UPDATE — Thursday 1PM ET:
I’m receiving emails and blog posts detailing a messy semi-feud between Some People I Know and Some Other People I Know. I appreciate the clarifications (such as they are) but won’t be going into details here. As I said in this morning’s original post, I only had one side of the story.
Now I have more than a few “other sides.” I find this sort of infighting tedious, not to mention counterproductive.
My bottom line is that whatever the facts of this particular case, British nationalist groups seem to be genetically programmed from birth to turn weird. It is fine to say, “We’re monitoring our members,” but maybe if you have to “monitor your members” there is something amiss with the group itself?
I’m still watching my inbox.
However, I do NOT wish to get involved in some interpersonal/factional side-taking.
***
Atlas Shrugs reports on a shake up at the EDL. Obviously, I have no inside information about the group’s internal goings-on. We are getting one side of the story.
However, until I hear anything else, this “one side” is enough for me to suspend my support.
I caution folks to remember that our opponents call everyone they hate “Nazis” and “fascists.”
(And bear in mind that anti-Semitism resides primarily on the Left today.)
This is the perfect example of what’s wrong with “the enemy of my enemy is my friend;” we can’t support the anti-jihad EDL if they are also anti-Semitic.
Here is Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs on the situation:
I was an early supporter of the EDL. I liked who they were and what they were doing. When the EDL first came on the scene, I noted their strong support of Israel: Israeli flags at their rallies, and forthright expressions of solidarity with the Jewish State in its resistance to the same relentless jihad that is advancing in Britain. Almost immediately there came the inevitable charge from the jihad-loving Left that the group was “neo-Nazi,” “neofascist,” “white supremacist,” and more. So I started investigating. I found that they rejected the British National Party’s racial orientation, and that they had members who were Sikhs, Pakistanis, gays and other minorities, and even, eventually, a Jewish division. The idea of pro-Israel neo-Nazis is a myth of the Left, and so the presence of the Jewish division was decisive. I was troubled by the photos of EDL members giving the Nazi salute, but discovered that the EDL was aware of neo-Nazi attempts at infiltration, and had a policy of expelling anyone who expressed any kind of antisemitic or neofascist sentiments. They even refused to allow people to be members of both the EDL and the BNP. So it seemed to me at the time that the EDL was a genuine anti-jihad group, strongly pro-Israel as every legitimate anti-jihad group must be, since Israel is at the front lines of the global jihad, and resolutely rejecting racism and any form of actual neofascism.
However, it has become increasingly clear that the EDL has morphed and diverged from its original course. They now have clearly been infiltrated by the worst kind of influences, something that had successfully staved off for years, and they’re no longer staving it off. Roberta Moore, the leader of the Jewish Division, has broken with the EDL…
