My Kampf: The Islamic Mein Kampf and A Mea Culpa

* Update (2/18) * Welcome Israpundit readers! Thanks, Ted, for the mention. Your feedback on this, or any "Second Thoughts" post, is welcome.

Arriving in this morning's email from my friend, David Horowitz, was this ten-minute audiovisual primer on the Iranian and Palestinian Holocaust threat, The Islamic Mein Kampf.

I watched it. The didactic advantage of The Islamic Mein Kampf is that it boils down into words and images the precise, deadly, and implacable intentions of radical Islam -- issuing primarily from Iran and Palestine -- vis-à-vis Israel and the United States.

Simply put: They will come for you.

They will come for you.

They will come for you.
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This generation, it won't be a knock on the door or a round up at the train station. Instead it'll be a dirty nuke or a poisoned water supply or more hijacked airplanes or missiles over Tel Aviv.

Learn more about The Terrorism Awareness Project.

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It's been a long intellectual road over the past ten years, and doing my part to inform people about The Islamic Mein Kampf is the latest step in what hopefully will be a long road to come -- a long road in a different direction. Here are a few words that begin to tell how I got from there to here.

Through the 1990s I dragged with me the remnants of the radical fantasies I'd imbibed while suckling, as a political babe, on the sour milk of Marxism. I actually used to believe that the imposition of a "Palestine" over all the territory of what's now Israel and Judea and Samaria was not only possible but the most humane and egalitarian resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. I projected my own, American creeds of fairness and republican egalitarianism onto Arabs (without ever travelling in Arab lands or undertaking to learn, seriously, its history and culture). I studied the die-hard American apologists for anti-Zionism of the 1980s and 1990s, Paul Findley and Noam Chomsky -- and of course Edward Said.

In addition I read very closely Jean Genet (left), the most celebrated French partisan of Arab "resistance" to Israel (and also a partisan of black American "resistance" to "Amerika"). In his last productive writing period he attempted to elevate the PLO to the status of ancient Greek warriors. I translated into English "Violence and Brutality," Genet's passionate but intellectually indefensible 1977 essay in which he gave his poetic blessing to terrorism. Not stopping there, I took this sentiment to its logical extreme by writing poetry modeled after Genet's -- and also East German Heiner Müller's (above, right) -- fascination with the subject, poetry that effectively endorsed the left-wing, pro-PLO terrorism of that era.

That was my "revolutionary" intellectual project: 1) enlist my native American progressive populism to building an intellectual bridge between European terrorism of the 1970s and Palestinian terrorism of the 1990s; and thus 2) making and penetrating a breach in liberal Western letters and forcing the reading public to accomodate itself to this new radical reality. I flattered myself that I would be the avant-garde in print while groups like Hamas would be the avant-garde on the ground.

How did I accommodate myself to the murder of Israeli innocents, you might ask? Simple. I would just mull an occasional phrase from Genet, Violence alone can put an end to the brutality of man.... or from Müller, When she walks through your bedrooms carrying butcher knives, you'll know the truth.... Like some little intellectual lozenge, it would reduce the irritation. For a little while.

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* * *

So, what happened? Well, I didn't exactly "go native"; I didn't, for example, join the International Solidarity Movement or start a family with a Palestinian woman (although the opportunities presented themselves). More modestly, I became conversant in a fair amount of Arab literature and film. I subscribed to Al-Jadid magazine. I bought and read the Koran. More practically, I became acquainted with certain Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists here in America.

By coincidence (and later by cultivation) I became chummy with relatives of a former director of the Arab Film Festival, and frequently attended AFF programs. Through a mutual friend I met (and briefly worked for) the radical National Lawyers' Guild and American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee activist Nancy Hormachea. In her practice she often represents asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Iran and Pakistan, although in her political activism she's a staunch opponent of Israeli policies towards Palestinians. By coincidence I was a classmate of Fadia Issam Rafeedie, the author of "An 'Apologia of Radicalism'" who turned her 2000 UC Berkeley valedictorian speech into a most egregious breach of academic decorum when she served as the figurehead of a mass protest, speaking "from her heart" in defiance against the commencement speaker, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
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In case you're wondering, there aren't any terribly racy tales of idealism and disillusionment to confess. I think I grew weary, then wary, then scared. I grew weary of hearing simplistic comparisons of the Israeli occupation to Nazism. Can't you do any better than that? I thought, eventually thinking, You know, you need to do better than that.... I grew wary when one of my Arab buddies "apologized" to me in the aftermath of a Hamas suicide (homicide) bombing. Do I really represent Jewry and Israel? For starters, I never, ever claimed to.... Does he represent Hamas(!)? He never claimed to, but -- beyond this being an obvious instance of a young man's conceit -- it seemed to reveal a continuity of opinion among Arabs. It seemed to reveal that possibly there was a divide (or at minimum, some vital difference) between me and them that I ought to not gloss over ... that I ought to work harder at figuring out ... that he also ought to work harder at figuring out....

Something else that added to my wariness was my attendance at a handful of sessions of a Jewish-Palestinian "dialogue group" that met in the Berkeley Hills. A derivative format of the feminist "consciousness-raising" group of the 1970s (which, as Andrea Dworkin states unapologetically in Heartbreak, was itself inspired by Communist China's Cultural Revolution) this "dialogue group" was overwhelmingly attended by Jews who endlessly professed their good intentions towards Palestinians. Typically a woman would make a somewhat strident speech about men being to blame for the escalation of violence (which, though partly true, is not the whole truth). One time a native-born Israeli woman tried to put into words her dread that Israel would no longer exist. One of the very few Palestinian attendees would affirm the need to understand how hard life under occupation was, and then make a pitch for the rest of us to purchase Palestinian olive oil. No one, however, (including me) dared ask perhaps the most pertinent question, How come so few Palestinians attended the "dialogue group"? The answer, as a Palestinian confidant told me, is that nearly all Palestinians she knew -- for the most part the secular Palestinian Left, the ostensible "partners in peace" -- nearly all of them despise such "dialogue groups." The "dialogue groups" don't accomplish anything. They're much ado about nothing. Or rather, they're very little ado about a whole hell of a lot.

What demonstrated definitively where my anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian sympathy was leading was a telephone conversation I had with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh (right). Shortly after he founded Al-Awda, "The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition," I contacted him to suggest offering some outside support to his effort to secure for the surviving Palestinian refugees of 1948 and all their living descendants the right to patriate within the State of Israel. After confiding to Qumsiyeh my idealistic hope for a "secular, democratic Palestine" he in turn confided that indeed this one-state, not a two-state, solution was his ultimate aim. Here was a meeting of minds I had long hoped for, but it also served as a real (albeit puny) "little drummer girl" moment. There, clear as a bell, was the looking glass. However, I decided not to go through it, and shied away from any further involvement or contact with Al-Awda.

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Most of what I just described happened before 9/11.

Precisely how that day added to the mix I'm not going to get into in this post. By way of beginning to build an intellectual bridge, however, from Palestinian terrorism of the 1990s to neoconservative counter-jihadism of the 21st Century, here are select readings that have made a difference.

In alphabetical order (and, for that matter, in no particular political order):

Berlinski, Claire. Menace In Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too.
Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism.
Hanson, Victor. An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism.
Hitchens, Christopher. Love, Poverty, and War.
Horowitz, David. Unholy Alliance.
Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban.
Scheuer, Mark. Imperial Hubris.
Steyn, Mark. America Alone.
Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower.

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* * *
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So here we are.

If you're already informed on the Iranian and Palestinian threat, then most of what's presented in The Islamic Mein Kampf will already be familiar. No sweat. Please then just take a minute and forward The Islamic Mein Kampf to all your contacts.

And if you believe that Iran, Palestine, and Islamic war against the West are not real, imminent threats, then I hope you watch The Islamic Mein Kampf. Watch it, consider it, and pursue its implications to their logical and moral ends.

May it bring you into a Vast, Classically Liberal Consensus -- which, by dispensing once and for all with left-wing apologies for terrorist tactics and terrorist ideologies -- is the only way the West will ever thwart Palestinian and, as Alexandra reminds, Iranian genocidal designs.

When Ronald Reagan quipped, "We begin bombing in five minutes," he was joking. Ahmedinejad, Nasrallah, Haniyeh -- they're not joking.

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Related: David Gartenstein-Ross's interview today in FrontPage Magazine, "My Year Inside Radical Islam."

Comments

[GM Roper]

JMK, I'm blown away my friend. What a terrific post. I've lived on the right since I became politically aware during the 1964 presidential election. You on the other hand came from left to right for reasons of intellect and patriotism. That makes you the braver man than I. Thanks for your effort and your courage in telling your story.

[JMK]

Thanks, George!

The truth will set everyone free (including the Palestinians).

[Yaacov Ben Moshe]

I, like you, am a former leftie (though not as left as you were). I was mugged by Islam early in the '80s and have been evolving (more slowly than you) ever since. I have started a blog which is focused on helping others in their evolution. I'd like to invite you to visit. I will be limking here. Hope you'll do the same.

[JMK]

Hi Yaacov,

Welcome. Thanks for visiting. I recall hearing about your blog a few weeks ago, and will return to it.

It's always good to reexamine sympathies and loyalties, to be able to leave things behind and move on. It's also good in order to be able to advise others who are trying to figure out their loyalties.

[Andrea]

It's great to see your story in print and so well written.

[JMK]

Andrea,
Thank you. It's just a beginning, set in motion by this new teaching tool.

[Yaacov Ben Moshe]

JMK,
Just in case you missit there, I posted this comment at http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009936.shtml
It is powerful to have beliefs and to stand up for them. It is more powerful to have values and to express them clearly in your actions. It is especially powerful when such a one as JMK is able to let his core (very Jewish)values interact with the truth and thereby drive and evolve his public beliefs.
Keep evolving- Amalek lives- we must be strong.

[JMK]

Yaacov, it's heartening to be acknowledged by (other) Jews. Many thanks.

[Cinnamon]

Wonderful, my friend. As a fellow traveler, this really hit home. But you came much farther along (considering where you started) than I did. Still amazes me, really...

[JMK]

Hey, thanks, Cinn.

It's not like I stalked around my apartment, thinking, "How do I kill Jews?" I felt there was no alternative except a "things falling apart" situation in which terrorism would continue to proliferate. A "zero tolerance" opinion about terrorism and also awareness of genocidal "new antisemitism" were not on my radat, then.

It was more like putting a finger as close to a flame as possible - seeing how much I could take before pulling back. Given the conspiratorial Marxism of years previous, this brushing up with the Arab left in America shouldn't be surprising. It was a way of looking for ways to keep the radical faith during a time of disillusionment and indecision.

In some, roundabout way I guess I was empirical! -:) And my general concern for Palestinian welfare has not changed. In fact, it's stronger than ever.

[JMK-II]

That's some journey and a real epiphany!

I commend you on it.

I lived on "Sunset Hill" Oakland Ave, Pelton Ave, etc) and had many Jewish neighbors there.

Brian Walsh and I (two track guys) were the token Irish (though I'm half Irish, half Italian myself)...it was a good neighborhood.

Anyway, before 9/11, I must confess that I thought very little about the Mideast or about Arab/israeli relations because I felt I had "no dog in that fight."

I had a vague sympathy for the Arabs, maybe because I perceived them as perennial losers ("the downtrodden") and I admit that there aspects of their sever justice (death for pedophiles, etc) that I liked, though there were others (death to adulteress women...and dhimmis) I decidedly did not.

I have been to a number of anti-terror seminars and have read things by the likes of Richard Miniter (Losing Bin Laden, Shadow War) and Paul Berman (Terror and Liberalism) and others of that vain and came away with a slight realization of how ignorant I was to Arab/Muslim culture and its discontents.

It took 9/11 and the loss of about fifty guys I knew to really wake me up to the realization that we'd ignored a war relentlessly waged against us since around 1993 (the first WTC bombing), if not before.

My primary focus now is on the surviva of the West, which I belive will require the eradication of what is commonly called "jihadism."

[JMK]

Thanks a whole lot for putting that out there, JMK-II. I was "so open-minded my brains fell out", you were less so.

50 guys.... I can't honestly imagine that day in NYC. I know a bunch were lost from the firehouse that I visited when I was a little boy, at E. 85th St. b/t 3rd & Lex.

As always, you boil the big issues down to a few no-b.s. sentences. Keep writing, friend.

[JMK-II]

The FDNY was, in effect, murdered that day.

They lost hundreds of years of irreplacable experience, experience that is usually passed down directly from one generation to the next.

It wasn't only the loss of the 343 firefighters killed that day (a staggering number) or the other 150 to 200 put off in the weeks to follow from various injuries, but the thousands who left in the year or two after - some due to lung ailments from searching the pile, and others because there was so much overtime, they just couldn't afford NOT to retire for their family's sake.

Many, many guys left before they wanted to.

At this time, there are fewer than 3000 guys (out of 12,000) on the FDNY who were on the job pre-9/11 and only a few hundred "dinosaurs" (like myself) with over twenty years on.

That attack decimated the FDNY...and many of those guys killed that day, they were among of the best of the best.

Words wouldn't do them justice, at least not my words.

[JMK]

Dec. 2001 a documentary aired introduced by Robert DeNiro (made from footage by two Frenchmen who rode with one compmany, you probably know it). It ends with "Danny Boy." Gimme shivers.

"Dinosaur"?: if the 3000 of you aren't looked up to, and in turn expected to be a kind of backbone fro the Department, then something's out of wack with the FDNY.

[JMK-II]

There aren't that many "dinosaurs" to go around any more and that's the problem.

I worked during the "Crack epidemic" and the Dinkins administration when there were a ton of vacant buildings that burned in the summer and over-populated inner city areas where fires were common in the colder months.

There was a rythm back then - spring & summer vacants and "practice fire" (they were a good learning environment) and fall and winter "occupied work."

Better still, I got to learn from guys who'd worked in the late 1960s and early 1970s - "the war years" when ONE THIRD of New York City's housing stock burned!

Those guys were awesome!

Now many firehouses have "senior men" with six or eight years on the job.

When I had ten years on, I was often the "junior man." It was a great way to learn, but those days are gone forever, it seems.

[JMK-II]

Oh, and I did get to see that film. Very powerful, each cameraman thought the other had been killed.

Actually, there was a copy of the rough footage going around to firehouses before that film came out.

I was struck by so many Engine Companies responding into the towers with hose.

You'd have thought early on that they'd have made evacuation the sole priority in that operation.

It was doubtful they were going to get water on that fire, any time soon, even if the buildings didn't collapse, with so much damage to the interior, including the building's the standpipe system.

They had a fifth alarm in each tower and by the time any evacuation orders were given, most of the companies were to far up the towers to be able to make it out, even if they were able to hear it - and with the repeater system damaged on impact, the analog radios weren't working well in those towers.

[JMK]

The most tragic images that stay with me of that footage is when the firemen in the lobby (one captain in particular, I think, trying to form some kind of command post) looking up in uncertainty towards the ceiling. That's where heaven should be, and it's about to become fire, rubble, and dust.

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Almost every six-story apartment building on my block had a fire in it in the 1970s. I quickly learned what firesmoke smelled like and at night would bolt out of bed as soon as I smelled anything like it. The first thing to do was check the streetlamps - Was any smoke billowing past their lights...?

While there was still access, I played on our tar paper roof, sometimes going building to building over the low brick walls that separated them. After fire gutted the building next door, for years that roof wasn't much more than a gaping charred hole - blackened beams, curled tar paper, etc. Rain would bring out the sooty smell. (In high school when we read The Odyssey, for the scene where O. shoves a burning log into the eye of the Cyclops, I imagined it being one of those charred beams.) A few years later renovation work brought out the chalky smell from demolished walls and fresh drywall.

Sound familiar?

***
btw, I think Bob DeNiro is half-Jewish, half-Italian.

[JMK]

In the South Bronx we dealt mainly with those huge H-type buildings (two or more wings, long court yards)...they were amazing buildings in that they took tremendous amounts of abuse.

We (L-44) were sought of in the middle of the Southwest Bronx (Morrisania) and there were a fair amount of multiple fire tours especially back in the late 80's and early 90's.

In the summer months both the Engine and the Ladder ran pretty much all night (the Engine for false alarms, etc) and the Truck for electrical & gas emergencies, water leaks, food-on-the-stoves, etc), often capped by a building fire around 4am.

It's an amazing thing to see the sun come up from the roof of a burned out tenement...it probably sounds weird, but it was really quite comforting, even beautiful in its own way - the fire out and the sun coming up...and everything seemingly right with the world.

It felt especially good if you were going home that morning.

[JMK-II]

Sorry...that should've been posted under JMK-II.

[Jeremayakovka]

Those old buildings could take it because they had a lot of solid brick?

There was a food-on-the-stove in our building once. Walking home from school, I heard the sirens ("Whatever"). Then they turned on to my block ("....") and stopped in front of my building ("Ah, shit!"). When I got the front door, a few firemen were plodding slowly down the stairs. One called out, "It's some lady in the kitchen..."

My mom had been pan-frying with butter instead of oil!

***

Bartender! Whatever he's having... Two of 'em.

[JMK-II]

That's funny!

Had to be scary.

No one wants to see firemen in their building...it can't be good.

Even food-on-the-stoves (10-26's) could be nasty. I've gone to some where the entire pot or pots had been destroyed - aluminum pot feeds were the worst - I know understand particulated aluminum can lead to alzheimers.

Sometimes a 10-26 could produce a lot of smoke, sometimes they even took the kitchen cabinets, curtains and contents of the room and produced a "kitchen fire."

Those were bad for the folks in the apartment because we'd have to pull the ceiling and open up the walls to make sure there were no hidden, smoldering pockets of fire there.

None of us wore SCBA's (self contained breathing apparatus) to 10-26's...or on roof operations, or car fires, etc.

But yeah, those old buildings were built great!

They sure took a lot of abuse. There was a fare amount of fire around the area I worked - our Engine Co (92) was always among the busiest in the city in OSW (occupied structural work) and our Ladder (44) was up there too...always in the top ten, often the top five...in fact we were #1 for two years in a row, I believe '97 & '98.

But the Crack epidemic and the Dinkins years ('89 - '93) were busier than any of those that came after, even though they were a lot less busy than those "war years" of the late 1960s and early '70s.

[Jeremayakovka]

I wish there were a "Barney Miller" - but about a firehouse!

[JMK-II]

That's funny you say that, there's a fireman who's also a stand-up commedian and he's in the process of pitching a sit-com to some folks out in Hollywood about that.

I know the guy and he's a real good guy, but a lot of NYC firemen would probably be understandly nervous after Dennis Leary's "quirky" representation of firefighters in "Rescue me."

[Jeremayakovka]

You probably know about http://www.learyfirefighters.org ?

Dennis Leary created the charitable organization, specifically to assist fire departments -- back in 2000.

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