Jewcer Roi Ben-Yehuda wrote up his recent trip to Barcelona for Haaretz. If youEuropean Antisemitism: Straight up, no chaser want to see antisemitism done right --- or if you want to restore your confidence in the importance of Zionism --- go to Europe and then wait around a while:

If the presence of swastikas were not enough, Barcelona also has the dubious honor of being home to Europe's most infamous neo-Nazi bookstore, brazenly titled "Europa Bookstore: Persecuted Books - The Truth Will Set You Free."...

The books in the store were a literary mix covering revisionism, fascism, Israel-bashing, Hitler-praising, anti-immigration and homophobia. To this was added DVDs and CDs of Hitler's "greatest hits."

In my best Spanglish, I told a young woman who asked if I needed help that I would like to take some pictures and talk to her. She hesitated and then declined, but told me that I could "come back tomorrow and speak to the leader."...

[A]s I walked around I had a "for the six million!" moment. One of those moments that lead Jews to do something about injustice. So I took out my camera and started taking pictures...

"Give me your camera," she had raised her voice. "I want to see the pictures. I want to eliminate the pictures!"

"Leader"; "eliminate." The great thing about European fascists and racists is that they traditionally haven't put up much of a pretense of not being fascists and racists. Sadly, though, the new crop of the European far-right seems to be taking trans-Atlantic PR cues. Even the most deranged neo-Nazis on these shores feel compelled to wrap their hatred up in some public interest cause --- like saving the wombs of white women from the Pornocaust. So it's comforting, in its way, to learn that there's a little corner of Catalonia where the good stuff, the real unadulterated neo-Nazism is served straight up, no chaser.

A Neo Nazi group in Germany recently launched a website that expresses its solidarity with Israel. According to Ynet:

"A strong nation is worthy of life; an ailing nation deserves death," it said, before detailing an ideology sporting the traditional Nazi concept of purity of the race on the one hand, and calling on National Socialists to let go of their hatred for Jews and support the Jewish people's right to their own homeland on the other.

"Deportations, pogroms and inquisitions were all understandable acts which were carried out by nations merely trying to defend themselves," said the website of past persecution of Jews.

"That is also the context in which the event called the 'Holocaust' must be viewed… This does not justify it. Instead of destroying the Jews we should have taken every measure possible to support the Zionist movement."

The group goes on to harshly criticize the Nazi regime as the cause of the "unnecessary rivalry" between Germany and its "brethren neighbors," and slams the current leaders of Germany's extreme right as "cowardly reactionaries."

The group is called National Socialists for Israel, and among other things, they’ve started Reinhard Heydrich, "The Blond Beast": big Zionistdistributing stickers in Berlin with Israeli soldiers on them and the words, “A 2000-year struggle for survival. Respect those who have earned it." Another sticker has a picture of senior Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, and under the words, "As a Nazi, I'm a Zionist."

Though some bloggers doubt the veracity of the group, it is getting the attention of anti hate-group activists who are scratching their heads and expressing milder than usual outrage.

It’s possible to see this as some kind of silver-lining, I guess, but a group that openly sympathizes with the Nazis is not the kind of friend Israel, or any Jew, needs. As far as I can tell this group is embracing Zionism precisely because they see it as racism, which isn’t exactly a compliment. Plus, forced emigration to Israel is not an idea most Zionists would support. Also, “Respect for those who have earned it”? How did we earn it, exactly? By fighting for our lives while Nazis persecuted us? The logic is mind-boggling.

Thanks, National Socialists for Israel, but, um, the Jewish people and the State of Israel are really busy tonight/forever. We have to wash our hair.

Kosher prison food: like kosher plane food, but worse? A former neo-Nazi in Missouri has won a case requesting kosher food in prison. Prison officials don't want to deal with the cost or hassle (kosher food is twice as expensive and might cause pushing and shoving in the meal lines, apparently), and doubt exactly how serious Norman Lee Toler—serving a 10-year sentence for statutory rape—really is about his Judaism. On the one hand he has several white supremacist tattoos, including one that says SS, and has been caught with pictures of Hitler and white supremacist pamphlets in the past. On the other hand, he's said to regularly read Torah and maintain contact with rabbis, and he has a reputation among the inmates for being Jewish. For now, Toler has to make do with treyf food, but the prison is under court order to look into its options.

Other neo-Nazis and white supremacists turned (friend of the) Jews who have made recent news include Pinchads Zlotosvksky and Tim Zaal.

Related: We commented on a similar case in Georgia last year, but in that instance it wasn’t a neo-Nazi requesting kosher food—it was a child molester/murderer.

"Religious hate has never been so much fun,” promises the tagline of the online video game Faith Fighter. A prominent release by Molleindustria—an Italian game development studio that specializes in bizarre, arthouse Flash web games—Faith Fighter is one of a handful of religiously motivated games on the Internet. Are these games effective? What are they even trying to do? We asked Craig, Jewcy's Technology Officer and resident gamer, to weigh in.

To answer this question, Craig experienced everything from Faith Fighter's non-denominational, one-on-one, beat 'em up appeal to Eternal Forces' Christian evangelism to the hysterically fanatical Jihadi simulator Night of Bush Capturing. Generally speaking, he was unimpressed.

"Is game development for holy rollers just too hard," he wondered, "or are they just not trying hard enough?"

Here are his reviews:

	Name: Faith Fighter Overview: A fighting game in the style of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, where representatives from all the major religions battle it out for superiority. Case for: This game includes both God and Jesus, Buddha and Budai, Ganesha, and Muhammed Comes with a censored version where Muhammed's likeness is blocked out Last boss is Xenu You can see Budai's nipples Case against: It might be a complete ripoff of the next game You can see Jesus' nipples.
I was totally excited about this game when I first saw it. "Choose your belief and kick the shit out of your enemies," the game advertises. Finally, pacifist Buddhism gets a chance to go toe-to-toe with the heavy-hitters. And with two representatives, how can they lose? I Like to Play as Buddha: Because he's blue and because I don't think it will offend anyone.Easy: in this game, no one wins. I don't mean that literally, of course—I don't doubt that any of the Jewcy staffers could sail through this on the "Normal" difficulty setting—but for a game that purports to help players consider how religious representations can be used to fuel conflict, there is little opportunity for actual reflection. No parallels are ever drawn between what's happening in the game's battles and the real world, and, in the end, even the characters' special powers have precious little to do with actual religious lore. Why does God immolate himself in a pillar of flame? Why can Mohammed turn invisible? I like the quirky, hand-drawn graphics, but aside from that, there's not much going for this game aside from shock appeal.
Jewcy's Final Word is: SUCKS.

	Name: Bible Fight Overview: This is a higher-budget version of Faith Fighter, centered solely on characters from the Old and New Testaments, paid for by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Case for: Satan makes an appearance The Virgin Mary carries around a little Baby Jesus even when fighting non-Baby Jesus Eve is naked Animation is fantastic Case against: We've seen this game before The last levels get really hard
This game looks and plays almost exactly like Faith Fighter, except it's much more polished. While I respect that, unfortunately...
Jewcy's Final Word is: STILL SUCKS.

	Name: Ethnic Cleansing Overview: A racist, anti-semitic, Doom-style 3D first-person shooter where you play a Neo-Nazi as you "run through the ghetto blasting away various blacks and spics" until you "can blow away Jews as they scream 'Oy vey!'" Case for: Finally - a game that's actually about politics! The strongest example yet of the ineptitude of white supremacists Case against: Ass ugly Control feels sluggish, like you're wading hip-deep through the septic tank behind Ma and Pa's old house back in Arkansas
The Ammo Boxes Read "Ammo": This game sucks. Ethnic Cleansing may be the greatest thing working against the modern white nationalist movement. A small, personal project by two, let's say, independent game developers (the critically acclaimed "D. Bryan Ringer" and "Bob Hawthorne"). This game couldn't suck more if the developers were wearing bags over their heads (as opposed to sheets, I guess). In a thread on neo-Nazi organization Stormfront's website, users rank the game "1.5 out of 5", described it as "not the greatest quality in the world," and said, simply: "The game sucks." (The thread peters off a few posts in when one user admits that he'll never buy the game because he'd have to pay with credit cards and, personally, he "objects the use of credit cards and therefor [sic] don't own one." There are only a few enemy models in this game, and they mostly consist of black guys with Afros wearing basketball jerseys with the word "NIGZ" or pictures of cannabis plants on the front. There are Mexicans dressed in ponchos and sombreros, and strange, AK-47 wielding Hasidim that live in the subway. Ho-hum. The only thing remotely clever about this game is that it promises "Real Negro sounds," which wind up being the sounds of screeching monkeys. Very crafty, Bob Hawthorne.
Jewcy's Final Word is: SUCKS.

	Name: The Zoo Race Game Overview: "Animals" from "Noah's Ark" race, and every now and then, an electronically-lowered voice booms a famous passage from the bible. When it's all done, the animals return to the ark for an interactive disco. I'm not joking. Case for: The premise makes perfect sense A pig wearing a top hat drives a train Case against: Playing for extended periods of time will produce an effect roughly similar to blending up one of those books of Psalms that the Gideons hand out near schools and drinking it, straight out of the Magic Bullet.
What do you get when you cross a working knowledge of a single bible story, a handful Avoid the Obstacles: Obstacles may include explosive barrels, piranhas, and Michelangelo's artwork. of stock 3D animal graphics and a sixth-grade education? I dunno, but who gives a shit? We're playing The Zoo Race Game! I really gotta hand it to developer Cougar Interactive. They're (He is?) legitimately the most batshit crazy game makers out there. And I just finished playing a game where you must fight wave after wave of black people on city streets in order to assassinate Ariel Sharon. Like so many other purportedly "religious" games, Zoo Race simply slaps a coat of Jesus-paint on a secular-themed game (in this case, "racing") and hopes that that's enough to make the sales. It's not. Although the craftsmanship in The Zoo Race Game is noticeably higher than, say, Ethnic Cleansing, the animation remains abysmal, the execution and control are shoddy and lack finesse, and the premise is mind-bogglingly ridiculous. In order to truly appreciate The Zoo Race Game, you need to watch its promotional movie. Trust me on this and watch, okay?
Jewcy's Final Word is: MINDBOGGLINGLY SUCKY.

	Name: Night of Bush Capturing Overview: You play an Islamic insurgent, running through a desert curiously plastered with images of Bush, Tony Blair, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and Hassan Nasrallah, in hopes of stumbling upon Bush so you can shoot him. Case for: Reports call this a "terrorist training simulator." If this is what terrorists are being trained with, they don't stand a chance Jihadist music in the background is pretty catchy and has a Brian Wilson-like harmony to it "Night of Bush Capturing" is a hilarious name for a game Case against: Boring Lacks a certain "realism" Bush is too short
It's a relief to get back into the realm of hate-based games, but I really don't feel that much hate here. Aside from the neat chanting that blares throughout this game, there's really very little reason to play. Every weapon at your disposal is exactly like every other weapon (except the grenade launcher, which is unique in that it doesn't do anything at all). Your avatar has a Super Mario-esque ability to jump three times his own height. The story claims you're a Mujahid traveling around a U.S. Special Forces' camp (that Bush is inexplicably hanging around in), but it seems more like you're at some bizarre Coalition-themed Disney World in Tikrit. We've seen this all before and it sucks now just as much as it sucked then. What's really disturbing is the amount of outrage that has been directed at this game since its release. It's not a threat to anybody, and it's not even that fun to play.
Jewcy's Final Word is: سيء (SUCKS).

	Name: Left Behind: Tribulation Forces Overview: Based on the Left Behind series of novels and movies, you must lead a force of evangelical Christians to defeat the antichrist so Jesus can return. The premise is that after the rapture occurred, for some reason a bunch of good people were left behind with a bunch of lousy people. The lousy people formed a "Peacekeeping Coalition" under the guidance of a new world ruler. I forget his name, but let's call him, "Lucifer AnthonyChrist McDevilton." Shooting neutral members of the population is discouraged. Case for: Being that this game is based on a popular franchise, the developers could afford to hire people with the normal number of fingers and toes The game world and mechanics is vast The premise is unique and engaging Literally every character in the game has a back story written for him or her Case against: The back stories, along with most everything else in this game, are creepy as hell Women can't do anything I kind of want to keep playing it
Taylor Malone Prays: As in real life, your Christian zealots gradually lose faith over time and must be forced to 'Pray,' lest they revert back to heathenism and have to be taken out back, Old Yeller style.I'm going to tell you straight up: this game doesn't totally suck. You don't know what a relief it is to finally say that. Unfortunately, this game is one of the most disturbingly creepy, "Praise Jesus" experiences I've ever been forced to endure. Your task is to lead the good holy people of New York in banding together, buying up all the Duane Reades and abandoned factories, and converting or murdering all the non-believers. Well, you're really only supposed to murder the guys who are hostile to you. But God understands, right? I gotta give the developers credit, though. The game has a full (albeit derivative) 3D New York City, with tons of random people in the streets. It's neat that the game lets you click on any individual character and hear about his life's history (and, if applicable, how he or she found Jesus), but some of the stories started to disturb me. One "bad guy," the game claims, used to work as a TV News Producer during the time that the Moon Landing was staged. How enlightening! In all seriousness, though, this game is really not that bad. It does what every other one of these games could've done: created an engaging storyline that is centered around religion (but not entirely beholden to it), with production values that don't distract from the gameplay. Now if only it wasn't so creepy...
Jewcy's Final Word is: DOESN'T SUCK THAT MUCH.

Andrew Sullivan reprints an e-mail from the JTA’s Washington Bureau Chief, Ron Kampeas, under the heading “Kirchick and Sieradski: Factually Wrong On Ron Paul.” Says Kampeas: 

The problem with all this, is that the Paul campaign WAS responsive, giving my intern here, Beth Young, an exclusive statement on where Paul stands on Israel for a story we posted yesterday (the day Dan posted his blog item.)

But that’s not when Dan posted the story. He initially published it on his personal site November 1, over two weeks before the Paul campaign got in touch with Beth Young. We poached it for Jewcy and put it up it November 9. It’s been on the site ever since.

Yesterday afternoon, feeling that the Paul story deserved more attention, we decided to put it in the lead space (still dated November 9, by the way, because that’s when it was first published.) Not long after it went up, Dan contacted us to say that the JTA had just published a Paul article. We updated the story and posted a link to the JTA piece, but not before Ron Kampeas of the JTA had contacted Sullivan.

Dan, meanwhile, has addressed the issue on his personal site. And Ron Paul’s campaign is still $500 richer thanks to a neo-Nazi.

There's been rather a lot of Ron Paul bashing here and in nearby environs recently. I have to demur, both on the substantive case against Paul, and the way that case has been framed.

Daniel Sieradski inveighs against Ron Paul's "willingness to accept money from neo-Nazis," and concludes that this willingness should disqualify Paul from the presidential race. The antecedent is a grossly unfair characterization, as even a whiff of collegiality with neo-Nazis can be sufficient warrant to exile someone from polite society, and Daniel's phrasing makes it sound as if Paul either deliberately courted contributions from neo-Nazis, or at the very least is specifically disposed to accepting their dollars. In fact, Paul's blanket policy is to accept donations from any source, and let donors whose views Paul does not support swallow the economic cost of their wasted contributions (a rudimentary lesson in personal fiduciary responsibility, no?).

So, the agreed-upon fact is that white nationalists did indeed contribute money to Ron Paul. Perhaps a candidate who receives money from such unsavory figures has a moral obligation to return it, and perhaps not --- I think not, more on that in a bit --- but scrutinizing Paul's views on such a purported obligation is an extraordinarily oblique and unhelpful way of assessing whether or not he personally harbors sympathy of any kind for neo-Nazi views. Which is, after all, precisely what this kerfuffle is all about, and since the direct evidence that Ron Paul is objectively pro-neo-Nazi (if you will) is somewhere between scant and nonexistent, those wishing to level such an indictment are left to proceed via innuendo.

Thus, Daniel writes of Paul's refusal to return contributions from white nationalist groups that it "echoes...Europe's re-embracement [pardon?---DK] of right-wing extremism, the attendant resurrection of ethnic nationalism, and the growing success of far-right parties, many of which have taken over large swaths of European parliaments." And while dark intonations about the truly frightening revival of quasi-fascist nationalist movements in Europe at the end of the 90s (which seems to have quieted down somewhat in the last few years) make for incriminating rhetoric, the trouble with this analogy is that the situations are not in any relevant sense analogous.

For example, Jorg Haider* is a son and pupil of fervent Nazis, publicly associated himself with the Waffen SS, and transformed the vaguely pan-Germanicist Austrian Freedom Party into an expressly xenophobic, racist bloc. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting contributions from anyone. Jean-Marie Le Pen cut his teeth in the monarchist and clerico-fascist movement Accion Francaise, became a nationally-recognized figure in France during his 1960s campaigning for the rehabilitation of Vichy leaders, founded his Front National party with neo-Nazis as part of the coalition, and is a recidivist Holocaust revisionist. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting contributions from anyone. The Hungarian Justice and Life Party merged with the Movement for a Better Hungary to form the MIEP-Jobbik alliance (‘Jobbik' is an acronym, coming from the Magyar words for ‘right-wing youth community'), which stood as Hungary's semi-official anti-Semitic greenshirt party until the most recent legislative elections. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting contributions from anyone. The Flemish Bloc of Belgium, whose raison d'etre (after Flanders secessionism) seems to be to promote Flemish supremacism, has included Holocaust revisionists and deniers in its leadership positions. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting c ontributions from anyone. And on and on. But for a record of never having espoused a racialist or neo-Nazi ideology, Ron Paul is just like racialists and neo-Nazis in the European far right.

In other words, once we clear away the hyperbole inflating the argument against Paul, the leftover detritus consists almost entirely in a transparently circular logic. To wit, Ron Paul is a Nazi symp, as demonstrated by his campaign contributions from white nationalists, who gave to him because he is a Nazi symp. There remains, to be sure, an interesting question of why some white nationalists find Paul's views congenial, though the answer is so banal and unmysterious that those determined to find some sinister machinations undergirding the Paul movement might be forgiven for overlooking it. Namely, a strict logical entailment of Paul's position against federal government foreign aid programs is that he be against foreign aid to Israel. And since supporting foreign aid to Israel is a sine qua non for any candidate looking for recognition as a Washington Establishment Approved mainstream candidate, Ron Paul, being the only candidate to combine small-government conservatism with a lack of concern for what a buffoon like Tim Russert thinks of him, emerges as the only candidate to oppose foreign aid to Israel. Well, naturally, some elements within the anti-Semitic far right have glommed onto Paul for that reason, but the salient point is that the neo-Nazis who support Paul do so simply because of an accidental intersection of views stemming from wildly disparate ideologies with wildly disparate motivations.

The final ground for criticism of Paul is the notion that, even if he does not share their ideology, Paul should not have accepted donations from white supremacists and is obligated to return their contributions. And here, I'll admit that Paul's policy of taking donations from anyone has led to a situation that is genuinely unsettling. But if we strip away the raw emotionality and consider the general moral imperative regarding monetary donations and their refusal, I don't see any reason to think there is an obligation to refuse a donation from any given source, no matter how unsavory, outside of specific exceptionalcases.

My initial premise, which I'll regard as uncontroversial unless someone shows me otherwise, is that anyone collecting money for a charity, political campaign, etc., operates on the presumption that he can accept contributions from any source, and that a positive case has to be made against a specific source to rule it out. And I see no reason to believe that ideology alone can be a disqualifying factor. After all, if neo-Nazis had donated en masse to, say, a mainstream breast cancer charity, there is no coherent sense in which such donations would have a corrosive effect on the work of the charity purely in virtue of the beliefs of the donors. And to refuse that money would be to incur a quantifiable cost in medical research and treatment to the beneficiaries of the charity's work that is hardly worth whatever moral aggrandizement one could derive from refusing a donation. Likewise, I think, with political campaigns, although the case is a bit more tricky because of the vague conceptual divide between campaign donations and bribes. In Paul's case, there is no intrinsic connection between Paul's views and those of his most repugnant donors, so there is similarly no sense in which such dollars will bend Paul toward a neo-Nazi platform. The exceptional cases are those of outright bribes, as well as cases in which donated funds are derived from an illegitimate infringement on the rights of a third party (the paradigm instance, clearly, is theft, although any number of criminal enterprises would fit the bill), which, again, is not true of Paul's donations.

Furthermore, to do a bit of empirical ethics for a moment, the history of donation refusal is not a history of principled stands, but a history of cynical posturing in order to signal one's sympathies by winks and nods. It is behavior roughly akin to Bill Clinton's 1992 vintage Sistah-Souljah and Ricky Ray Rector episodes ("outdo[ing] Willie Horton by every definition of racist grandstanding" as
Christopher Hitchens described the latter case), an act not intended to cause any distress to the individuals whose donation is refused (though it can have that effect accidentally), but rather to pander to select interest groups. Do you think Bob Dole refused money from the Log Cabin Republicans in order to set back their cause, or to ingratiate himself among gay-haters on the right?

The upshot is that the whole business of trying to descry from campaign contributions where a particular candidate stands on issues is an effort of sisyphian futility, especially when candidates are actually on the record stating their views. (So, pace Jamie, one need not resort to leafing through the financial records of the Giuliani campaign in order to impugn it. The evidence that Rudy Giuliani is a fascist is Rudy Giuliani's fascist ideology.)

One last point. Although I doubt many anti-Semitic right wingers would listen to my advice even if I weren't writing for a website called Jewcy, if their ultimate goal is to do harm to Jews and to Israel, and if they are disposed to giving to Paul on the grounds that cutting off support for Israel will weaken the Jewish state, they are making a tactical mistake. There is another candidate in the race whose policy preferences are a sure bet to cause widespread violence, death and suffering in Israel, and he has a better shot to win than Ron Paul.

*A bleg to Jewcy's readers: Can someone set me straight on how to get umlauts and other diacritical marks either in html or in Word for Mac?

Beth Young’s article (free, but you have to register) looks at Paul’s “loyal, albeit small, Jewish following.” According to Jim Perry, the 22-year-old head of Jews for Ron Paul, Libertarianism and Orthodox Judaism share an emphasis on personal responsibility:

"It's the idea that people are meant to be equal and free in a just society. Those are the same things that draw me to be an observant Orthodox Jew," said Perry, who commands an Internet forum whose advisers include political and law professors spanning the country. "I believe Judaism puts strong emphasis on individual meaning, personal responsibility," he said, adding that God "calls us to take responsibility for our own actions."

Perry says he’s aware of the controversy over neo-Nazi groups supporting Paul, but adds that he’s befriended—and possibly reformed—at least one white supremacist through his work on the campaign:

"Here I am a kipah-wearing, fringes-hanging Orthodox Jew and he had a tattoo with the National Alliance. He starts to see me as a human being," Perry said. "I've met him seven times, and I've gotten him to drop the title of white supremacist. He's getting his tattoo covered up. I think that freedom message, when really taken seriously, brings us together. I would be very comfortable inviting him over for Shabbos dinner."

Ron Paul has a Jewish problem.

Last month, the dark horse Republican candidate was barred from the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Candidate’s Forum due to his stance against providing further foreign aid to Israel.

Typical of his view, at an event on September 11 of this year at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, Paul argued for withdrawing from the Middle East, telling his audience that “Israel is quite capable of taking care of itself” — though interestingly adding that US policy has “hurt Israel tremendously.” Paul also downplayed the threat Iran poses to Israel, saying that even if Iran does develop nuclear arms, that it would not be a serious danger to Israel, which, he added, possesses roughly 300 nuclear weapons of its own.

Paul’s position towards Israel is not innately anti-Jewish, nor is it necessarily even anti-Israel — particularly with such a caveat about America impeding Israel’s interests. Such a statement lends weight, for example, to Zionist extremists who wish to terminate Israel’s Herodian dependence on the US, such as the members of Zionists for Ron Paul, a group run by American expatriates now living as religious settlers in the West Bank.

Nor is it a particularly uncommon position, especially within paleoconservative circles. Pat Buchanan led the charge in March of 2003, writing in The American Conservative that neoconservatives participating in and advising the Bush administration were steering the United States into wars that were not in America’s interests, but rather Israel’s.

Now fed up with the neocon’s wars abroad and the diminishing of civil liberties at home, many conservatives are rallying behind Paul, whom they view as the only Republican candidate who isn’t in the pocket of the Israel lobby. They have helped him become an Internet sensation — the Republican Howard Dean, if you will — who in the last quarter raised over $5 million, outpacing more mainstream candidates like John McCain.

Even with his hardline protectionist stance, Paul has managed to garner the support of Jewish Republicans and Libertarians alike, some of whom have banded together to form an ad hoc coalition called Jews for Ron Paul, which condemned the RJC’s decision to bar the Congressman from their Candidate’s Forum.

Yet, much to his Jewish supporters’ chagrin, Congressman Paul’s willingness to stand up to the neocons has also had the effect of making Paul a popular candidate among those from whom Presidential candidates would typically not desire support: Bona fide antisemites.

Indeed, Ron Paul has become the most popular candidate among right-wing extremists, including white separatists, neo-Nazis, and conspiracy theorists who believe that “the Zionists” were behind 9/11. This group includes Frank Weltner, creator of the antisemitic website JewWatch.com, who in a YouTube video, accuses the “Zionist-controlled media” of attacking Paul’s candidacy. Paul has also received favorable coverage from the Vanguard News Network, a White Nationalist news organ, members of Stormfront, an online neo-Nazi community, as well as the National Alliance, the “mainstream” White Nationalist group featured prominently in Marc Levin’s 2005 film Protocols of Zion.

Of course, Congressman Paul cannot be held accountable for the views of his extremist supporters, unless he publicly acquiesces to those views. Yet, when his extremist supporters begin providing a substantial amount of campaign funds, things get a bit dicier. And that’s Paul’s biggest problem.

According to the Lone Star Times, White Nationalists have become a noticeable source of financial contributions to the Paul campaign. Indeed, even Don Black, the founder of Stormfront, and one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in America, has personally contributed $500 to Paul’s campaign.

Though it’s true that Paul’s campaign has no control over who sends them money in advance, once it becomes apparent that a neo-Nazi leader is sending money, any sensible politician who does not wish to be identified with neo-Nazism should send the money back. Not so for Ron Paul, however, whose campaign is still making up its mind as to whether or not to return Black’s money.

Paul’s spokesman Jesse Benton told the Lone Star Times:

At this time, I cannot say that we will be rejecting Mr. Black’s contribution, but I will bring the matter to the attention of our campaign director again, and expect some sort of decision to be made in coming days.

Frankly, this is a no-brainer. Any other candidate would unequivocally reject that money as soon as its donor’s identity was known. That Paul’s campaign needs time to think about it is shocking.

Also of concern is the fact that Paul’s campaign has ignored my repeated attempts to interview the Congressman for JTA, the Jewish newswire service by which I am employed. I had intended to write a story about the Congressman, and to provide him with the opportunity to distance himself from his extremist supporters, to clarify his position on Israel, and to state his case to the Jewish community. Yet, after three weeks of repeated telephone calls, two chats with his Deputy Communications Director, and several left voicemail messages, I have yet to receive a callback to schedule an interview.

Which leads me to conclude the following about the Congressman from Texas: Ron Paul will take money from Nazis. But he won’t take telephone calls from Jews.

[This essay was cross-posted at Orthodox Anarchist. Daniel Sieradski responds to comments here and explains his own Libertarian take on Paul here.]

[UPDATE: The Ron Paul campaign finally contacted the JTA. Also, a timeline for this story.]

 

Given the performance consistency and punctuality of anti-globalization protesters, McDonald's really ought to think about hiring some of them because the last time I ordered a Big Mac it took for-ev-er. 

Anyway, lest you think opposing international commerce and industrialization was only a bugbear of the hormonally anarchic left, here's a fun little factoid, courtesy of World Politics Review, that has received scarce notice in the European and American media:

For the NPD, the anti-globalization movement is to be understood as part of a "völkisch" uprising of the world's "peoples" [Völker] against the "rootless" capitalism system. [The German word völkisch is derived from the word Volk: which can be rendered as either "people" or "nation," but unlike the corresponding English words, typically carries a strong connotation of ethnicity. The ethnic idea of the "Volk" or nation was the core idea of the National Socialism of the 1930s and 40s, which was in many ways an outgrowth of a "völkisch" or "ethnic national" movement in German history that long preceded it. -- Translator's Note] "The world should know," NPD chairmen Udo Voigts said in May in anticipation of the anti-G-8 protests, "that the struggle against globalization is a struggle of peoples [Völker]. And this struggle -- all of Europe is waiting for this -- must start from Germany."\

I'll give you one guess at to whom the NPD is great chums with.

Accordingly, the editors of Die Deutsche Stimme evidently have no fear of associating with a man who hardly gives the impression of being "Aryan" and who is, moreover, likewise a hero of the left-wing anti-globalization forces: namely, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Chávez's nationalization of mineral resources and his system of redistribution of oil revenues to the poor wins praise in Die Deutsche Stimme as a shining example of "national Socialism" just as the NPD conceives it. For people all over the world, the paper affirms, Chávez stands for the "revolutionary force of nationalism."

Viva la revolucion. 

Neo-Nazi crimes rates in Germany are at an all-time high according to a Reuters report. The last time they were this bad was in 1990, the year of Germany's reunification. There were 18,000 reported acts this year, 1100 of which stemmed from violence. The pinnacle of anti-Semitic activity being the July burning of Anne Frank's diary. Additionally, this past Fall, the National Democratic Party (NDP), a far Right extremist political faction, gained a foothold in Eastern Germany, with the election of a few new members to Parliament.

Nordreich, a Neo-Nazi group that is gaining ground in Europe, employed Norway's national anthem, "Ja Vi Elsker" as background music to accompany their 2-minute clip (on Youtube) which features a montage of Europe's major cities with superimposed Nazi symbols.

Said Foreign Ministry Information Adviser Odd Naustdal said of the incident:

We will contact YouTube and ask them to remove the video.

C'est tout? Once again, Nordic people prove that they are indeed the superior race with no balls.

As an Irish Catholic with a German surname from Billings, Montana, I should be red meat for anti-Semitic recruitment drives. Truth be told, I’ve never had strong feelings one way or another about the Jewish people (Elliot Gould and Larry Brown excepted). I did have an awesome time at Adam Weissman’s bar mitzvah party. We got to ride on a green double-decker bus to the Sheraton where we ransacked a make-your-own-sundae bar. And, well, I work in the media. But there is a whole mess of anti-Semitic Web sites out there, all beckoning the dirty-blond, green-eyed Montanan like varieties of grape at the wine shop. Choosing a white whine is really no different from a white wine—it’s all in parsing the $2,000 Chateau Lafite ...