[D66] Fwd: [Marxism] Anders Behring Breivik, a perfect product of the Axis of Islamophobia

[Antid Oto]

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/07/anders-behring-breivik-a-perfect-product-of-the-axis-of-islamophobia-2.html

Anders Behring Breivik, a perfect product of the Axis of Islamophobia

by Max Blumenthal on July 24, 2011

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store visits the Utoya Labor
Youth camp a day before Breivik's killing spree. He earned loud
cheers with an unapologetic call for Palestinian rights.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store visits the Utoya Labor
Youth camp a day before Breivik's killing spree. He earned loud
cheers with an unapologetic call for Palestinian rights.

When I wrote my analysis last December on the “Axis of
Islamophobia,” laying out a new international political network of
right-wing ultra-Zionists, Christian evangelicals, Tea Party
activists and racist British soccer hooligans, I did not foresee a
terrorist like Anders Behring Breivik emerging from the movement’s
ranks. At the same time, I am not surprised that he did. The
rhetoric of the characters who inspired Breivik, from Pam Geller
to Robert Spencer to Daniel Pipes, was so eliminationist in its
nature that it was perhaps only a matter of time before someone
put words into action.

As horrific as Breivik’s actions were, he can not be dismissed as
a “madman.” His writings contain the same themes and language as
more prominent right-wing Islamophobes (or those who style
themselves as “counter-Jihadists”) and many conservatives in
general. What’s more, Breivik was articulate and coherent enough
to offer a clear snapshot of his ideological motives. Ali Abunimah
and Alex Kane have posted excellent summaries of Breivik’s
writings here and here and a full English translation is here. It
is also worth sitting through at least a portion of Breivik’s
tedious video manifesto to get a sense of his thinking.

>From a tactical perspective, Breivik was not a “lone wolf”
terrorist. Instead, Breivik appeared to operate under a leaderless
resistance model much like the Christian anti-abortion terrorists
Scott Roeder and Eric Rudolph. Waagner and Rudolph organized
around the Army of God, a nebulous group that was known only by
its website and the pamphlets its members passed around in truck
stops and private meetings. If they received material or tactical
support, it occurred spontaneously. For the most part, they found
encouragement from like-minded people and organizations like
Operation Rescue, but rarely accepted direct assistance. Breivik,
who emerged from the anti-immigrant Norwegian Progress Party
(which built links with America’s Tea Party) and drifted into the
English/Norwegian Defense League sphere of extremism, but who
appeared to act without formal organizational support, reflects
the same leaderless resistance style as America’s anti-abortion
terrorists.

While in many ways Breivik shares core similarities with other
right-wing anti-government terrorists, he is the product of a
movement that is relatively new, increasingly dangerous, and
poorly understood. I described the movement in detail in my “Axis
of Islamophobia” piece, noting its simultaneous projection of
anti-Semitic themes on Muslim immigrants and the appeal of Israel
as a Fort Apache on the front lines of the war on terror, holding
the line against the Eastern barbarian hordes. Breivik’s writings
embody this seemingly novel fusion, particularly in his obsession
with “Cultural Marxism,” an increasingly popular far-right concept
that positions the (mostly Jewish) Frankfurt School as the
originators of multiculturalism, combined with his call to
“influence other cultural conservatives to come to our…pro-Israel
line.”

Breivik and other members of Europe’s new extreme right are
fixated on the fear of the “demographic Jihad,” or being
out-populated by overly fertile Muslim immigrants. They see
themselves as Crusader warriors fighting a racial/religious holy
war to preserve Western Civilization. Thus they turn for
inspiration to Israel, the only ethnocracy in the world, a country
that substantially bases its policies towards the Palestinians on
what its leaders call “demographic considerations.” This is why
Israeli flags invariably fly above black-masked English Defense
League mobs, and why Geert Wilders, the most prominent
Islamophobic politician in the world, routinely travels to Israel
to demand the forced transfer of Palestinians.

Judging from Breivik’s writings, his hysterical hatred of the
Labor Party’s immigration policies and tolerance of Muslim
immigrants likely led him target the government-operated summer
camp at Utoya. For years, the far-right has singled Norway out as
a special hotbed of pro-Islam, pro-Palestinian sentiment, thanks
largely to its ruling Labor Party. In 2010, for instance, the
English Defense League called Norway a future site of
“Islamohell,” “where unadulterated political correctness has ruled
the roost, with sharp talons, for decades.” Yesterday, when the
Wall Street Journal editorial page rushed to blame Muslim
terrorists for what turned out to be Breivik’s killing spree, it
slammed the Norwegian government for pulling troops from
Afghanistan and demanding that Israel end its siege of Gaza. For
his part, Breivik branded the Labor Party as “traitors.”

There is no clear evidence that Breivik’s support for the Israeli
right played any part in his killing spree. Nor does he appear to
have any connection with the Israeli government. However, it is
worth noting that in November 2010, the Israeli government joined
the right-wing pile on, accusing the Norwegian government of
“anti-Israel incitement” for funding a trip for students to New
York to see the “Gaza Monologues” play. Then, the day before
Breivik’s terror attack, which he planned long in advance,
Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stor visited the Labor Youth
camp at Utoya. There, he was met with demands to support the
global BDS movement and to support the Palestinian Authority’s
unilateral statehood bid. “The Palestinians must have their own
state, the occupation must end, the wall must be demolished and it
must happen now,” the Foreign Minister declared, earning cheers
from the audience.

Breivik’s writings offer much more than a window into the motives
that led him to commit terror. They can also be read as an
embodiment of the mentality of a new and internationalized
far-right movement that not only mobilizes hatred against Muslims,
but is also able to produce figures who will kill innocent
non-Muslims to save the Western way of life.