When "anti-Zionists" were antisemites of the Right

In the 1940s and 1950s, there was a burgeoning publishing industry of far-Right antisemites. 

Jack Tenney was a California state senator who published a number of antisemitic tracts in the 1950s - but he insisted that he was only anti-Zionist.

The cover for his "Zionist Network" was pretty much identical to Nazi antisemitic propaganda:

The inside cover of Tenney's book "Zion's Fifth Column" includes a quote where he insists he has nothing against Jews:

Of course. Tenney didn't think his hate of Jews was unreasoning. In "Zionist Network" he describes how close-knit Jews control the world.

Also similar to today's antisemitic anti-Zionists, Tenney creates a hit list network of Jewish organizations, similar to the Boston Mapping Project this year and much of what David Miller still does.

In "Zion's Fifth Column" he lists many Jewish organizations, along with the names of their officers. It is indistinguishable from what one can see in Electronic Intifada on any given day.

Another notable "anti-Communist"  publication was called Common Sense (not to be confused with a 1940s' magazine nor with Bari Weiss' current newsletter.) 

Reading Common Sense now shows a funhouse mirror version of today's anti-Zionists who are just as antisemitic as this publisher was. In many ways Common Sense resembles Arab media antisemitism, complete with Khazar conspiracy theories and railing against the Talmud.

Here are some of the top headlines of Common Sense, where Jews and Zionists are used interchangeably.

Especially notable is this cover, which is the obverse of today's Left accusing Zionists of weaponizing antisemitism. It turns out the far Right agreed with them!

Common Sense also included Holocaust denial.   It was partially funded by Benjamin Freedman, a famous antisemite and Holocaust denier. 

It had a circulation of about 50,000 and published up until about 1970. It was recognized as a hate group by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1954. While the Committee was associated with the Right, it recognized and condemned those who used anti-Communism as an excuse for their hate.

Communism’s present threat to the very survival of the United States and the rest of the free world has placed heavy burdens on the defenders of human freedom and dignity. The Committee on Un-American Activities is concerned to observe that this burden is being aggravated by certain individuals and organizations unscrupulously exploiting the menace of communism to promote other activities equally subversive and equally un-American. Such activities would destroy the very foundation work of the American Republic, if permitted to operate unnoticed or unchallenged. Committee investigations disclose that this organized activity falls into two patterns: (1) The neo-fascist organization which openly espouses a fascist regime for the United States; and (2) The organized hate group, which masquerades as a defender of our republican form of government yet conducts hate campaigns against racial and religious minorities in the infamous tradition of the fascist dictatorships. 

The Committee, which is now associated with the most extreme excesses of the Right, wrote this - something that you will hardly find either today's Left nor today's Right ever saying: "Those who would support the extreme right today do as great a violence to our national institutions as do those on the extreme left. "

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