Lately I've had the pleasure of wandering around left-leaning blogs of principle. It's refreshing to find them -- I had feared the principled leftist had been drowned completely in this sea of Bush-Hatred Derangement Syndrome (BHDS) we seem to find here and abroad.

Of course, they all were "abroad."

All of this led me to Hak Mao, who, writing about the sex abuse trials on Pitcairn Island (yes, that chunk o' rock where Fletcher Christian, crew from the HMS Bounty, and various Tahitian babes settled) observes:

It fascinates me that it is always the rights of women which are abrogated. Women are always the objects, denied education, expected to submit to male power. The term "Cultural differences" is shorthand, the get-out-of-gaol-free card, for the sort of thing nice middle class people would not like to happen to themselves or their children, but that's alright, it's happening to other people and other people's children over there somewhere where we can't see. Have another Chardonnay.

Amen.

It's just their way, you know? Who are we to judge or interfere?

I think of that as regarding Iraq, but it also segues nicely into the topic of Israel and the PLO: One one side, every bad act can be explained and justified by adversity and culture. We turn our heads and ignore the abuse of women, gays, minorities, or even children. It's okay if other people's children are being sent to blow themselves up.

It's just their way, you know? Who are we to judge or interfere?

On the other side, we apply a completely different set of standards, judging Israel not just by the criteria we expect of civilized nations -- that I agree with completely -- but by some higher, and often moving, set of ethical standards. Ones we ourselves would never agree nor adhere to.

To that, I'd add these interesting observations from over at Harry's Place, written about his own history of socialist thought and action:

Over the past ten years though and intensifying since the start of the second intifidah, there has been a change in the position of many on the British and European left. Not only because no-one talks the language of worker’s unity anymore but because criticism of the actions of the Israeli state is no longer merely criticism and support for a Palestinian state is no longer simply support for a Palestinian state.

The criticism of Israel has gradually become demonisation. Israel is an ‘apartheid state’, a ‘colony’, Zionism is racism. Now it is not at all uncommon to hear the most deliberately hurtful, provocative and malicious false charge of all – that the actions of the Jews of Israel are comparable to those of the Nazis who exterminated six million Jews ( a view which is music to the ears of holocaust revisionists). Gross distortions of the history of Israel and the Zionist movement are widely circulated and by no means exclusively on the far left or the far right.

The demonisation of Israel has been spread on the British left most prominently by the Socialist Workers Party, a group who do not support a two-state solution but instead call for a single Palestinian state – the end of Israel. Along with extremist Islamist groups they have quite successfully turned the genuine humanitarian and internationalist solidarity with the plight of the Palestinians into a hateful campaign of vilification against the whole notion of a Jewish state. Instead of fantasy-Bolshevik sloganeering we now have the parroting of the rhetoric of the most reactionary of Islamist movements in the Middle East. The terrorist group Hamas, despite a charter which contains the most explicit examples of Nazi-style anti-semitism and despite a policy of deliberately targeting civilians, are now considered fighters against oppression by large sections of liberal and left opinion.

The conflict has been transformed into one between ‘good people’ (Palestinians) and ‘bad people’ (Israelis or Zionists). The only Jews who seem able to avoid the broadbrush of guilt are those who agree that the Israel should surrender and be abolished, people routinely described as ‘brave’ without any explanation of what makes such a position, with its potentially calamitous outcome for Israelis, courageous.

Added into this poisonous mixture are the old claims of the existence of secretive but powerful Jewish ‘lobbies’, the notion of the cabal of Jews as the dark masters controlling the ‘puppets’ who rule over us in politics, the economy and the media. It is little wonder then that we are seeing the reappearance in some parts of Europe of old-style anti-semitism. What few would have predicted is that so much of this racist propaganda is coming from the left.

Smart guy. Good writer, and I enjoy his stuff (would enjoy it more if I could buy the underlying socialist premise). Seems like a nice guy too. And the whole piece is interesting and worth a read. But how do you get this final point that wrong?

Although antisemitism and other forms of racism are certainly not unknown among Christians and other flavors of conservatives, in modern times antisemitism has always found its peak virulence among the left. What do you think Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and her eugenicist peers were? Conservatives? Who would have thought Germany's National Socialist Party were... uh... socialists? And is Harry unaware of Stalin's attempt to ignite his own little holocaust?

And look at the later parallels:

In August 1967, a propaganda campaign is unleashed in the Soviet media denouncing Zionism and Israel. No distinction at all is made between Zionists and Jews.

In order to discredit the policy of Israel, anti-Semitic stereotypes dating back centuries appear in political cartoons, books and television programs. Anti-Semitic allegations of a "Jewish world conspiracy" are revived in phrases like "the global international Zionist network," active "behind the scenes" attempting to "establish world control" and supported by "smart dealers in politics and finance." The international broadcasts from Radio Moscow for months assail "Zionism" as the greatest danger to world peace.

Particularly vicious is the equation of Zionism with Nazism, a theme introduced by the Soviet Union in a session of the United Nations as early as October 1966.

It's all been done before.

And I suspect, like economic privation, this is actually a fundamental aspect of extreme leftism which must recur, regardless of the good intentions of the more sensible and well-meaning leftists.

UPDATE: Jim Lindgren points to a poll that shows in the US, in the '30s, that while both US Republicans and Democrats thought Jews were at least partially responsible for their problems, Democrats favored "a widespread campaign against the Jews in this country" 25-45% more than Republicans.