Nexus between Extreme Right And Left Is Irrational Poisonous Ideology

image: Grok AI

by Leonard Grunstein

5/20/2025, 9:55:08 AM

There have been many documented links between leaders of the far left and far right over the years.

Historically, there was the Hitler-Stalin pact that divided up Poland. Some of the more modern iterations include flirtations between Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and Norman Rockwell of the Nazi party, as well as Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and Tom Metzger of the KKK. Then there is the phenomenon of extremists like David Duke of the KKK, Farrakhan and their ilk sharing each other’s poisonous antisemitic views.

Recent polls have revealed just how extreme these views are. The common theme of the extreme left and right is irrational ideological driven concerns, which often manifest as Jew hatred. Some politicians have flirted with the extremes in the hope of garnering their support. However, when it comes to extremists, no mainstream politician can ever truly pass their purity tests. As the Trump election demonstrated, common sense is the theme of the day. Yet, the lesson has not been fully embraced by many in Congress. Set forth below are examples of bi-partisan bills introduced in Congress that have encountered irrational opposition.

-Representatives Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer introduced a simple bi-partisan bill to amend the existing US Anti-Boycott Law to make clear that a boycott by an international governmental organization (IGO) is covered by the Law. Why that should be controversial is baffling.

The original US Anti-Boycott Law was passed in 1979. It was enacted in response to the notorious Arab League boycott of Israel and, among other things, was designed to protect US ally Israel.

The Law declares it is the policy of the United States to oppose restrictive trade practices or boycotts fostered or imposed by any foreign country against other countries friendly to the United States or against any United States person. The use of the terms ‘fostered’ and ‘foreign country’ is cogent. Neither of these terms is precisely defined, unlike, for example, the term ‘foreign state’ which is expressly defined in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The legislative history of the Anti-Boycott Law supports a broad interpretation of these words, so as to be as inclusive as possible, to avoid the subterfuge of using non-state actors to evade its provisions. The Law was intended to cover non-government organizations like the Arab League and, hence, the use of these more expansive terms.

The foreign source must merely foster the unsanctioned boycott to trigger application of the Law; it is not required to control the US person participating in the boycott. The US person need only, with intent to comply with, further, or support an unsanctioned foreign boycott, refuse or agree to refuse to do business with the boycotted country or companies to violate the Law. US persons are defined as all individuals (including foreign nationals), corporations and unincorporated associations that are resident in the US.

This would, therefore, include the ongoing boycott against Israel and its various iterations fostered by the Iranian Regime, directly or indirectly, through the myriad of their agents, proxies, allied NGO’s and other organizations, such as designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations Hamas and PFLP, as well as Samidoun (which was just sanctioned by the US Treasury Department) and the BDS Movement.

I can’t help but wonder about the ignorance or insensitivity of many dilettante boycotters, who have joined with abhorrent terrorists in boycotting Israel. The avowed purpose of waging this economic war, known as BDS, against Israel and its people is to delegitimize and destroy the State of Israel and ethnically cleanse it of Jews. Don’t they realize they have become the useful dupes of the terrorist Hamas and Iranian regimes?

In 2021, more than sixty groups from the US and Europe teamed up with Iran and Hamas to wage a BDS war against Israel. The Gaza event was called ‘Year to Confront Normalization’ and the related Iranian event, broadcast simultaneously from Teheran, was called ‘Together Against Normalization’. In furtherance of the boycott of Israel by the terrorist Iranian and Hamas regimes, the more than sixty anti-Israel and pro-BDS organizations launched what was called ‘Peoples Against Normalization’ campaign. The collaborative link to the Iranian regime is probative. It establishes that at the very least Iran is fostering these BDS malevolent efforts in the US.

Since then, the BDS efforts have been redoubled as a part of the pro-Hamas movement on campus and elsewhere. On July 9, 2024, Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haine, issued a statement, which noted:

“In recent weeks, Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza, using a playbook we’ve seen other actors use over the years. We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.”

The Anti-Boycott Law also expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or national origin. US persons may not treat US citizens overseas any differently from in the US. Imagine the outrage if some US company announced that it would not do business with any non-white person who dared to move into a particular neighborhood because it believed it should be preserved as a white-only enclave. In this regard, consider the approximately 500,000 Americans living in Israel (including the approximately 60,000 reportedly living in Judea and Samaria); they too are entitled to be free of any discrimination under the Law. The 1924 Anglo-American Convention, pursuant to the US Constitution is US law and assures their right to live there. Oslo II also permits building and living there.

The fact that the boycott sponsors incorrectly deem their living in Israel to be a violation of so-called Palestinian Arab rights under international law is irrelevant and indicative of their unlawful intent. They are not entitled unilaterally to make up and then execute their own contrived foreign policy or otherwise discriminate against a US citizen in Israel.

The U.S. Department of Commerce oversees enforcement of U.S. Anti-Boycott Law including against individuals and entities participating in a boycott fostered by a foreign source not approved or sanctioned by the U.S. government. US persons receiving requests or demands that they comply with, further or support an unsanctioned boycott should check out the reporting requirements under the law and regulations.

BDS is antisemitic and foolish. Just like every other unsanctioned foreign boycott, an IGO fostered boycott of Israel should be covered under the provisions of the US Anti-Boycott Law. It should not matter whether it’s the original Arab League or some other foreign inspired alignment at the UN or one of its entities promoting or fostering a boycott of US ally Israel; it should be prohibited.

Another bi-partisan effort is the Antisemitism Awareness Act (Act), was passed by the House of Representatives and is now before the Senate HELP Committee. The Act codifies the inclusion of the IHRA working definition under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities, such as colleges and universities, receiving Federal financial assistance.

The Act finds that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism is a vital tool, which helps individuals understand and identify the various manifestations of antisemitism. In this regard, it should be noted that the US is a member of the IHRA and this definition of antisemitism was adopted by the US State Department, as well as more than 40 countries.

The Act references Executive Order 13899 of December 11, 2019 that expressly extended protections against discrimination under Title VI to individuals subjected to antisemitism on college and university campuses and confirmed use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in connection therewith. President Trump reaffirmed this on January 29, 2025, in Executive Order 14188, titled Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism. The Act also correctly finds that the use of alternative definitions of antisemitism impairs enforcement efforts by adding multiple standards that fail to identify many of the modern manifestations of antisemitism.

The Senate HELP committee process has been stalled by a flurry of amendments designed to frustrate the very object of the law, by interposing contrived concerns about the First Amendment that are frankly irrelevant to the Act and Title VI. Consider, in the guise of urging an amendment to the Act to permit criticism of the Israeli government, which is not prohibited by the IHRA definition, one Senator made false and defamatory statements about Israel’s conduct of the defensive war against Hamas. In this regard, it should be noted that defamation is not fully protected speech under the First Amendment, as more fully discussed below. Moreover, the operative provisions of Title VI are about prohibited conduct, not free speech, and thus the entire premise asserted for urging the amendment is baseless.

Another Senator made the fatuous claim that because the IHRA considers libelously blaming all Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans to be antisemitic that the bill would prohibit reading the Gospel of John, Chapters 18 and 19. This assertion is not only baseless, it also misses the import of Title VI. In essence, it should be prohibited to discriminate against Jews, whether because of incorrectly holding all Jews responsible for crucifixion or for any of the other antisemitic grounds covered by the IHRA definition or otherwise.

As an aside, Pope Paul VI solved the Senator’s misreading of John in Nostra Aetate, on October 28, 1965. Perhaps, he didn’t get the memo.

Title VI prohibits exclusion from participation in, denial of benefits of, and discrimination under federally assisted programs or activities on the ground of race, color, or national origin. It recognizes that harassment based on someone’s religion, shared ancestry or national origin can create a hostile environment. Thus, a hostile environment created or left uncorrected by a school can violate Title VI, when the harassing conduct is so severe, persistent, or pervasive that it denies or limits a student’s ability to benefit from or participate in a school’s programs or activities.

All that the Act does is include the IHRA definition of antisemitism as an illegal basis for such discrimination, exclusion or denial of benefits. Notice, the operative words deal with prohibited conduct, not uttering of words (whether or not protected by the First Amendment).

It is also important to recognize that not all speech is protected under the First Amendment. Thus, for example, speech that is directed towards inciting or producing lawless action and is likely to do so is not protected speech. Similarly, so called fighting words. True threats of violence, as perceived by those threatened, and the reckless disregard of a substantial risk that the statements made would be viewed as threatening violence are also not protected (Counterman v Colorado). Defamation of a so-called ‘public figure’ with malice (knowing that false or reckless disregard for the truth as described in NYT v Sullivan) and even negligent defamation of everyone else is also not protected speech.

While so-called ‘public figures’ (under NY Times v Sullivan) are not afforded the more fulsome standard of protection against libel or slander, that categorization can hardly be applied to ordinary students, who happen to be Jewish (Gertz v Welch).

The US Supreme Court (Beauharnais v Illinois) upheld a State libel law that made it illegal to defame a race or class of people. I mention this matter specifically because some of the facts and circumstances, like the unsavory leaflets and depraved and libelous remarks at issue in that case, are eerily similar to the propaganda efforts and devices used by Hamasnicks to defame, harass, intimidate and exclude Jewish students from facilities and programs at colleges and universities. There are the notorious Hamas agenda driven pamphlets and scripted chants that assert the patently false and thoroughly debunked (by real experts and Congressional resolution) genocide blood libel against Jewish students on campus. Some antisemitic NGO’s even allow themselves to use modified genocide definitions, because the actual facts don’t comport with the true legal definition under law.

The antisemitic/anti-American mobs also call for illegal takeovers of school facilities, like the Columbia Library, and actually bar Jews from entering. Vandalism and violence, as well as harassment and intimidation of Jewish students are common features of these campus riots. This is not protected free speech; it is not only prohibited conduct under Title VI, it also likely violates many local laws.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act in the pristine form adopted by the House, without poison pill amendments, should be immediately passed by the Senate and signed into law by the President.

It’s time to eschew the irrational positions espoused by the extreme left and right. We must not permit their poisonous ideological driven concerns to infect the new prevailing climate of common sense. Antisemitism is irrational and contrary to the American way. Urge Congress to pass these important laws without further delay, because it’s just and right. Write your representatives.