Psychologist Moises Lemlij: “The Left Defended Centero, Now Hamas” | Shining Path | Hamas | Israel | Palestine | principle

Does the war signal the return of anti-Semitism?

Look, let me define myself. I remember when I was a child, probably five or six years old, going to a relative’s house and seeing my mother and her entire family crying and screaming and tearing their clothes like a Jewish mourning. They received news that their relatives in Europe, their mother, brothers and all their relatives had died in the concentration camps. So one of my first memories is the impact of knowing that the price of the Jews was going to die for those who stayed in Europe and those who managed to escape. After the war, there was a few decades of peace. But now the current conflict in the Middle East is the pretext, not just for the moment, but for a good while, for a renaissance. And so anti-Semitism can raise its sulphurous head from underground.

Is this just an excuse for anti-Semitism?

There are always excuses. In the Middle Ages, they poisoned wells. In the 12th century, they were expelled from England. In France in the 13th century. 14th century, from Germany. And there is a great exodus of Jews from Spain in 1492. 300 thousand Jews. The rest were executed or exchanged. In the 19th century, they used the blood of children to make unleavened bread. Anti-Jewish attacks in Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries created massive immigration to America. Then came Nazism. Now at Harvard, and even some journalists here in Peru, I am not telling you that there is no reason to attack Israel and the Jews, but now one sees that it is being used as an excuse. It is part of the identity of the West. Sartre wanted to understand that. To define your identity, you must hate someone. I think this scapegoat is chosen: Jews: people hate being close to you, but different. It is hatred for those who killed God. George Steiner said: ‘Do they hate us because we killed God or do they hate us because we gave them God?’

Could Islam conquer Europe and much of the West?

Islam almost took over Vienna in the 17th century. And in Spain. But of course it is another Islam. In the West, Christianity became more democratic and open from being dogmatic and monstrous. On the other hand, Islam, being an open culture, is closed. Now what will they find? Look at the theological dogma of Islam today. Or all the monarchies of Arab countries. Today Islam is the most horrible and horrible religion. Because, if not all of them, their hawks rule. Every religion has its hawks and its doves, including Darkmada and St. Francis of Assisi. Now Islam is westward.

For the left, the Jew was a victim, a victim now.

How strong is Israel? It is a small country of 9 million people. That’s bullshit, that’s the excuse. Netanyahu looks pathetic to me. But that’s the situation. I see the current incident as a spark of things to come. According to Huntington, it was a clash of civilizations. They are two tectonic plates colliding. It’s not just Palestine. You have Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Iraq. There are terrible cultural internal conflicts everywhere.

And in Europe. The left criticizes the Catholic cross but not the Islamic burqa.

At this time, Islam was the most feared of all religions. Islam is like Christianity when it comes to interrogation. The Left in the West doesn’t realize that. Or he doesn’t realize it and doesn’t care. But the earthquake is coming. Clash of civilizations comes where some people don’t see the forest for the trees. Where it gets bogged down in some small details. Then the detail eats the whole thing. I’m not saying you shouldn’t see the poor relatives killed by Hamas or the poor Palestinians dying. But please: watch what happens. Look at Iran. So, this new left, which I call ‘populist fascism’, has no problem defending a regime that kills a woman for wearing the veil wrongly because it won’t let this go. There is a terrible division against women, and left-wing feminist movements don’t say a word.

It distinguishes Jews from Zionists, calling the latter “white supremacist Zionists”.

But most Jews are not white. There are a good number of black Jews. Most of them are dark, only a few are blonde. You cannot easily distinguish an Arab from a Jew, at least not among those who live there. Now, Israel has a government that doesn’t know how to handle things. Netanyahu is one of the reasons because he created this terrible divide between the right and the left. But what is left for us… ‘We are going to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews’ says Hamas. This is clear to me. I don’t care that I’m here in Peru. Maybe there is going to be someone who wants to kill me.

Is this also an extension of hatred towards America?

Anti-Semitism predates the existence of America. So, for me, as a Jew from the West and a Peruvian, of course my primary identity is being born here and being Peruvian, which is part of the history that I know and my family and I have experienced. Just me. Anti-Semitism appears again and again with various reasons and pretexts.

There are pro-Palestinian flags in San Marcos.

And also in PUCP. They are not pro-Palestinian. This is an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish issue. They have a mess in their heads. Israel is the only democracy in the entire region. Or support the Ayatollahs? It didn’t let up; This is ‘fascist populism’ like those who rule us in Peru.

What about our terrorists who recruit children in urban cities like Trujillo?

We make fools of ourselves through terrorism. There is no worse blind than one who does not want to see. God blinds those He wants to lose. It’s a lot of trouble to think about. He is poor and needs to do something, but something cannot be as Abimael Guzmán proposes: a million deaths. Rivers of blood. If someone says they’re going to kill you, they’re going to kill you. If you teach it to children, it will come. You either want to see it or you don’t. Now, there are no better thinkers about the Centero. Gonzalo Portocarrero and Carlos Ivan Degregori died. And no one follows the path of understanding Sendero; Only the operatives remain. We ignore ourselves. The right is brutal, the left is corrupt and the center is cowardly. And there is a great lack of leadership. Where are the people who ruled the country during or before PPK? They entered politics and left everything mixed up. Their responsibility to us has been largely abandoned. Beasts and corruptors remained. The good ones are gone.

How to oppose Centero ideologically? In education?

The right wing is exaggerating the problem and saying that everyone who isn’t with them is going to jail. Those on the left thought the senders were well-intentioned but misguided individuals. If the centero wins, they will be executed first. With the exception of a few such as the democratic leftist Alfonso Barentes, the left did not dare to condemn the centero. If you’re against Sendero, you’re a fascist. And now it’s happening as the New Left defends Hamas. As the left defended Centero, it now defends Hamas. They believe that being against Hamas is a betrayal of the poor Palestinians who are being slaughtered by Zionist fascism. This is the same phenomenon of intellectual cowardice. People in the center are scared. And the extremists are winning.

Hamas and Centero share a fundamentalism that transcends life. They are ready to die.

Marxism is a secular religion. It promises heaven on earth. But, in addition to the ideological question, there is the matter of omnipotence. Abhimael believed himself to be a prophet. The same is happening to the leaders of Hamas, who believe themselves to be direct descendants of Muhammad. What about those who say Palestine must win? Are they going to kill all the Jews as Hamas says? I am here in Peru, a poor old man; I’m not going to buy a gun. So opening the beak is my weapon.

Hamas hides itself, kills children and women. Sendero hanged the Quechua-speaking women before massacring them.

The conflict in Peru uses the same system used by Hamas. Because terrorism is a system of administrative action rather than an ideology. Terrorism is a method that exploits the human nature of fear to use terrorism for purposes other than its initial objectives. So, you don’t kill your competitor; You are killing an innocent. Because your opponent is ready and will fight. But if you kill the innocent, what you create is horror. Unexplained violence appears and frightens people. Create fear of the unexpected, so that terror produces incomprehensible consequences. This is a message. Because fear gives you power. Fear breeds respect.

Why does the left protect terrorists who do not share their progressive views and do not hesitate to eliminate them? Is it a random drive?

To the left is a chicken puffing on a wolf. You’d think you’d be in trouble if you dressed up as a wolf, but no. It is identification with the feared aggressor. Kerensky and the moderate socialists were the first to die in the Russian Revolution. In Germany the Communists preferred to face the Social Democrats rather than the Nazis. All those leftists would die for everyone they support.

This is the era of self-realization. Young people define themselves in terms of their sexuality and race. But no one from Cendero or Hamas ‘considers’ themselves terrorists. It is a term that defines law.

Terrorism is a practice, a political strategy. Kill an unrelated person and terrorize people. Children, women. Killing to frighten and confuse. And so the piece of terrorist in everyone arose. You either suppress it or identify with it. Who hasn’t fantasized about bombing the house of someone you hate? That is the terror in all of us. Check out Pada (hiker Juan Santos Romero) in the north. After serving 12 years in prison, he came out and did the same. Like other hikers or emerretistas. Or Hamas. There are leftists who admire and envy extremists. You imagine he’s a Robin Hood, but he’s a bank robber. Each of those senders identified with Abimael Guzmán believed he was going to be Mao.