Red-Green Alliance

Not to be confused with the Danish political party the Red-Green Alliance (Danish party).

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The term Red-Green Alliance denotes a conspiracy theory of an alliance between the radical left and radical Muslims. (Similar concepts are expressed in the terms Regressive left, Islamo-Leftism, and Red-Green-Brown Alliance).

The concept has a number of variants. Some point to the alleged actual or potential of leftist groups to work directly with Muslim groups, whether at the level of political violence and insurrections or at the level of electoral politics. Other versions point to the alleged similarities or common traits between the left and radical Muslims (and sometimes the far right (Brown)) to assert, in the absence of any concrete evidence of collaboration a sort of affinity. One key alleged similarity is said to be antisemtism.

2003

Thus an early instance of this latter approach was a speech by Roger Cukierman, president of the French Jewish/pro-Israel organization CRIF, to a CRIF banquet on 27 January 2003. It can be noted that the 'green' in this version did not refer to Muslims but apparently to the environmental movement: the 'Greens'.

The CRIF website proudly records the event in Cukierman's biographical note:

He made his mark with a controversial speech at a dinner with Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin in January 2003. At a CRIF dinner on 27 January 2003, Roger Cukierman denounced an anti-Semitic "brown-green-red alliance", causing Gilles Lemaire, national secretary of the Greens, to leave the room.

Cukierman used the French term "alliance brun-vert-rouge" to describe the antisemitic alignment supposedly shared by 'an extreme right nostalgic for racial hierarchies' (symbolized by the color brown), 'an extreme left [which is] anti-globalist, anti-capitalist, anti-American [and] anti-Zionist' (red), and followers of José Bové (green).

In an interview with Le Figaro on 25 February, which previewed his speech he said:

A new phenomenon is emerging in France. The extremes are coming together. Alongside the traditional anti-Semitism of the extreme right, a current of thought, relayed by the extreme left, is gradually drifting from anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and anti-globalism towards anti-Zionism. And from anti-Zionism, one easily drifts towards anti-Semitism. José Bové is an example of this. This is a man who defends French peasants in Seattle and Porto Alegre, then goes to greet Arafat in Ramallah before returning to France, where he says: If synagogues are burning, it is because of the Mossad. These people have a particularly pernicious attitude, because they dress up their words with humanism in favour of the oppressed. In some intellectual circles, anti-Semitism has become politically correct.

The Greens invited CRIF to discuss the issues between them the following month. According to the CRIF account:

A delegation from the C.R.I.F., led by Roger Cukierman, its president, and a delegation from the Greens, led by Gilles Lemaire, national secretary, met on Tuesday 25 February 2003 at the headquarters of the Greens at their invitation.

The two delegations affirmed their common will to combat racism and anti-Semitism and condemned terrorism in all its forms.

As regards the Middle East, the two delegations considered that the solution can only be political and that it requires peaceful coexistence within the secure and recognised borders of two states, Israel and a Palestinian state.

With regard to the right to criticise the authorities or governments involved in the Middle East conflict, they hoped that such criticism would not take forms likely to demonise one of the parties and consequently create a climate of hatred between supporters and opponents of the protagonists in the conflict, while also avoiding any assimilation of Zionism to Nazism.

Both sides noted their disagreement on the issue of boycotting Israeli products and Israeli universities.

Both sides consider that this dialogue between democrats, which has been absolutely clear in denouncing anti-Semitism and racism, has been useful and positive and agree to continue it.

2004

The same usage of the concept (minus the 'brown') was floated in 2004 by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and by Commentary magazine.

2007

It was further developed in 2007 by Lorenzo Vidino, in the pages of Terrorism Monitor the journal of the Jamestown Foundation a neoconservative outfit alleged in the past to be connected to the CIA and a publication of one of the core US Islamophobic groups, the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

2013

It has later been endorsed in 2013 by researchers in START at the University of Maryland, a largely US government funded research centre and again flagged in 2019 by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.