I discuss the Left’s alliance with the jihad in my book Onward Muslim Soldiers. The affinity that Marxists would feel for the jihad is quite clear, despite the atheism of the former and the religious content of the latter. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia has this quite wrong; in its entry on Islam, it says it is just another expression of the religious impulse to transfer justice to the next world and make people content with injustice on earth. But in fact Islam is not this way at all: the jihad aims to establish an earthly polity in which justice is established by force, with draconian punishments for those who do not fall into line. The resemblance to the earthly utopia of the Marxists is unmistakeable, and I do not doubt that this is an important reason why — but not the only reason why — so many Leftists see kindred spirits in the mujahedin.
From AKI, with thanks to Fjordman:
Rome, 5 April (AKI) – The secretary general of Italy’s largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic communities in Italy (UCOII), has called on Italian Muslims to vote for the Party of Italian Communists at the general election. Hamza Piccardo sent an email late Tuesday to Muslim centres saying that the party’s leader Oliviero Diliberto had been sensitive to the needs of Muslim inmates when he was justice minister in the late 1990s and this constituted a sound reason to vote for him on 9-10 April. This was the first time that a leading member of Italy’s Muslim community publicly supported a party on the eve of an election.
In the email, Piccardo also said that, “another five years with a cabinet of [prime minister Silvio] Berlusconi and the Northern League Party is for Muslims and for foreigners in Italy a sad perspective of misunderstanding and segregation.” The Northern League is an anti-immigration party in the government coalition.
The UCOII leader explained that he met Diliberto along with the president of UCOII Mohamed Nour Dachan when he was justice minister – from October 1998 until December 1999 in the progressive government of Massimo D’Alema.
“We spoke at length about the community’s problems and needs, agreeing that the government needed to take more action on its behalf. Diliberto was extremely interested and helpful. In particular, we spoke to him about the problem of celebrating Ramadan in prisons, asking the ministry to make sure that dinner was served when [Muslim inmates] could interrupt their fast.”