Why is the left so blinkered to Islamic extremism?

Jihad Watch

It is ironic that this article is commenting on a report from One Law For All. The point is sound about how Leftists hate America so much that they will cheerfully align themselves with its enemies, but One Law For All, which is headed by the Communist Maryam Namazie, exhibits the same pathology toward Israel -- as Namazie retails Palestinian jihad propaganda about Israeli genocide. She also cheerfully and unrepentantly libels genuine opponents of jihad as "racists" and "fascists." So it is rich to see her organization going on about others being blinkered.
"Why is the left so blinkered to Islamic extremism?," by James Bloodworth for the Independent, June 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

...The result, as the report notes, has been an anti-war movement working enthusiastically with those advocating the murder of homosexuals, a left-wing Mayor of London embracing a man who said Adolf Hitler had been sent by Allah to punish the Jews, and a group set up ostensibly to oppose fascism warmly welcoming religious fascists into its own ranks. Because the left doesn’t police its borders in the way that the right has learned to do - social democrats like to pretend the far-left are on the same side as them - extremists regularly sneak into the mainstream on the back of ostensibly progressive front groups.
A good example is Unite Against Fascism.

Launched in 2003 as a response to the electoral activity of the British National Party, UAF spends most of its time these days organising counter demonstrations against the EDL.
An honourable way to pass the time, you might think.
UAF’s definition of what constitutes fascism, however, is a peculiar one. Not only are those advocating the resurrection of a fascistic Islamic caliphate seemingly not worth opposing, they have been actively welcomed into the UAF fold by the leadership.
One of UAF’s vice-chairs is Azad Ali, affairs co-ordinator for the Islamic Forum of Europe, an offshoot of the far-right Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami. As well as quoting an Islamist militant on his website in 2008 who claimed it was a religious obligation to kill British and American soldiers, Ali is on record as saying of democracy that “if it means, you know, at the expense of not implementing the Sharia, no-one’s gonna [sic] agree with that. Of course no-one agrees with that”.
On telephoning UAF’s office to clarify the group’s position on Islamic fascism, One Law for All was told by a UAF representative that there was “no such thing”.
The lack of concern about Islamism extends to the so-called anti-war movement.
Anas al-Tikriti, a current Vice-President of the Stop the War Coalition, has said that calls for an Islamic state should “not scare us…or bring about a negative reaction”.
Speaking of the Jews, Tikriti has also criticised the Muslim Council of Britain for dropping its plan to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day, which he said was a principled stand.
As you make your way through the report you notice that the people who have brought Islamists inside the progressive tent crop up in various left-wing campaigns again and again - usually to accuse those expressing concern about extreme religious conservatism of Islamophobia.
As Maryam Namazie of One Law for All puts it: “the likes of the Stop the War Coalition, the Socialist Workers’ Party, Unite Against Fascism, Islamophobia Watch, and the Respect Party…are there as prefects to silence dissenters and defend islamism as a defence of ‘Muslims’.”
Nor have the individuals mentioned in the report ever been disowned by the political left. On the contrary, they remain ubiquitous and their organisations are still treated as if they were respectable progressive outfits.
Over the past decade or so not only have the actions of the ‘pro-Islamist left’ given an indication of what some of the supposedly idealistic really think of the people they should be defending - the LGBT community, women, Muslims and ex-Muslims but an unwillingness to speak out against Islamism has allowed racist groups like the English Defence League to pose as vocal defenders of secularism.
In a disastrous irony, the pro-Islamist left has ended up in the same place as the white far-right. The perception of Muslims as synonymous with Islamism - criticism of Islamism is characterised as criticism of Muslims - is precisely the view taken by groups such as the EDL.
The mystery is why the left has welcomed into its ranks individuals who by any definition sit on the ultra-right.
The answer, I suspect, lies in the fact that many Islamists exhibit a pathological anti-Americanism that is quite attractive to a certain type of degenerated progressive.
As for all the other bad things the pro-Islamist left are seemingly to ignore in embracing Islamism - did I mention confirmation bias?