PolicyWatch 1303
Britain and Zionism: Then and Now
Policy #1303November 13, 2007
On November 2, 2007 -- the ninetieth anniversary of the
Balfour Declaration -- Michael Makovsky, Gerard Baker, and Simon
Henderson addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Dr.
Makovsky is foreign policy director of the new Bipartisan Policy Center
and author of Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft (2007).
Mr. Baker is U.S. editor for the Times of London. Mr. Henderson, a
former journalist with the Financial Times, is a Baker fellow and
director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at The Washington Institute. The following is a rapporteur's summary of their remarks.
MICHAEL MAKOVSKY
On November 2, 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, a classified statement of support for establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Britain was an unlikely sponsor of the Zionist initiative, considering that it was the first European country to expel its Jewish population in 1290, and that it did not grant full political emancipation to Jews until 1871. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, British evangelicals began supporting the idea of a Jewish homeland because the "second coming" could occur only after the Jews had returned to the Holy Land. The idea came under serious government consideration during World War I because of exaggerated ideas about Jewish influence in Western societies (including the United States) and the availability of captured Ottoman territory (the British seizure of Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, greatly bolstered this support).
Winston Churchill's policies with regard to the Balfour Declaration provide a good starting point from which to understand British policy in the Middle East. Before World War I, he was drawn to the romantic notion of a Jewish restoration to the Holy Land. As the war came to an end, however, he opposed partitioning the Ottoman Empire into European mandates, viewing it as a means of countering the rising power of Soviet Russia even in defeat. And in 1921, using his authority as secretary of state for the colonies, he designated three-fourths of Palestine as a kingdom for Abdullah, the Hashemite prince who had fought alongside T. E. Lawrence -- who Churchill greatly admired.
When Churchill traveled to Cairo that year to formalize an agreement, however, he changed his favorable opinion of the Arabs and came to regard the Jewish people as collaborators in the mission to civilize the world. At that time, he became an avid Zionist and remained one for the rest of his life.
For much of the 1930s, subsequent British administrations discouraged Jewish emigration to Palestine, and Churchill himself was preoccupied with the Nazis, Italy's political alignment, and the deterioration of the British Empire. Nevertheless, he supported Zionism and equated appeasing the Arabs in Palestine with the appeasement of Hitler. In 1940, as prime minister, he encouraged Jewish emigration to Palestine and armed Jewish groups to defend themselves against Arab fighters. He worked diligently on a postwar settlement that would create a Jewish state by force, if necessary, but failed because of the opposition of the Saudi king and President Franklin Roosevelt. Once Churchill left office in 1945, the British government reverted to a strongly anti-Zionist, pro-Arab stance, despite its shared socialist orientation with Zionism.
After Israel's war of independence, Churchill announced that the country's creation was a great event in world history. Upon reassuming power in 1951, he tried to bring British foreign policy more in line with supporting the interests of the new Jewish state.
GERARD BAKER
According to a 2005 poll conducted by the Daily Telegraph, British citizens view Israel as one of the countries most threatening to world peace, one of the least desirable places to visit or live, and -- in what is a truly remarkable evaluation -- one of the world's least democratic states. Even Britain's largest university teachers' union recently voted to boycott relations with Israeli universities. Given these trends, one has to wonder why both the intellectual elite and the broader English population have such deeply entrenched anti-Israeli views.
One reason could be the ninety-year decline of modern British Christianity, a religious strand sympathetic to Zionism. Another possible reason is the slant of British media. The BBC, which plays an extraordinary role in shaping British elite and popular opinion, is profoundly anti-Zionist. At times, BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes the network appear to be an apologist for Palestinian suicide bombers. Sympathy for Israel certainly declined after 1967, when the image of persecuted Jews gave way to the image of persecuting Israelis. The conflicts in 1973 and 1982 further affected British public opinion, but the Lebanon war in 2006 did more than any previous development to tilt British opinion in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel.
Despite increasingly vehement anti-Zionist sentiment at home, British policy in the Middle East has not changed to reflect public opinion. At the political level, despite clear changes in the increasingly anti-Zionist Labour government, Britain remains undeniably pro-Jewish. Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and now Gordon Brown have been steadfastly supportive of Israel. But in any democratic government, policy will almost always be aligned with public opinion in the long run. Paradoxically enough, the British public -- which has tended to support the Palestinians following past suicide attacks against Israelis -- has become less hostile toward Israel amid the recent decrease in such attacks.
Gordon Brown is personally pro-Jewish, religious, and committed to working with the United States and Israel. Despite a strong first three months in office, however, his recent apparent weakness -- revealed when he retracted his decision to hold early elections when it appeared his party would not prevail -- has cost him public support. Brown is now prey to the media and public opinion, while Blair's continued presence as a public figure limits his options.
SIMON HENDERSON
In the 1960s, many English students traveled to Israel to volunteer at kibbutzim. Today, their counterparts are more likely to volunteer for Palestinian causes. Indeed, there has been a clear shift away from the Britain that backed the Balfour Declaration to a Britain that is wary of Zionism.
Prime Minister Brown is considered a leader who acts on opinion polls, not convictions.
Nevertheless, he has publicly declared that Israel will always be Britain's ally, and he expressed revulsion at the academic boycott of Israeli universities. At the same time, the website of the British Foreign Office contains no significant mention of the Balfour Declaration, and very little mention of Arthur James Balfour himself. The prime minister's website, however, has a whole page on Balfour.
Zionism has become a dirty word in Britain. No member of the British royal family has ever officially visited Israel. British relations with Israel have never been good, and now are uncomfortable. And there is a widespread perception among Britons that it is possible to be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. Clearly, the relationship between Britain and Zionism remains, at best, ambiguous.
-------------------------------------------------------------
This is something out of Alice in Wonderland. The Islamic Republic of Iran, born in 1979, has not attacked another country. (With U.S. help, Iraq attacked Iran in 1980.) In contrast, Israel has attacked its Arab neighbors several times its founding, including two devastating invasions and a long occupation of Lebanon, not to mention repeated onslaughts in the Gaza Strip and the military occupation of the West Bank. Israel has also repeatedly threatened war against Iran and engaged in covert and proxy warfare, including the assassination of scientists. Even with Iran progressing toward a nuclear agreement, Israel (like the United States) continues to threaten Iran.
Yet Iran is universally cast as the villain (with scant evidence) and Israel the vulnerable victim.
You’d never know that Iran favors turning the Middle East into a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone (a nuclear-weapons-free zone was first proposed by the U.S.-allied shah of Iran and Egypt in 1974), and beyond that, Iran over a decade ago offered a “grand bargain” that contained provisions to reassure the world about its nuclear program and an offer to recognize Israel, specifically, acceptance of the Arab League’s 2002 peace initiative. The George W. Bush administration rebuffed Iran.
At the last NPT review conference in 2010, Iran renewed its support for the zone, the BBC reported at the time: “Tehran supports the ‘immediate and unconditional’ implementation of the 1995 resolution [to create the zone], declares the [then] president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
The United States and Israel claim in principle to support having the Middle East free of nuclear weapons — but not just yet. The Israeli government said in 2010 that implementation of the principle could occur “only after peace agreements with all the countries in the region.” ABC News quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that Israel might sign the NPT “if the Middle East one day advances to a messianic age where the lion lies down with the lambs.”
That is classic Netanyahu demagoguery. As noted, the Arab League in 2002 — and again in 2007 — offered to recognize Israel if it accepted a Palestinian state in the occupied territories and arrived at a “just solution to the Palestinian Refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” At that point the Arab countries would “consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region”; i.e., they would “establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.”
Thus Netanyahu’s position is a sham. He could have peace treaties in short order if he wanted to. But, as he said before the recent elections, he will never allow the Palestinians to have their own country.
For its part, the United States “broadly agrees with Israel that conditions for a nuclear-weapons-free-zone do not yet exist in the Middle East,” the BBC reported. In other words, the Obama administration slavishly takes the Israel-AIPAC line.
While politicians and pundits lose sleep over an Iranian nuclear-weapons program that does not exist — are they having nightmares of the United States being deterred by Iran? — they support Israel, the nuclear power that brutalizes a captive population, attacks its neighbors, threatens war against Iran, and refuses to talk peace with willing partners.
Sheldon Richman keeps the blog “Free Association” and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomo Sand Books: The Invention of the Jewish People
The Invention of the Land of Israel
How I stopped being a Jew
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There is still a great deal more that has to be filled in in this story of disaster in Palestine and the middle east, but the end needs to be about the subject matter of the heading: Jake Lynch, Nick Riemer, University of Sydney, Zionism.
Not that long ago there were conspiracy theorists who, combined with their anti-semitism, declared the Jews had taken over the world or were busy taking over the world, and discussions along those lines.
What has happened with zionists around the world?
Universities - once those great seats of learning and open thought processes - now sack academics who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and do their best to provide information to the world at large as to what apartheid zionist Israel is doing to cause the genocide of the Palestinians. Campaigns are launched to silence the voices of dissent and anybody who breaks ranks is anti-semitic and worse - such as self-hating Jews and other choice epithets. "Universities" in countries all over the world include zionist controls in France, Spain, UK, USA, Australia, South Africa and many others. Insidious zionist propaganda suggests that supporters of a free Palestine are anti-semitic and placing Jews around the world at risk of verbal and physical abuse and worse. This pernicious campaign is waged from Israel with the idea that all Jews around the world will be intimidated and leave theeir country of domicile and move to Israel!!
All of this is part of the zionist activities around the world supported by so many of our governments whose ultimate goals themselves re to get rid of the Jews and pack them off to Israel, whether they want to or not.
World powers, large and small, have pinned their colours to the mast of zionism and Israel and to say otherwise is being the traitor and must be dealt with accordingly.
Enter Jake Lynch and Nick Riemer - some of the Australians caught in the maelstrom of zionist politics.
What has been happening with them - and others of their persuasions and beliefs - shows the forces at play by zionists - Jewish, Christian and other denominations - who believe that Israel - the "only democracy in the middle east" - must exist as a homeland for all Jews throughout the world. Anti-semitism - propagated and assisted and spouted by Israeli governments - will assist Jews to move to Israel permanently as life becomes untenable in their homelands.
The main problem with this is that half the world's very small Jewish population of about 13 million stays where it is in countries scattered around the globe and do NOT want to move to Israel! My belief continues to be that the British christians who started in all in the mid-19th century saw it as a way to solve the Jewish question by getting them out of Britain and Europe permanently and into Palestine which really did not belong to any of them to dispose of as they wished - but no matter, they did it anyway!
Jake Lynch and Nick Riemer, amongst many hundreds of others, have got in the way - free Palestine and human rights for all in middle eastern and other countries - not to be considered under any circumstances - it is all anti-semitism writ large!
MICHAEL MAKOVSKY
On November 2, 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, a classified statement of support for establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Britain was an unlikely sponsor of the Zionist initiative, considering that it was the first European country to expel its Jewish population in 1290, and that it did not grant full political emancipation to Jews until 1871. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, British evangelicals began supporting the idea of a Jewish homeland because the "second coming" could occur only after the Jews had returned to the Holy Land. The idea came under serious government consideration during World War I because of exaggerated ideas about Jewish influence in Western societies (including the United States) and the availability of captured Ottoman territory (the British seizure of Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, greatly bolstered this support).
Winston Churchill's policies with regard to the Balfour Declaration provide a good starting point from which to understand British policy in the Middle East. Before World War I, he was drawn to the romantic notion of a Jewish restoration to the Holy Land. As the war came to an end, however, he opposed partitioning the Ottoman Empire into European mandates, viewing it as a means of countering the rising power of Soviet Russia even in defeat. And in 1921, using his authority as secretary of state for the colonies, he designated three-fourths of Palestine as a kingdom for Abdullah, the Hashemite prince who had fought alongside T. E. Lawrence -- who Churchill greatly admired.
When Churchill traveled to Cairo that year to formalize an agreement, however, he changed his favorable opinion of the Arabs and came to regard the Jewish people as collaborators in the mission to civilize the world. At that time, he became an avid Zionist and remained one for the rest of his life.
For much of the 1930s, subsequent British administrations discouraged Jewish emigration to Palestine, and Churchill himself was preoccupied with the Nazis, Italy's political alignment, and the deterioration of the British Empire. Nevertheless, he supported Zionism and equated appeasing the Arabs in Palestine with the appeasement of Hitler. In 1940, as prime minister, he encouraged Jewish emigration to Palestine and armed Jewish groups to defend themselves against Arab fighters. He worked diligently on a postwar settlement that would create a Jewish state by force, if necessary, but failed because of the opposition of the Saudi king and President Franklin Roosevelt. Once Churchill left office in 1945, the British government reverted to a strongly anti-Zionist, pro-Arab stance, despite its shared socialist orientation with Zionism.
After Israel's war of independence, Churchill announced that the country's creation was a great event in world history. Upon reassuming power in 1951, he tried to bring British foreign policy more in line with supporting the interests of the new Jewish state.
GERARD BAKER
According to a 2005 poll conducted by the Daily Telegraph, British citizens view Israel as one of the countries most threatening to world peace, one of the least desirable places to visit or live, and -- in what is a truly remarkable evaluation -- one of the world's least democratic states. Even Britain's largest university teachers' union recently voted to boycott relations with Israeli universities. Given these trends, one has to wonder why both the intellectual elite and the broader English population have such deeply entrenched anti-Israeli views.
One reason could be the ninety-year decline of modern British Christianity, a religious strand sympathetic to Zionism. Another possible reason is the slant of British media. The BBC, which plays an extraordinary role in shaping British elite and popular opinion, is profoundly anti-Zionist. At times, BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes the network appear to be an apologist for Palestinian suicide bombers. Sympathy for Israel certainly declined after 1967, when the image of persecuted Jews gave way to the image of persecuting Israelis. The conflicts in 1973 and 1982 further affected British public opinion, but the Lebanon war in 2006 did more than any previous development to tilt British opinion in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel.
Despite increasingly vehement anti-Zionist sentiment at home, British policy in the Middle East has not changed to reflect public opinion. At the political level, despite clear changes in the increasingly anti-Zionist Labour government, Britain remains undeniably pro-Jewish. Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and now Gordon Brown have been steadfastly supportive of Israel. But in any democratic government, policy will almost always be aligned with public opinion in the long run. Paradoxically enough, the British public -- which has tended to support the Palestinians following past suicide attacks against Israelis -- has become less hostile toward Israel amid the recent decrease in such attacks.
Gordon Brown is personally pro-Jewish, religious, and committed to working with the United States and Israel. Despite a strong first three months in office, however, his recent apparent weakness -- revealed when he retracted his decision to hold early elections when it appeared his party would not prevail -- has cost him public support. Brown is now prey to the media and public opinion, while Blair's continued presence as a public figure limits his options.
SIMON HENDERSON
In the 1960s, many English students traveled to Israel to volunteer at kibbutzim. Today, their counterparts are more likely to volunteer for Palestinian causes. Indeed, there has been a clear shift away from the Britain that backed the Balfour Declaration to a Britain that is wary of Zionism.
Prime Minister Brown is considered a leader who acts on opinion polls, not convictions.
Nevertheless, he has publicly declared that Israel will always be Britain's ally, and he expressed revulsion at the academic boycott of Israeli universities. At the same time, the website of the British Foreign Office contains no significant mention of the Balfour Declaration, and very little mention of Arthur James Balfour himself. The prime minister's website, however, has a whole page on Balfour.
Zionism has become a dirty word in Britain. No member of the British royal family has ever officially visited Israel. British relations with Israel have never been good, and now are uncomfortable. And there is a widespread perception among Britons that it is possible to be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. Clearly, the relationship between Britain and Zionism remains, at best, ambiguous.
-------------------------------------------------------------
CounterPunch
Israel's Dangerous Shell Game
The Real Nuclear Threat in the Middle East
To get a sense of how badly the regime in Iran wants sanctions relief for the Iranian people, you have to do more than contemplate the major concessions it has made in negotiations with the United States and the rest of the P5+1. Not only is Iran willing to dismantle a major part of its peaceful civilian nuclear program, to submit to the most intrusive inspects, to redesign a reactor, to eliminate two-thirds of its centrifuges, to get rid of much of its enriched uranium, and to limit nuclear research — it must do all this while being harangued by the nuclear monopolist of the Middle East — Israel — which remains, unlike Iran, a nonsigner of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and faces no inspections or limits on its production of nuclear weapons.This is something out of Alice in Wonderland. The Islamic Republic of Iran, born in 1979, has not attacked another country. (With U.S. help, Iraq attacked Iran in 1980.) In contrast, Israel has attacked its Arab neighbors several times its founding, including two devastating invasions and a long occupation of Lebanon, not to mention repeated onslaughts in the Gaza Strip and the military occupation of the West Bank. Israel has also repeatedly threatened war against Iran and engaged in covert and proxy warfare, including the assassination of scientists. Even with Iran progressing toward a nuclear agreement, Israel (like the United States) continues to threaten Iran.
Yet Iran is universally cast as the villain (with scant evidence) and Israel the vulnerable victim.
You’d never know that Iran favors turning the Middle East into a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone (a nuclear-weapons-free zone was first proposed by the U.S.-allied shah of Iran and Egypt in 1974), and beyond that, Iran over a decade ago offered a “grand bargain” that contained provisions to reassure the world about its nuclear program and an offer to recognize Israel, specifically, acceptance of the Arab League’s 2002 peace initiative. The George W. Bush administration rebuffed Iran.
At the last NPT review conference in 2010, Iran renewed its support for the zone, the BBC reported at the time: “Tehran supports the ‘immediate and unconditional’ implementation of the 1995 resolution [to create the zone], declares the [then] president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
The United States and Israel claim in principle to support having the Middle East free of nuclear weapons — but not just yet. The Israeli government said in 2010 that implementation of the principle could occur “only after peace agreements with all the countries in the region.” ABC News quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that Israel might sign the NPT “if the Middle East one day advances to a messianic age where the lion lies down with the lambs.”
That is classic Netanyahu demagoguery. As noted, the Arab League in 2002 — and again in 2007 — offered to recognize Israel if it accepted a Palestinian state in the occupied territories and arrived at a “just solution to the Palestinian Refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” At that point the Arab countries would “consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region”; i.e., they would “establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.”
Thus Netanyahu’s position is a sham. He could have peace treaties in short order if he wanted to. But, as he said before the recent elections, he will never allow the Palestinians to have their own country.
For its part, the United States “broadly agrees with Israel that conditions for a nuclear-weapons-free-zone do not yet exist in the Middle East,” the BBC reported. In other words, the Obama administration slavishly takes the Israel-AIPAC line.
While politicians and pundits lose sleep over an Iranian nuclear-weapons program that does not exist — are they having nightmares of the United States being deterred by Iran? — they support Israel, the nuclear power that brutalizes a captive population, attacks its neighbors, threatens war against Iran, and refuses to talk peace with willing partners.
Sheldon Richman keeps the blog “Free Association” and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomo Sand Books: The Invention of the Jewish People
The Invention of the Land of Israel
How I stopped being a Jew
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There is still a great deal more that has to be filled in in this story of disaster in Palestine and the middle east, but the end needs to be about the subject matter of the heading: Jake Lynch, Nick Riemer, University of Sydney, Zionism.
Not that long ago there were conspiracy theorists who, combined with their anti-semitism, declared the Jews had taken over the world or were busy taking over the world, and discussions along those lines.
What has happened with zionists around the world?
Universities - once those great seats of learning and open thought processes - now sack academics who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and do their best to provide information to the world at large as to what apartheid zionist Israel is doing to cause the genocide of the Palestinians. Campaigns are launched to silence the voices of dissent and anybody who breaks ranks is anti-semitic and worse - such as self-hating Jews and other choice epithets. "Universities" in countries all over the world include zionist controls in France, Spain, UK, USA, Australia, South Africa and many others. Insidious zionist propaganda suggests that supporters of a free Palestine are anti-semitic and placing Jews around the world at risk of verbal and physical abuse and worse. This pernicious campaign is waged from Israel with the idea that all Jews around the world will be intimidated and leave theeir country of domicile and move to Israel!!
All of this is part of the zionist activities around the world supported by so many of our governments whose ultimate goals themselves re to get rid of the Jews and pack them off to Israel, whether they want to or not.
World powers, large and small, have pinned their colours to the mast of zionism and Israel and to say otherwise is being the traitor and must be dealt with accordingly.
Enter Jake Lynch and Nick Riemer - some of the Australians caught in the maelstrom of zionist politics.
What has been happening with them - and others of their persuasions and beliefs - shows the forces at play by zionists - Jewish, Christian and other denominations - who believe that Israel - the "only democracy in the middle east" - must exist as a homeland for all Jews throughout the world. Anti-semitism - propagated and assisted and spouted by Israeli governments - will assist Jews to move to Israel permanently as life becomes untenable in their homelands.
The main problem with this is that half the world's very small Jewish population of about 13 million stays where it is in countries scattered around the globe and do NOT want to move to Israel! My belief continues to be that the British christians who started in all in the mid-19th century saw it as a way to solve the Jewish question by getting them out of Britain and Europe permanently and into Palestine which really did not belong to any of them to dispose of as they wished - but no matter, they did it anyway!
Jake Lynch and Nick Riemer, amongst many hundreds of others, have got in the way - free Palestine and human rights for all in middle eastern and other countries - not to be considered under any circumstances - it is all anti-semitism writ large!
PayPal, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, serves as the main financial tool for transferring money to American hate groups, and it earns fees on every transaction that vary in size according to a variety of factors. Research conducted by the Intelligence Report finds that at least 69 of the hate groups listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) rely on PayPal to help finance their activities.
The irony is that PayPal bans such activity in its terms of service. PayPal says that its policy “regarding payments for goods and services that may promote hate, violence, or intolerance” considers the following factors: 1) The promotion or glorification of hate, violence or intolerance because of a person’s race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation; 2) any graphic portrayal of violence or victims of violence; and 3) previous activity associated with the account holder. It specifically bans the sale of “[i]tems containing Nazi, SS, or Ku Klux Klan symbols, including authentic German WWII memorabilia.”
PayPal responded to the Report’s request for comment by asking for a list of hate sites using the service. “You are correct that PayPal does not allow the use of our service for the payment for goods or services that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance,” wrote Peter Gau of PayPal’s media department. “Though we can’t comment on specific accounts due to our privacy policy, we do review accounts which have been flagged to aupviolations@paypal.com for possible breaches of this important provision of our Acceptable Use Policy, and take action if appropriate. I encourage you to send the names of the sites you mention to this email address so our team can review” them. At press time, it wasn’t clear if PayPal had cut off service to any sites on the SPLC list or, if so, how many were affected.
Other Fish in the Sea
PayPal is not the only merchant service that serves hate groups, however inadvertently. Over at Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, it’s possible for hate sites to earn money in a number of ways. Hate groups can and do advertise qualifying Amazon products on their own sites and earn commissions of up to 10%. A neo-Nazi site, for instance, could advertise books about World War II sold by major publishers and earn fees for referring its supporters to Amazon to buy them. In addition, even without advertising specific Amazon products, hate sites can and do encourage their visitors to do all their shopping at Amazon via portals on the hate sites, again generating significant commissions for the sites’ operators.
Take the blog VDARE.com, named after Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas and a potent symbol for white nationalists. VDARE specializes in bashing non-white immigrants and is home to such illuminating essays as “IQ: Why Africa is Africa — and Haiti Haiti.” In December, VDARE was carrying a banner ad atop its front page reading, “Amazon.com: Stop by Christmas Corner,” and linking to holiday products on Amazon’s site. On the same front page, VDARE implored supporters, “Remember to enter Amazon via the VDARE.com link and we get a commission on any purchases you make—at no cost to you!”
It’s not publicly known how much money VDARE earns from its relationship with Amazon, but it is likely a fair amount. In the case of the white nationalist book-selling site Counter-Currents Publishing, the site’s operators reported in December that it had earned nearly $20,000 through its referrals to Amazon.
Counter-Currents puts it like this: “[T]here is a way for you to help Counter-Currents all year ’round: our Amazon.com Affiliate program. Wouldn’t it be great if you could choose where your sales taxes go? Well, Amazon.com’s Affiliate Program allows you to earmark 7% of your Amazon purchases to Counter Currents at no additional cost to you. That is about the average sales tax that Americans pay,” reads the copy on their site. “It’s simple: just enter Amazon.com from Counter-Currents, and we will receive a cut of anything you buy during that visit at no additional cost to you. That’s anything you buy, from books to DVDs to diapers.” The publishing house says that for about two years it had made about $200 a month through Amazon, but that that number tripled in August of last year.
Counter-Currents, which sells such books as The Jewish Strategy by deceased Holocaust denier Revilo Oliver and collections of essays like those of the late neo-Nazi leader William Pierce, is run by two stalwarts of the white supremacist movement. The group’s longtime webmaster, Michael Polignano, praised Pierce during a 2004 speech to the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, run by former Klan leader David Duke. Earlier, in 2000, Polignano set off a firestorm of controversy when, while an undergraduate at Emory University, he wrote an editorial in the student newspaper arguing that “intelligence is primarily a matter of genetics and that the races differ considerably in their intelligence.”
Polignano’s partner, Counter-Currents editor Greg Johnson, has written such essays as one praising the late British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Another Johnson essay described a dystopian future for America with “racial conflict exacerbated by massive non-white immigration, blatant anti-white discrimination, and desperate economic scarcity; and, of course, the ruinous costs of a new series of wars and interventions in the neighborhood of Israel.”
The group also solicits donations through a PayPal account. As of November 2013, Counter-Currents said it had raised nearly $40,000 through that account.
‘Taking Appropriate Action’
Another site that refers supporters to Amazon in return for commissions is the Pioneer Little Europe Kalispell Montana blog. Run by well-known neo-Nazi activist April Gaede, the blog is committed to “creating racially conscious White communities” in Kalispell and elsewhere. In December, it was advertising a radical survivalist book sold on Amazon, Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse. Similarly, Bob’s Underground Graduate Seminar blog, which is dedicated to “fighting white genocide,” makes referrals to Amazon to fund its activities.
The Report contacted Amazon in September about the participation of hate groups and hate sites in Amazon programs that earn them commissions. Amazon said it would assign “appropriate teams to investigate, review applicable policies, and take appropriate action” but that it would not give out “information about any action taken.” Three months later, in early December, the Counter-Currents and VDARE hate sites were still earning commissions through Amazon.
For hate groups like Stormfront that have been banned from PayPal there are other options for online money transfers. Stormfront now uses something called eWebcarts.com, an online service that does not appear to be used by any of the other hate sites reviewed by the Report. It is unclear who runs eWebcarts, as it is registered to a proxy and no information about the site appears online.
Another option, this one used by a Tennessee-based white supremacist radio show entitled “The Political Cesspool,” is Authorize.net. The racist Sons of Aesir Motorcycle Club uses something called miiduu.com, which also accepts PayPal accounts. The virulently anti-gay organization called You Can Run But You Cannot Hide is powered by Volusion. And North East White Pride, a group of New England neo-Nazis, uses Merchant One. But by and large, PayPal is the service of choice.