benign view of Islam, casting it as
a religion that tolerates and embraces practitioners of all faiths.
"Jihad," AMS explains, "does not mean ‘holy war.’ Literally, jihad in
Arabic means to strive, struggle and exert effort. It is a central and
broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil
inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in
society, struggle in the battlefield for self-defense or fighting
against tyranny or oppression." No mention is made of what the
scholar Bat Ye’or points out is Islam’s centuries-old tradition of
dealing violently with "infidels." For non-Muslims throughout
history, explains Ye’or, jihad has quite clearly meant "war,
dispossession, . . . slavery and death." "The fate of Jews in
Arabia," Ye’or writes, "foreshadowed that of all the peoples
subsequently conquered by the Arabs. The primary guiding
principle was to summon the non-Muslims to convert or accept
Muslim supremacy, and, if faced with refusal, to attack them until
they submitted to Muslim domination. . . . The jihad developed into
a war of conquest whose chief aim was the conversion of infidels.
Truces were allowed, but never a lasting peace."

Though AMS turns a blind eye to examples of Muslim oppression

and brutality, it has no trouble spotting what it characterizes as
instances of anti-Muslim discrimination in contemporary America.
The AMS website quotes Adrian College political science professor
Muqtedar Khan, who says, "Rather than treating American
Muslims as assets – using their knowledge of the Muslim world for
diplomacy and even for intelligence – the government is treating
them as suspects." According to AMS, "America’s new vulnerability
[to terrorism] afflicts [Muslims] more intensely than others, since
the fears of further terrorist acts are compounded by the suspicion
now clouding many of their lives. The domestic antiterrorism
campaign that reassures the majority of Americans is having the
opposite effect on Muslims."
Arab Student Union (ASU), University of Michigan-Dearborn: This
organization has openly endorsed the Palestine Solidarity
Movement (PSM), which is the student arm of the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM); ISM invites Westerners to come to the
Gaza Strip and the West Bank and disrupt the anti-terrorist
activities of the Israeli Defense Forces. PSM, composed of
campus groups throughout the United States and Canada, has
called on its chapter members to pressure their respective schools
"to divest from Israel all financial holdings until Israel ends its
system of occupation and apartheid in Palestine." Favoring the
elimination of Israel from the face of the earth, PSM approves of
violence, including suicide bombings, against Israeli civilians. At
PSM’s Second National Conference, held at the University of
Michigan in October 2002, delegates chanted "Kill the Jews!" At
the following year’s Conference, sponsored by the Rutgers
University PSM (a.k.a. New Jersey Solidarity), conference
organizer Charlotte Kates asked: "Why is there something
particularly horrible about ‘suicide bombing’ - except for the
extreme dedication conveyed in the resistance fighter’s willingness
to use his or her own body to fight?"

Boston to Palestine: Established in June 2002, Boston to Palestine

(B2P) describes itself as "a group of Boston-based activists who
work in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their non-violent
struggle to resist and end the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF). We achieve this by sending delegates to
work with International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and other peace
and justice groups operating in Palestine." B2P delegates are
equipped with still and video cameras "for the purposes of
documenting life and events (including direct actions) in Palestine
under occupation." It is notable that B2P makes reference to the
Palestinians’ "non-violent struggle," which is in fact marked by
great violence and many acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians.
Boston to Palestine has conducted dozens of what it terms
"educational and outreach events" in the Boston area, where
returning delegates speak publicly about what they experienced
and observed in the Middle East. Seeking to publicize "the horrors
that are a feature of [the Palestinians’] daily lives at the hands of
the IDF," B2P has organized demonstrations and vigils in and
around Boston to protest "the ongoing atrocities conducted against
Palestinians by the IDF, and to honor and commemorate ISM
activists who have been killed or wounded by the IDF." Boston to
Palestine is careful not to use the word "terrorist" – either as a
noun or an adjective – to describe any Palestinian individual or
deed.

Grassroots International (GRI): Founded in 1983, this NGO states

that it "was born out of a commitment to justice for Palestinians." In
2001, GRI formed a partnership with the Advocacy Project (AP),
an NGO with a strong political agenda and an anti-Israel
ideological emphasis. The AP draws a moral equivalence between
Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counter-terror measures, and
accuses Israel of practicing "apartheid" and "racism." In 2004, GRI
was a signatory – along with more than 200 other leftwing groups
– to a letter to the U.S. Senate asserting that Israel’s newly
constructed anti-terrorist security fence was an illegal "apartheid
wall" that violated the civil and human rights of Palestinians. GRI
was also a signatory to a May 30, 2000 document denouncing
globalization, big business in general, and the World Trade
Organization (WTO) in particular. Members affiliated with some of
the signatories actively participated in the November 1999 riots in
which some 50,000 protesters did millions of dollars worth of
property damage in their effort to shut down the WTO Conference
in Seattle.

Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA): Founded in 1971, this

Queens, New York-based organization is infamous for bringing
radicals to speak at its annual conferences. According to the New
York Daily News, the group has been "probed by FBI counter-
terrorism agents" for suspected "terror ties." In March 1996, U.S.
Senator Mitch McConnell stated, "One of the groups with Hamas
ties is the Dallas-based Islamic Association for Palestine in North
America, which, in turn, apparently is allied with the Islamic Circle
of North America in New York." ICNA also works closely with the
Muslim American Society (MAS), an extremist organization that
produces publications describing suicide bombings as "justifiable."
In the post-9/11 era, ICNA has taken a stand against the U.S. war
on terror, the Patriot Act, and America’ military incursions in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

Middle East Children's Alliance: (See the discussion of this group

in the International ANSWER section earlier in this essay.)

Middle East Crisis Committee (MECC): This organization

describes itself as "a group of activists that organized in 1982 in
New Haven, Connecticut during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon" –
saying nothing to acknowledge that the invasion was in response
to several years of attacks launched against Israel by terrorists
based in Lebanon. MECC strongly supports the Palestinian "Right
of Return," the anti-war activist Medea Benjamin of Global
Exchange, and International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel
Corrie, who was accidentally killed in 2003 while trying to obstruct
Israeli anti-terrorist operations in Gaza.

Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP): This

organization ascribes the most recent Intifada to the anger felt by
Palestinians as a result of "the daily frustrations and humiliations
inflicted upon [them] in the occupied territories."

Muslim Voters of America: Uncompromising in its demand for a

Palestinian "Right of Return," this organization was a signatory to
an April 2004 document which read, in part: "We, the undersigned
affirm the full individual and collective inalienable Right to Return of
the Palestinian Arab People to their homes, property and land of
origin. We assert in no uncertain terms that such a fundamental
right is inviolable as it is based on the unbreakable natural
belonging of a people to their property and place of origin, as
enshrined in international law. Accordingly, we hold that the
Palestinian Right to Return is an indispensable obligatory
prerequisite for the achievement of any justice and peace. We
consider any attempt to weaken, lessen, or alter such a right in any
form through any proclamations or agreements between any
parties to be counter to the human, political, civil, and national
collective right of the Palestinian Arab People. Hence, such an
attempt, along with its implications and ramifications, are null and
void in total, regardless of the passage of time and the entities
entering into such agreements or issuing such proclamations."

Palestine Activist Forum: This organization condemns what it calls

the "ever-escalating assault on the people of Palestine" by "the
murderous Israeli government [which] continues to sink to new
depths of brutality with the encouragement of the Bush
administration.."

Stop US Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now (SUSTAIN): Based in

Washington, D.C. and presiding over more than a dozen additional
chapters throughout the United States, this organization was
established in late 2000. It views the United States and Israel as
the primary perpetrators of evil in the modern world, stating
emphatically: "We are committed to building a campaign against
U.S. military and economic aid to Israel." SUSTAIN’s campaigns
consist of educating the public about U.S. financial support of
Israel on federal Tax-Day; taking action against the CATERPILLAR
bulldozer company (to protest the Israeli Defense Force's use of
that company’s equipment in the demolition of Palestinian
terrorists’ homes); denouncing the construction of Israel’s security
fence; and divesting from Israeli interests and corporations.

Just two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, SUSTAIN organized a

Global Justice Intifada in Washington, D.C. Condemning what it
termed "U.S. imperialism," this event made a call for justice on
behalf of "Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation" and "Iraqis
fighting genocidal sanctions." Refusing to characterize the 9/11
attacks as acts of war against the United States, SUSTAIN
describes them instead as "criminal attacks" warranting a legal
rather than a military response. SUSTAIN’s founding member Mark
Lance, a Georgetown University professor, refers to the 1948
creation of Israel as "the Nakba," which Palestinians translate as
"the Catastrophe." In the Spring of 2002, Lance wrote an article
titled "Imperialism and Anti-authoritarian resistance after 9-11:
Some Crucial Questions," in which he discussed his desire to
organize "solidarity" groups within the Palestinian territories and
Lebanon, while at the same time working with the terrorist
organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. These latter two groups,
wrote Lance, "though easy to criticize from a non-authoritarian
perspective, must be understood in terms of the role [they play].
Hamas provides the majority of social services to the people of this
oppressed and overpopulated strip of land. . . . This applies even
more to the role of Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon."

Conclusion

The American peace left is heavily populated by radical and

Communist groups whose foremost ambition is to facilitate the
downfall of the U.S. – by any means necessary, and through any
alliances which may further that cause. And, as evidenced by the
foregoing list, well represented among these groups are Muslim
organizations with passionately anti-American and anti-Israel
agendas. Their ally in the current war against America is radical
Islam, the murderous doctrine personified by Mohammed Atta and
his fellow 9/11 hijackers, and by the masterminds of 9/11 and other
attacks – bin Laden, Omar Abdel Rahman, Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed, and many more.

How is it possible that such a seemingly unlikely alliance has been

forged? After all, the Islamic radicals emphatically reject virtually
everything for which the peace left claims to stand: the peaceful
resolution of international conflict; respect and tolerance for other
cultures and faiths; civil liberties; freedom of expression; freedom
of thought; human rights; democracy; women’s rights; gay rights;
and the separation of church and state. There could be no stranger
bedfellows than American leftists and Islamic extremists. Yet they
have been brought together by the one overriding trait they do
share – their hatred for America; their belief that the U.S. is the
very embodiment of evil on earth and must consequently be
destroyed.

As Osama bin Laden told a CNN interviewer in 1997, "We

declared jihad against America because America is unjust, criminal
and tyrannical." This pronouncement does not differ at all, either in
substance or tone, from the declarations of the peace left, whose
sentiments are similarly detectable in the following excerpt from an
al Qaeda manifesto: "America is the head of heresy in our modern
world, and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon
separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by the
people via legislating laws that contradict the way of Allah and
permit what Allah has prohibited. This compels the other countries
to act in accordance with the same laws in the same ways . . . and
punishes any country [that rebels against these laws] by besieging
it, and then by boycotting it. By so doing [America] seeks to
impose on the world a religion that is not Allah’s." While the peace
left makes no similar religious references, its assessments of
America are essentially the same – alleging that the United States
is determined to overrun other nations and dominate the world.

Radical Islam seeks purification and social justice by means of

jihad, or holy war, whose highest ideal is martyrdom achieved
while attempting to conquer an evil worldly power such as the
United States, the Great Satan (and Israel, the Little Satan). The
radical Islamist’s ultimate goal is to subdue the "infidel" nations and
therein institute sharia, or Islamic law, so as to redeem the world
for Allah. The socialist left, similarly, advocates revolution as the
means of achieving its ends – eliminating capitalism and creating a
socialist paradise on earth. Whereas Islamic radicals seek to purify
the world of heresies and of the infidels who practice them, the
radical left seeks to purify society’s collective "soul" of the vices
allegedly spawned by capitalism – those being racism, sexism,
imperialism, and greed. Just as Islamic radicals seek to impose
their religion on the rest of the world in a totalitarian fashion
requiring unwavering obedience, so do radical leftists seek to
create an omnipotent socialist state that will control every aspect of
daily life and will impose a universal brand of "social justice" on all
mankind.

Central to both radical Islam and the radical left is an inclination to

overthrow the existing order by any means necessary, so as to
create a paradise on earth. This end ultimately justifies any means,
and any alliance, that leads there. American leftists may find the
bigotry and intolerance of Islamic radicals repugnant, but their
desire to rid the world of U.S. "imperialism" and capitalism
overrides this revulsion and beckons them to forge the unholy
alliance. Moreover, radical American leftists practice their own
brand of bigotry and intolerance, aiming their wrath and
condemnation at all who disagree withthem.

The leftist Australian journalist John Pilger, who denounces

"American imperialism" even as he praises Fidel Castro’s
dictatorship, has publicly endorsed the killing of American troops in
Iraq. "[T]hey’re legitimate targets," he says. "They’re illegally
occupying a country." He openly supports the Iraqi resistance on
the grounds that "we can’t afford to be choosy" in acquiring much-
needed allies. Pilger’s sentiment perfectly expresses the governing
principle of the unholy alliance; it is, as stated at the beginning of
this essay, akin to the cliche, The enemy of my enemy is my friend
[whoever he may be].