Once again, the idiot left delivers up propaganda ammo to the reactionary New York Sun on a silver platter. Are these claims true? If they aren't, Al-Awda should sue. If they are, Al-Awda should be generally repudiated by the American left. But they won't be. The left seems incapable of grasping that incessant intonation of the "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism" mantra is utterly meaningless if we fail to oppose real anti-Semitism. From the Aug. 22 edition (just brought to our attention, emphasis added):

From London Class War, July 26:

HezBollocks and IsRabies:
A Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon
Class War is appalled at the carnage that is occurring in the Middle East. We are also disappointed but not surprised at what is being said about it, especially by some "progressive" organisations.

Text of a report in Arabic from the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, Aug. 31:

Syrian group threatens to copy Hezbollah's action, abduct Israeli soldiers

A secret organization in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights has threatened to abduct Israeli soldiers to swap them with Syrian prisoners in Israeli jails "if four of them were not released unconditionally." Midhat Salih, a former deputy for the Golan, told Al-Hayat yesterday that this organization's members "are a group of young men who want to copy Hezbollah's experience" in the heights that Israel has been occupying since 1967.

Media accounts have largely foused on Iran as the supplier of Hezbollah's missiles, with Syria merely serving as a transshipment point. But Israeli intelligence, mostly relying on forensic work at the impact sites, has reportedly determined that many of Hezbollah's rockets that hit Israel in the recent war were actually Syrian-made, or Russian missiles that had been supplied to Syria. (LAT, Aug. 31 via Assyrian International News Agency) The United Nations is also said to have reports that Syria continues to permit arms to cross its border into Lebanon, and Secretary General Kofi Annan plans to demand an end to the illegal traffic when he meets tomorrow with President Bashar al-Assad. (NYT, Aug. 31) Syria, which denies arming Hezbollah , has rejected the deployment of UN troops along its border with Lebanon. (AFP, Aug. 31)

From DPA, Aug. 31:

Damascus- Around 595 Druse clergymen from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights crossed into Syria Thursday for an annual pilgrimage to the holy Habil shrine at Zabadanto, a Red Cross official in Damascus said. The clerics crossed the Israeli-Syrian border at the Quneitra checkpoint, around 65 kilometres south of Damascus, in two groups and walked for about 300 metres while elderly men were transported by by UN buses, which was broadcast live on local television.

From the AP, Aug. 30:

DAMASCUS, Syria — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome in Syria, where he said Wednesday that the two countries will "build a new world" free of U.S. domination and vowed to one day "dig the grave of U.S. imperialism."

From the New York Times, Aug. 30:

Hit and Runs Leave 1 Dead and 13 Injured

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 — A hit-and-run driver careered through San Francisco and nearby Fremont on Tuesday, mowing down pedestrians and bicyclists, leaving at least one person dead and injuring more than a dozen, some seriously.

The below Aug. 30 AP account notes the growing use of the term "Islamic fascism" by the Bush administration and its amen chorus in recent days. The response has been predictable in the extreme, with lefties (e.g. The Huffington Post) calling it a "false historical analogy", and righties (e.g. the neo-interventionist William Shawcross on the website of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council) insisting "Yes, the Problem is 'Islamic Fascism'." Both, we fear, are missing the point. We've noted before the western left's unseemly illusions about Islamic extremism, and we don't think the term "Islamic fascism" is necessarily all that inaccurate. We just think it is hilariously ironic coming from Bush.