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Just How Useful are the ‘Useful Idiots’?
Anti-Israel demonstrators protest, on the day of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of the US Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Seth Herald
JNS.org – Ever since political Zionism emerged at the end of the 19th century as a movement to create and sustain a Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel, it has encountered Jewish opposition to its goals. Some of these opponents were decently motivated but proven tragically wrong by history; some were driven by broader political beliefs and loyalties that they regarded as incompatible with Zionism; while some, particularly in the current generation, are just plain reprehensible, expressing a pathology that seeks the adoration of strangers by hatefully dissociating from their own community.
Jewish antagonism towards Zionism is not homogeneous. Particularly before the emergence of the independent State of Israel in 1948, there were bourgeois Jewish anti-Zionists who worried that Zionism would jeopardize their social position and encourage non-Jews to regard them as innately disloyal to their countries of citizenship. There were also proletarian Jewish anti-Zionists, wedded to a vision of socialism in which Jews would have, at best, “cultural autonomy.” Among American Jews, there was a section of the community that regarded the United States as the Promised Land, viewing the repeated references to “Zion” in Jewish liturgy as a purely spiritual aspiration, rather than as a part of the argument for the restitution of the biblical Land of Israel. Among many Haredi groups, Zionism was seen as a secular heresy.
Yet polling these days repeatedly shows that the vast majority of Jews, religious and secular, identify with and support Israel, and many of them are even more inclined to identify as “Zionists” in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas atrocities. Those trends I outlined above have largely faded among Jews around the world, with a new consensus forming following World War II that the Jews, like other peoples and nations, can live happily in a world that contains both a Jewish state and vibrant Jewish communities outside Israel’s borders.
But Jewish opposition to Zionism has not disappeared. As the number of Jews identifying as anti-Zionists has dwindled, the output of those who declare themselves anti-Zionists has become all the more venomous. Among pro-Israel Jews, it’s common to denounce such people as “self-haters” or as “useful idiots,” a phrase incorrectly attributed to Lenin to denote those Western liberals in thrall to the Soviet Union who played a “useful” role in advancing Moscow’s propaganda. But how “useful” are the Jewish anti-Zionists?
After 1945, Jewish anti-Zionism was largely the preserve of the left. Inside the Jewish state, its main proponents were found in the Israeli Communist Party (whose Jewish leader, Meir Wilner, signed the Declaration of Independence) which became militantly anti-Zionist as the Soviet Union increasingly aligned itself with the Arab states in their quest to annihilate Israel. However, at a time when anti-Zionists were much keener than they are now to deflect accusations of antisemitism, the Jewish anti-Zionists certainly had a useful role. “We as a party are … against the ideology and practice of Zionism, though you have to ask the question how to best fight against it,” Wilner told the East German Communist dictator Erich Honecker when they met in 1979. “This is about leading the struggle from the clear perspective of socialism and progress, and thus convincing the Jewish masses that the fight against Zionism is in their national interest. This is about making clear and convincing that anti-Zionism is not directed against the Jews.”
The idea that Jews of any social class in Israel would abandon their own state to become a minority in an Arab-dominated, Soviet-controlled republic was always outlandish. But for the Israeli Communists—and even the handful of Israelis further to the left, such as the Matzpen group that actively identified with Palestinian terrorist groups—the abiding belief was that Jews would be a welcome presence in the socialist Palestinian state that would replace Israel.
It is on this last point that the current crop of Jewish anti-Zionists has shifted. However ridiculous all the old slogans about a “joint struggle” with the Arabs against Zionism were, and however shameful the political alliances these beliefs nurtured, all this was preferable to what we have now. This generation of anti-Zionists fervently believes that Jews have no rightful place in the Middle East at all, regardless of who governs them.
In the last 20 years, social media has dramatically amplified the voices of the miniscule number of Jews who hold this position. Some readers might remember Israel Shamir, a Russian-Israeli writer who converted to Christianity and whom many were convinced was an agent of the Russian secret services, and Gilad Atzmon, an Israeli jazz musician who relocated to London, both of whom delighted in baiting other Jews with antisemitic tropes and who spoke and wrote about Israel in demonic terms, particularly during the wars in Gaza in 2008-09 and 2014. A decade on, Shamir and Atzmon have become pretty much invisible, but their inheritors are out there.
The best, and therefore the worst, current example of what I’m talking about is an individual I’d never heard of before the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. His name is Alon Mizrahi, and from what I can tell from his social-media presence, he is a former Israeli who quite literally sees his homeland as the root of all the evil in the world. In a sane environment, someone like this would have only a handful of followers, but Mizrahi has close to 100,000. His imbecilic posts are lauded by Hamas supporters and attract the ire of Jews. Even the identity he adopts—an “Arab Jew” because his family are Mizrahim—is scorned by other Jews of Mizrahi and Sephardi origin, me among them.
What distinguishes Mizrahi is the unvarnished pathology he displays. Whereas Meir Wilner was guilty of holding the ludicrous belief that the promise of the Soviet Union could sway the Jews away from Zionism, Mizrahi is guilty of spitting uncontrolled bile in their direction. In one post, he said the claim that the Nazis were driven by antisemitism is rooted in Jewish “narcissism.” In another post after last week’s release of three female Israeli hostages, he viciously mocked concerns about sexual abuse in captivity, in turn, sparked by the ordeals of the Israeli women raped and violated on Oct. 7. “Deep sense of disappointment in Israel: None of the returning hostages is pregnant,” he wrote.
The question persists: How useful is this latest iteration of “useful idiocy”? Not that useful. Unlike the PLO, Hamas doesn’t care whether it has Jewish cheerleaders since its goal is to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth. The millions across the globe who have attended pro-Hamas demonstrations similarly don’t care whether they are joined by dissenting Jews because theirs is the Palestinian cause, and Jews are simply in the way. There’s no need, anymore, for people on the left to protest that some of their best friends are Jews because in these circles, Jews are not a historically persecuted minority but the most affluent white community out there. Therefore, the function of someone like Alon Mizrahi is to entertain Hamas supporters when he trolls Jews and Jewish concerns, but nothing more than that. He may think of himself in heroic terms, but he is actually one of the clowns in the circus of the left.
If history is any guide, there will be other Jews and Israelis tempted to follow in the footsteps of Mizrahi and his forebears. At one time, I might have said that solid, informed political argument was the best way to win them over. But now, I would advise those friends and family members who love them to get them in front of a therapist. Because what today’s Jewish anti-Zionism shows us is it is no longer political. It is a mental disorder that traffics in antisemitic hate to win the respect and admiration of non-Jews. Don’t be that guy.
The post Just How Useful are the ‘Useful Idiots’? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote
Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.
Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.
Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”
“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”
Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.
UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.
Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.
“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.
“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”
I commend Paraguay and @SantiPenap for the landmark decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens… https://t.co/OzWACbWcno— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 24, 2025
On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”
The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.
“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.
Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.
Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.
“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.
“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.
“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”
During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”
At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.
The post Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’
Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.
For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.
One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”
The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.
These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference.
Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.
This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students.
Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.
As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.
These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.
McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction.
This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.
We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
The post Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.