Anti-zionism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anti-Zionism is a collective term for political ideologies directed against Zionism . Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, they have been opposing it as a Jewish state. Anti-Zionism is based on both secular and religious grounds and can be found across the entire political spectrum. There are often close connections with anti-Semitism .

Relationship to anti-Semitism

Anti- Zionism is difficult to distinguish from anti-Semitism . Anti-Semitism, which was frowned upon in Western countries after 1945, often disguises itself as anti-Zionism or "criticism of Israel". In the Arab world in particular, however, the two are often bluntly linked.

Political scientists such as Martin Kloke and Armin Pfahl-Traughber define anti-Zionism as a “fundamental denial of the right of Jews to national self-determination in Israel / Palestine”. In the narrower sense, he called for the dissolution of the State of Israel; in the broader sense, he was fundamentally critical of its foreign and domestic policy. This need not necessarily go hand in hand with anti-Semitism, but it could be "a latent anti-Semitism".

According to the sociologist and cultural scientist Peter Ullrich , anti-Zionism represents "a central articulation context of anti-Semitism". According to surveys, “anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli semantics are intertwined for many respondents”.

The anti-Semitism researcher Robert S. Wistrich sees anti-Zionism as the historical legacy of earlier forms of anti-Semitism and the lowest common denominator between different social groups:

“Anti-Zionism is not just the historical legacy of previous forms of anti-Semitism. Today it is also the lowest common denominator and the bridge between the left , the right and the militant Muslims ; between the elites (including the media) and the masses; between the churches and the mosques; between an increasingly anti-American Europe and an endemic anti-Western Arab-Muslim Middle East ; a point of convergence between conservatives and radicals and a link between fathers and sons. "

The historian Georg Kreis emphasizes that not every criticism of and rejection of Zionism, not even “congealed anti-Zionism” can be equated with anti-Semitism. However, there is a "hidden anti-Semitism" that "presents itself in the form of anti-Zionism".

A well-known test to distinguish legitimate criticism of the policies of Israel from anti-Semitism, the 3D Test of Antisemitism : If statements Israel d ämonisieren , d elegitimieren, or d scrappy standards create, then they are anti-Semitic.

Georg M. Hafner writes: "The modern anti-Semite slips into the guise of the anti-Zionist and acts stupid." The historian Walter Laqueur sees "no clear line between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism". Church historian Franklin H. Littell sees anti-Zionism as a “new code word for anti-Semitism among communists, the New Left , for the Arab League and liberal Protestants”.

According to the linguist and psychoanalyst Georges-Elia Sarfati , who comes from Tunisia , the equation “Zionism equals National Socialism ” dominates the anti-Zionist discourse. One of the thematic matrices of anti-Zionism is to invert historical facts using already known terminology. For example, it is concluded from the Holocaust that Israel invented it in order to benefit from it.

According to social scientist Samuel Salzborn , anti-Semites hate Israel “in a doubled anti-Semitic projection : as a Jewish state and as the epitome of modernity . That is why the rhetorical strategy that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism is based on a double lie. The lie which on the one hand seeks to make the implicit and explicit motives of anti-Zionism against Israel invisible in order to make anti-Semitism appear legitimate; which, on the other hand , acts genuinely anti-Semitic beyond this deep anti-Semitic foundation in its entire projection orientation on Israel as a modern state and pluralistic society. ”He further states:“ Only those who have to look again and again for guard rails to create their own Securing statements on Israel against anti-Semitism (preventively) subconsciously suspects that it is obviously not a question of criticism of Israel, but of anti-Semitic resentment [...]. "

The American literary scholar and Judaist Alvin H. Rosenfeld states: “The deceptive term 'criticism of Israel' combines narcissistic self-affirmation, virtue-guardian self-righteousness and a good portion of blame related to the Holocaust to form an increasingly popular, regenerated form of the Anti-zionism. At its core, this anti-Zionism embodies a very specific personal longing and a specific political wish. ”According to Rosenfeld, this is often the“ wish for Israel to die ”.

For the educationalist Micha Brumlik , the anti-Semitic resentment relates more and more to an "allegedly enlightened 'criticism of Israel'". This form of so-called criticism of Israel forms “the motives of anti-Zionism, which is still politically acceptable within limits, to an anti-Semitic strategy of world explanation and redemption, for example in such a way that if Israel disappears from the map or justice is done to the Palestinians, peace in the Middle East is secured and so that the situation of Muslim immigrants in the West would also be significantly improved ”.

Alan Posener argues: “Had there been a Jewish state as early as 1933, more Jews could have escaped the Holocaust by fleeing. [...] To strive for this refuge to disappear, as anti-Zionism does; that Jews should be dependent, as they did before 1948, on the mercy or disfavor of the majority population in other states: that is anti-Semitism. "

According to Sandra Rokahr , "at present, anti-Jewish stereotypes are being projected onto Israel through criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism using pseudo-rational arguments, verbalized and disseminated using socially accepted values".

According to Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur , "individual motifs of the obsessive criticism of Israel show strong echoes of the traditional discourse of the anti-Semites". She also notes that “the charges brought against the Jews [...] would often respond in some form to the accused's story”: “The anti-Semitic rhetoric in France and Britain makes Israel a colonial enterprise; in the United States the accusation of the racist state reverberates, and in South Africa one thinks of apartheid : the anti-Zionist criticism bears autobiographical traits everywhere. "

In the opinion of anti-Semitism researcher Wolfgang Benz , a “special form of anti-Semitism [...] from such criticism of Israel on the basis of anti-Zionism has established itself as a surrogate of hostility towards Jews, which has its own function, namely to open up byways on which, with seemingly rational arguments, aversion or Enmity against Jews can be transported and acted ”.

Jewish anti-Zionism

Many Jews rejected the political Zionism, which emerged in the 19th century, because it contradicted its aims of emancipation , domestic equality, assimilation and social integration into the civil societies of the countries in which they lived, and criticized the alleged convergence of the aims of Zionists and Anti-semites.

Liberal Jews saw themselves as citizens of their nation states with equal denominations , comparable to Protestants and Catholics . They strove for full recognition in societies dominated by Christianity and were often characterized by a particular patriotism . In the war of 1870/71 , the not yet 16-year-old Jewish locksmith's apprentice Michael Stolzenberg († 1913) in Königsberg was named as the youngest war volunteer in 1932 by the Jüdische Wochenschrift .

They rejected the Zionist position that Jews were a "nation within the nations", which the Volkstum ideologues also represented in order to exclude Jews and deny them full citizenship rights, but they were positive about the settlement of poor Eastern European Jews in Palestine . In the German Reich , for example, the liberal Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV), founded in 1893, opposed the Zionists seeing ties to the Land of Israel as the main hallmark of the Jewish faith.

Relocation of the federal government in 1917

Within the Jewish working class in Eastern Europe, the largest and most important anti-Zionist organization was the General Jewish Workers 'Union , founded in Vilnius in 1897 , the largest and best organized Jewish workers' organization of the time.

The Orthodox Judaism condemned with the exception of 1902 established national religious Mizrachi the creation of a Jewish state as blasphemy and breaking of the Torah . Only God could free the Jews from the diaspora , for which they would have to wait until the arrival of the Messiah . This position was represented by Agudat Jisra'el , founded in Katowice in 1912 , which, although strictly anti-Zionist, encouraged the settlement of young Eastern European Jews in Palestine. The Agudah is still active worldwide today and appears as a political party in Israel. This religiously based anti-Zionist belief is represented by most of the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish religious communities, both inside and outside Israel. For the same reasons, the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta movement rejects the State of Israel.

Well-known Zionists advocated the concept of a binational state with equal rights for Arabs and Jews residing in Palestine until 1947 and beyond. Sections of the left inside and outside of Israel are still in favor of a binational state today without questioning Israel's right to exist . One avowed Jewish anti-Zionist is Uri Davis , a member of Fatah and the Palestinian National Council (PNC).

Furthermore, the publication team of the well-known Orthodox Jewish ArtScroll prayer books stated that “the establishment of the secular state of Israel has no theological significance”.

Among non-Jewish anti-Zionists, Jews are sometimes categorized into Jews with positions critical of Israel or anti-Zionist positions, who are considered "good Jews" (often the above-mentioned - overall meaningless - group Neturei Karta), and into "bad" Jews, Israel and its members to defend allegedly “criminal” politics and which are therefore made jointly responsible for the increasing anti-Semitism.

On November 20, 2018, 34 Israeli scholars (including David Harel , Eva Illouz , Paul Mendes-Flohr , Zeev Sternhell and Moshe Zuckermann ) appealed in an open letter to Europe and the Austrian federal government not to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, as this is Israel make you immune to criticism.

Arab-Islamic anti-Zionism

Arab anti-Zionism is rooted, among other things, in pan-Arabism , which was directed against the Ottoman rule before and during the First World War and afterwards as a reaction to the settlement of Palestine permitted by Great Britain against Jewish settlers. A Jewish state in the Middle East had to contradict the goals of pan-Arabism to establish a common nation-state from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. Since the 1940s, and especially since the 1950s, the Arab peoples internalized the acquisition of all areas claimed by Israel as a pan-Arab goal. In Egypt especially, this goal has been defined as part of Egyptian security doctrine and dignity. Logically, the Arab states fought against the United Nations recognized state of Israel and the like. a. in the Israeli War of Independence .

Pan-Arab anti-Zionism peaked in the 1960s under Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser , who achieved unprecedented popularity in Egypt itself and the region. It was only his successor, Anwar Sadat , who broke with this policy and made peace with Israel.

Since 1993, however, most of the states of the Arab League have de facto recognized Israel and some have established diplomatic relations with it. But there are often strong nationalist and Islamist opposition groups in these states, such as the Muslim Brotherhoods , who refuse to recognize Israel and therefore fight their governments. Other states like Syria and Iran after the Islamic Revolution have not recognized Israel to this day. The Iranian regime regularly provides its anti-Zionist rhetoric with unequivocal anti-Semitic connotations and images, so that the "repeatedly claimed distinction between Zionists and Jews" is reduced to absurdity.

Under the influence of Nasser and in the wake of the lost Six Day War of 1967, Palestinian anti-Zionist groups such as Fatah (1964), the PFLP (1968) and the DFLP (1969) joined the PLO , which was founded in 1964 . The Oslo process , supported by Fatah since 1993, led to a split in the PLO, with the PFLP and DFLP joining more radical, Islamist groups that refuse to partially renounce armed struggle.

Also, the pan-Islamism and other Islamist movements for a national unity of all Muslims in a caliphate are opposed to Zionism ideologically. The historical Palestine, in which Israel lies, is for Islamists as Dār al-Islām the legal and eternal possession of the Muslims.

Hamas , which was founded in 1988 , the Islamic Jihad and the Lebanese Hezbollah, among others, are openly striving to destroy Israel. These Islamist groups are supported financially, militarily and ideologically by the governments of Syria and Iran, and they resort to terrorist attacks in the fight against Israel .

Other prominent Islamist groups seeking the destruction of Israel in favor of a caliphate are Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant .

Anti- Zionism is particularly widespread today in the Islamic states and many Third World countries and often contains elements of European anti-Semitism . Nevertheless, there are critical counter-movements in the Arab region. Both Kurds in northern Iraq and Iranian opposition and Communists are often adjusted pro-Zionist and stand in the fight against Islamism side by side.

“European-style anti-Semitism is growing in the Arab world [...]. This is the new Arab anti-Semitism that is thriving there [...]. "

- Bernard Lewis , 2005 :
See also: Anti-Semitism after 1945 - Middle East, Arab and Islamic countries , anti-Judaism in Islam and also Holocaust denial - section Arab States and Palestinian Territories .

Christian anti-Zionism

Until 1945 , the major European churches and many of the free churches almost consistently advocated a theology of substitution that claimed the disinheritance of the chosen people of God Israel and their replacement by the church because the majority of Jews had rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah . The biblical promises of land, people and the future to Israel had passed on to the Church since the crucifixion of Jesus, of which the Jews were collectively and eternally guilty. Judaism could therefore not have a national and territorial future.

Against the background of this traditional anti-Judaism , the Roman Catholic Church , like most of the Protestant churches in Europe , rejected Zionism and its goal of a Jewish state in Palestine from the beginning as a secular project directed against the will of God. Theodor Herzl reported from a private audience with Pius X in January 1904 that the Pope had told him about the settlement of Palestine: We can never sanction it. The Church would receive the Jews in the Holy Land with missionaries .

Only with the rise of national and international mission societies did Christian Zionism emerge , which saw the resettlement of the Diaspora Jews to Palestine as a possible “solution to the Jewish question ”. He, too, mostly proceeded from anti-Judaist premises that Judaism was inferior.

Christian anti-Judaism has gradually been pushed back since 1945 through intensive reconsideration in Christian theology in Europe and North America, but it continues to dominate large parts of the ecclesiastical populations of these regions. The Vatican has recognized Israel's right to exist since 1993 and has established diplomatic relations with it. There are still strong anti-Zionist currents in the churches of Arab and Far Eastern countries.

In Germany, on the one hand, since the Rhenish Synodal Resolution of 1980, numerous anti-Judaistic formulations have been deleted from the official church language, and on the other hand, the monthly magazine Deutsches Pfarrerblatt of the Association of Protestant Pastors in Germany published the article From the national god Yahweh to the Lord of the world and all peoples - Israel -Palestine conflict and the liberation of theology of the theologian Jochen Vollmer , who received protests because of his anti-Zionist content. In its following edition, the Pfarrerblatt referred to its role as an “open and free forum” as well as to regional church and EKD synodal resolutions that contradict Vollmer's view.

Right-wing extremist anti-Zionism

Demonstration in Berlin on July 17, 2014: The number eighty-eight framed by wings is tattooed on the forearm of the participant with a keffiyeh in the foreground , a Nazi numerical code for the Hitler salute , and above it praise for the Palestinians who are “the only ones ... against the Zionists fight back ”.

Anti-Semitism has always played a major role in European right-wing extremism . Building on conspiracy theories that blame the Jews for various national and global grievances, right-wing extremist groups and parties like the German NPD repeatedly refer to Israel as a state that - together with the supposedly Jewish-controlled USA - wants to enslave the world . Since calling for the annihilation of a state or an ethnic group is forbidden in Europe, right-wing extremists try to imply this. With questions like “Who is stopping Israel?”, Several right-wing extremist parties and groups published pamphlets and pamphlets in 2006 accusing Israel (and the US) of being the “number one aggressor” and of systematically exterminating the Arab population . At the same time, one likes to be the victim of an allegedly “Jewish-conditioned media dictatorship”. "Criticism of Israel" is "prohibited under penalty of law" in Germany . The NPD's “criticism” of Israel usually consists of defamatory phrases: For example, the NPD Federal Chairman Udo Voigt was arrested in July 2006 for incitement to hatred, after speaking with about 50 neo-Nazis “Israel - International Genocide Center “Had chanted. Other extreme-right parties in Germany do of anti-Zionist slogans use: for example, promoted the extreme right-wing Minor party rights before the European elections in 2019 to stop using the slogan "Zionism: Israel is our misfortune! No more! ”Posters with this slogan subsequently caused controversy. The neo-Nazi small party The III. In its propaganda, Weg uses terms such as “murderers and terror bombers from the Zionist entity”, demonizes Israel, among other things, as a “predatory state” and calls for a boycott of Israeli goods (based on the Nazi boycott of Jews in 1933).

The neo-Nazi anti-Zionism manifested itself in the 1980s and 1990s a. a. in the anti-Zionist campaign launched by Michael Kühnen and Ingrid Weckert in Munich . A political catchphrase used in this context in right-wing extremist - anti-Semitic circles is ZOG, which stands for Zionist Occupied Government .

Anti-Zionism in the United Nations

After the Six Day War, the Arab League reached a number of anti-Israeli resolutions at the UN, which were approved by a majority of states. In 1975 the UN General Assembly passed UN Resolution 3379 , which condemned Zionism as a form of racism and called on all states to fight it. 72 states, including all Eastern Bloc states , all Islamic states and most of the non-aligned states , voted for the resolution, 35 states voted against, 32 abstained. At the end of 1991 the controversial resolution was withdrawn by the UN General Assembly by 111 votes to 25 with 13 abstentions ( resolution 46/86 ). In 1998, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the adoption of Resolution 3379 as a “low point” in the history of the United Nations.

At the third UN World Conference on Racism in Durban , South Africa , from August 31 to September 8, 2001, the Arab and Islamic states attempted to denounce Zionism as racism again. After the temporary departure of the representatives of Israel and the USA, a joint final declaration was made that avoided this condemnation, but dedicated a separate passage to the Middle East conflict on the subject of racism. Syria's attempt to equate colonialism with racism instead of Zionism was rejected.

Anti-Zionism in Socialist States

The Soviet Union was one after the Second World War, initially the strongest supporters of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, ie the creation of Israel and one of them separate Arab state. The political leadership in Moscow saw the new state as a potential ally because of the socialist orientation of the leading forces within Zionism and the influence of the labor movement. The Soviet Union justified its then pro-Zionist stance with the mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis. The then Soviet ambassador to the UN, Andrei Gromyko , remembered the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jews who survived it on May 14, 1947 at the UN . The fact that no European state was able or willing to protect the Jews from the National Socialists gives them the right to their own state. In November he added that the UN partition plan for Palestine was also in the interests of the Arab Palestinians. Immediately after its founding in 1948, the Soviet Union recognized the State of Israel. Almost all states of the then Eastern Bloc followed , including the People's Republic of Romania .

Almost at the same time, however, the living conditions of the Jews in the Eastern Bloc deteriorated, particularly as a result of the Stalinist purges , in which anti-Semitic motives were taken up from 1948 to 1953. Conspiracy theories spread the idea of ​​a Zionist " medical conspiracy " with American and Israeli secret service participation, and many Soviet Jews were described as " rootless cosmopolitans ", whereby in show trials such as the Slansky Trial in 1952 in Czechoslovakia the accused included Zionism ("bourgeois nationalism “) Was accused. As early as 1950, Israel came closer to the United States, which, unlike the Soviet Union, had initially been cautious about the UN partition plan; the Soviet Union saw it as a threat to its security from "Zionists" within the USSR.

In 1971 the Central Committee of the CPSU declared that Zionism, unlike the Zionists portrayed it, was by no means the national trend of the Jews, but a “ class struggle force that opposes the interests of all working people”. In 1983 the Anti-Zionist Committee presented itself to the Soviet public in Moscow . Zionism is a "dangerous variant of bourgeois ideology" and an instrument of the bourgeoisie because it includes the "claim of national exclusivity, of the chosen people". Since Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it has also become clear that Zionism “ revived the ideas and methods of Hitler’s fascism ” and that its alleged crimes resembled those of the National Socialists and Fascists .

In states like the People's Republic of Poland , politicians of Jewish origin like Jakub Berman saw themselves compelled to take a vehement stand against Zionism and thereby show their loyalty to the Soviet Union. Since the Suez crisis in 1956, at the height of de-Stalinization , the CPSU classified Zionism as a form of bourgeois nationalism and combated it by supporting the Arab states of the region - especially Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser - ideologically and militarily against Israel.

In Czechoslovakia , after initial support from the State of Israel, a campaign was launched against Jewish communists who were accused, among other things, of being "Zionist agents". In his forced confession, Rudolf Slansky pleaded guilty to being “a Zionist traitor and scoundrel and an agent of the American intelligence service”.

The GDR was also openly anti-Zionist; Zionism was branded as serving the interests of “US imperialism” and the “Jewish capitalists”. At the end of 1952, as a result of the Slansky trial, Jews who had returned to the GDR from western exile were interrogated and expelled from the party. Paul Merker , who was not a Jew, was condemned as a “Zionist agent” who “only demanded compensation for the Jewish property in order to enable US finance capital to penetrate Germany.” Especially after the Six Day War , which is shown in the current camera branded as an "imperialist-Jewish conspiracy," anti-Israeli propaganda emerged in the media. With the help of terms in the tradition of anti-Jewish clichés (“child murderer”), children and young people were also given the image of the “Israeli-imperialist aggressor” and anti-imperialist pro-Palestinian solidarity was demanded.

Anti-Zionism among the left in the Federal Republic

A number of left groups in West Germany linked solidarity with the Palestinians with opposition to Israel. They now viewed this as the governor and bridgehead of US imperialism in the Middle East. In doing so, they placed the Middle East conflict in their worldview of the antagonism of a US-led capitalism on the one hand and the peoples of the Third World fighting for liberation on the other. The transition from this as “anti-Zionism” policy to manifest anti-Semitism was fluid.

In the 1970s, dealing with the Middle East conflict, such as the close cooperation between German left-wing extremists and the PLO, led to clashes about anti-Zionism and open anti-Semitism on the left in general. As early as 1969, on the 31st anniversary of the November pogroms , the militant group Tupamaros West Berlin had deposited an incendiary bomb in the Jewish community hall in Berlin and smeared several Jewish memorials. Through the hostage-taking in Munich in 1972, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Operation Entebbe in 1976 and the hijacking of the “Landshut” plane in 1977, this topic also had a variety of references to West Germany. In 1985, the controversy in Frankfurt's left-wing scene culminated in the theater scandal surrounding the play The Garbage, the City and Death .

Hans-Joachim Klein , who was still involved in the OPEC hostage-taking in Vienna as a member of the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) in 1975 , then distanced himself from the RZ and warned against planned anti-Semitic attacks. The RZ spoke in letters of confession 1978/79 of the “fascist genocide against the Palestinian people” and of the “Holocaust against the Palestinians”. They named the Jewish Agency as one of the future targets for attacks in Germany .

In 2004, the “anti-Semitism of the left” was discussed in retrospect at a conference of the Hans Böckler Foundation .

The Left Party recognizes Israel's right to exist. However, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist tendencies in the party or among individual members are repeatedly discussed in the media. The political scientist Samuel Salzborn and the historian Sebastian Voigt described anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic tendencies in the party in an essay in 2011. The so-called " toilet affair " also attracted international attention in 2014.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement , founded in 2005, is considered anti-Zionist. On May 7, 2019, the German Bundestag condemned the majority of their argumentation patterns and methods as anti-Semitic.

Even today, many left-wing extremists position themselves hostile to Israel and see anti-Semitic movements from the Middle East, such as Arab- secular nationalists or terrorist organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah , as allies in the “ anti-imperialist ” struggle.

In response to anti-imperialist anti-Zionist positions within the German left, the flow of the formed anti-German .

Criticism of anti-Zionism

Martin Luther King's statement is verbally attested that peace is an important task for Arabs and Israelis and that Israel's right to exist and territorial integrity must be secured. An often quoted letter to an anti-Zionist friend, on the other hand, is unsubstantiated and probably forged.

Jean Améry saw anti-Zionism on the left as banal anti-Semitism. He said publicly in 1969:

“Anti-Semitism was once the socialism of stupid guys. Today he is about to become an integral part of socialism par excellence, and so every socialist makes himself a fool of free will. Anti-Semitism has become respectable again, but there is no such thing as honest anti-Semitism! "

With reference to Hans Mayer , in 1976 as a speaker at the Week of Brotherhood , he rejected a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism as constructed. He called for distancing himself from anti-Zionism as an essential basis for a redefinition of the left.

The literary historian Hans Mayer wrote in his main work "Outsider" in 1975:

“Anyone who attacks 'Zionism' but by no means wants to say anything against 'the Jews' is fooling himself and others. The state of Israel is a Jewish state. Anyone who wants to destroy it, whether by choice or through a policy that cannot achieve anything other than such destruction, has been and has always been hating the Jews. "

The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut wrote in 1982 in connection with the reactions to Israel's first Lebanon War:

“Doctrinal anti-Semitism could hardly have continued without giving itself a new name, but that's what it did. And this replacement of the Jew by the Zionist is more than just a rhetorical device. What it shows is a very significant mutation in totalitarian thinking: Nowadays it is no longer peoples that are persecuted, but ideologies, there are no longer any subhumans, only actions of imperialism. "

Henryk M. Broder is also one of the actors who criticize the left for anti-Semitic tendencies. A broader dispute in the left only took place later and led, among other things, to the emergence of the anti-Germans . Broder's book The Eternal Anti-Semite from 1986 expanded his criticism to include parts of the German peace movement and the way many established media deal with the Middle East conflict. According to Broder, anti-Zionism today fulfills the same sociological function that “honorable anti-Semitism” had up to the Holocaust: it gives latent anti-Semitism the opportunity to present themselves as advocates of oppressed minorities - the Palestinians - and thus openly express their hostility to Jews. An unconscious need to shift blame plays a major role here. By rhetorically speaking up for the "victims of the victims", anti-Zionists equate the descendants of the Holocaust victims with its perpetrators in order to ultimately assume the role of victims themselves as descendants of the perpetrators and to exonerate themselves from a perceived collective guilt for the Holocaust. In doing so, they replaced old anti-Semitic clichés with new ones: instead of a Jewish race, they fought Jewish nationalism in order to hit the State of Israel and thus the hope of all Jews for a protected existence after the Holocaust.

The sociologist Thomas Haury sees in left anti-Zionism the need for their own relief by “burdening the Jews”, because if one declares “the Jews / Israelis as the Nazis of today and the Palestinians as the 'Jews of the Jews', this is an invitation to join to the best of left conscience [...] to fight the German past against the state of the Jews. "

With reference to the Möllemann affair , Samuel Salzborn and Marc Schwietring (2019) stated that the "question that has been asked again and again whether it is not allowed to criticize Israel [...] was just as hypocritical at the time", as it is today, because criticism of Israeli politics has been "continuously and openly exercised" in the Federal Republic and will continue to do so. The question alone contains “the anti-Semitic motive of the omnipotence and world conspiracy of the Jews, of the 'Auschwitz club' that is used as the mood takes you”.

The German Bundestag declared November 4, 2008 to mark the 70th anniversary of the German pogroms of November 1938 :

“There is cause for concern that anti-Semitism can be found in all strata of the population. Often it goes hand in hand with anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. Solidarity with Israel is an indispensable part of Germany's reason of state. Anyone who takes part in demonstrations in which Israeli flags are burned and anti-Semitic slogans are shouted are not partners in the fight against anti-Semitism. Solidarity with terrorist and anti-Semitic groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah goes beyond the scope of permissible criticism of Israeli politics. "

However, in January 2020 the philosopher Slavoj Žižek warned against considering current anti-Zionism as nothing more than a hidden form of anti-Semitism in all cases. There is currently a global offensive, the victims of which include many Jews who are critical of Israeli politics. The State of Israel is making a catastrophic mistake by deciding to downplay so-called "old" (traditionally European) anti-Semitism and instead concentrate on the "new" and ostensibly "progressive" anti-Semitism under the guise of criticizing its Zionist policies, while this "old" anti-Semitism is returning. For example, Christian US fundamentalists are “anti-Semitic by nature, so to speak,” even if they “passionately support the Zionist policies of the State of Israel”. Donald Trump also did exactly the same when he “used anti-Semitic clichés to describe Jews as greedy for money and not loyal enough to Israel.” However, the founder and chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization “Christians United for Israel” John Hagee surpasses all of them by "blaming the Jews themselves for the Holocaust" and declaring that Hitler's persecution of European Jews was part of a "divine plan" to establish the state of Israel.

literature

Web links

Commons : Anti-Zionism  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin W. Kloke: Israel and the German Left. To the story of a difficult relationship. 2nd edition, Haag + Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-86137-148-0 , p. 19.
  2. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Left-wing extremism in Germany. A critical inventory. Springer VS, Wiesbaden, 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-04506-7 , p. 191.
  3. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Anti-Semitic and non-anti-Semitic criticism of Israel. An examination of the criteria for differentiation .
  4. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: "Anti-Americanism", "Anti-Westernism" and "Anti-Zionism". Definition and contours of three enemy images in political extremism. In: Enlightenment & Critique 1/2004, pp. 37–50.
  5. ↑ Peter Ullrich: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism and Critique of Israel in Germany. Dynamics of a Discursive Field .
  6. ^ “Anti-Zionism is not only the historic heir of earlier forms of anti-Semitism. Today, it is also the lowest common denominator and the bridge between the Left, the Right, and the militant Muslims; between the elites (including the media) and the masses; between the churches and the mosques; between an increasingly anti-American Europe and an endemically anti-Western Arab-Muslim Middle East; a point of convergence between conservatives and radicals and a connecting link between fathers and sons ”. Robert S. Wistrich: Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism . in: Jewish Political Studies Review 16, Issue 3-4 (2004), ( online on the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs website, accessed October 6, 2019.)
  7. ↑ Georg Kreis: Israel criticism and anti-Semitism. Attempt to reflect beyond religion and nationality. In: Moshe Zuckermann (Ed.): Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Israel criticism. Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-872-8 , p. 21.
  8. ↑ Georg M. Hafner and Esther Shapira : Israel is to blame for everything. Why the Jewish state is so hated. Eichborn, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-8479-0589-9 .
  9. ^ Walter Laqueur: The Changing Face of Antisemitism. From Ancient Times to the Present Day. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, p. 7.
  10. ^ Franklin H. Littell: The Crucifixion of the Jews. The Failure of Christians to Understand the Jewish Experience. Mercer University Press, Macon 1986, p. 97.
  11. ↑ Manfred Gerstenfeld Interviews with Georges-Elia Sarfati .
  12. ^ Samuel Salzborn: Global anti-Semitism. A search for traces in the abyss of modernity. With a foreword by Dr. Josef Schuster. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2018, p. 143 ff.
  13. ↑ Alvin H. Rosenfeld: "What is 'Israel criticism'?" In: Marc Grimm, Bodo Kahmann (Ed.): Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century. Virulence of an old enmity in times of Islamism and terror. European-Jewish Studies Articles Volume 36. De Gruyter, Berlin 2018, pp. 51–62, quotation p. 62
  14. ↑ Micha Brumlik: “New and old anti-Semitism in Germany. Analysis and educational interventions. ”In: Mechtild Gomolla, Ellen Kollender, Marlene Menk (eds.): Racism and right-wing extremism in Germany. Figurations and interventions in society and state institutions. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2018, p. 73 ff.
  15. ^ Alan Posener: Labor Policy Statement: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. www.welt.de, September 20, 2019
  16. ↑ Sandra Rokahr: “Blunted anti-Semitism. Israel criticism as a ticket mentality. ”In: Samuel Salzborn (Ed.): Anti-Semitism since 9/11. Events, debates, controversies. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2019, p. 104
  17. ↑ Delphine Horvilleur: Reflections on the question of anti-Semitism. Hanser, Berlin 2020, p. 114 f.
  18. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: "Anti-Semitism in the past and present." In: Andreas H. Apelt, Lars Lüdicke (Ed.): Committed to the victims. Anti-Semitism Past and Present. mdv Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2020, p. 17
  19. ↑ Jewish weekly. The truth. Jewish weekly. The truth. XLVIII. Volume, Vienna, June 17, 1932, number 25, p. 6 - The youngest war volunteer ( Memento from December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.3 MB), accessed on April 4, 2013
  20. ^ Daniel Blatman: Bund . In: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe Online . Accessed: March 25, 2011 (English)
  21. ↑ Gershon Bacon: Agudas Yisroel . In: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe Online . Accessed: March 25, 2011 (English)
  22. ^ Peter Beaumont: Why Israeli Jew Uri Davis joined Fatah to save Palestine. The first Jewish member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah talks about a unique political journey . The Observer , August 23, 2009 (English). Uri Davis reportedly converted to Islam in 2008 .
  23. ^ Review of Isaiah The Milstein Edition Later Prophets
  24. ↑ Helga Embacher, Bernadette Edtmaier, Alexandra Preitschopf: Anti-Semitism in Europe. Case studies of a global phenomenon in the 21st century. Böhlau, Vienna 2019, p. 146
  25. ↑ Don't mix criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East , November 20, 2018.
  26. ↑ a b Abou-el-Fadl, Reem: The Road To Jerusalem Through Tahrir square: anti-Zionism and Palestine in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution , in: Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 41, No. 2 (Winter 2012), pp. 6-26.
  27. ↑ Example Al-Quds-Tag - Islamist networks and ideologies among migrants in Germany and possibilities for civil society intervention ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 625 kB) Report by Udo Wolter for the integration commissioner of the federal government, Berlin in November 2004
  28. ^ Neusner, Jacob: Comparing Religions Through Law. Judaism and Islam, London 1999, p. 201
  29. ↑ Merkley, Paul Charles: Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel, Montreal 2001, p. 122
  30. ↑ Akbarzadeh, Shahram: Islam And the West. Reflections from Australia, Sydney 2005, p. 4
  31. ↑ Hobbs, Joseph J .: 'The Geographical Dimensions of Al-Qa'ida Rhetoric', in: Geographical Review, Vol. 95, No. 3, (July 2005), pp. 301–327, especially 313 + 314
  32. ^ Wall Street Journal: The Short Answer. Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham , June 12, 2014.
  33. ↑ Kurdistan - a "second Israel"?
  34. ↑ in The American Scholar (magazine) , Dec. 1, online
  35. ↑ Jochen Vollmer: From the national god Yahweh to the Lord of the world and all peoples - The Israel-Palestine conflict and the liberation of theology , in: Deutsches Pfarrerblatt 8/2011
  36. ^ Evangelisch.de: Article in Pfarrerblatt criticized as anti-Jewish , 23 August 2011
  37. ^ Peter Haigis: Deutsches Pfarrerblatt . tape 2011 , no. 9 .
  38. ↑ Holocaust Reference : Is Zionism Jewish Racism? An unfortunate UN resolution
  39. ↑ World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance: Declaration (pdf)
  40. ↑ Netzeitung September 8, 2001: Agreement at the Racism Conference ( Memento of February 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  41. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The legend of the Jewish world conspiracy , CH Beck, p. 29
  42. ↑ quoted from Henryk M. Broder: Der ewige Antisemit , 2nd edition 2006, p. 307ff
  43. ↑ Michal Frankl: Slansky Trial . In: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe Online . Accessed: March 25, 2011 (English)
  44. ↑ I'm a rascal, Mr. Public Prosecutor! . Der Spiegel, January 2, 1957
  45. ^ The relationship between the GDR and Israel by Sebastian Voigt , bpb March 28, 2008
  46. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Anti-Zionism: The enemy image of Israel as a legacy of the GDR. www.tagesspiegel.de, February 23, 2019
  47. ↑ dash.org: The ideological foundations of anti-Zionism in his left hand
  48. ^ Rudolf van Hüllen: "Anti-imperialist" and "anti-German" currents in German left-wing extremism. Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb), January 5, 2015
  49. ↑ a b Thomas Müller: About the anti-Semitism of the Linke Bochum student newspaper, November 2000
  50. ↑ Return to humanity. Appeal from a terrorist who has dropped out .
  51. ^ Conf: Anti-Semitism in the German Left Hans-Böckler Foundation, Hans-Böckler-Str. 39, 40476 Düsseldorf, November 26, 2004 to November 28, 2004, IG Metall Bildungsstätte Berlin / Pichelssee, Ed. Matthias Brosch
  52. ↑ Toilet affair leads to open dispute Frankfurter Rundschau, November 16, 2014, last seen on July 8, 2016.
  53. ↑ Study reveals anti-Semitism in the left-wing party Die Welt, May 19, 2011, last seen on July 8, 2016.
  54. ↑ Where left and right meet Zeit Online, November 22, 2014, last seen on July 8, 2016.
  55. ^ Samuel Salzborn / Sebastian Voigt: Anti-Semites as coalition partners? The Left Party between anti-Zionist anti-Semitism and the pursuit of governance. ( Memento from August 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Online advance publication, 2011.
  56. ↑ You do not speak for us! (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 19, 2016 ; Retrieved on May 13, 2016 (a website specially created by politicians of the Left Party, who distance themselves from the action).
  57. ↑ Left-wing politicians on the list of anti-Semites 2014 Die Welt, December 2014, last seen on July 8, 2016.
  58. ↑ Martin Niewendick: Why the Left does not see anti-Semitism in Israel boycotters. welt.de , May 17, 2019, accessed October 6, 2019.
  59. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber : “Anti-Semitism in left, right and religious extremism in Germany. A comparison of ideology, propaganda and tendency to violence. ”In: Andreas H. Apelt, Lars Lüdicke (Ed.): Committed to the victims. Anti-Semitism Past and Present. mdv Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2020, p. 23 f.
  60. ↑ Tim Wise: Fraud Fit for a King: Israel, Zionism and the Misuse of MLK ( Memento of May 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Zmag.org , January 21, 2003.
  61. ↑ quoted from Arno Lustiger: Jew hatred today (Die Welt, November 29, 2008)
  62. ↑ Honorable Anti-Semitism in Continuing Life, But How ?: Essays 1968–1978 Jean Améry
  63. ↑ Hans Mayer: Outsiders. Suhrkamp, ​​1st edition 2007, ISBN 3-518-41902-1
  64. ↑ Alain Finkielkraut: Avenir d'une négation: réflexion sur la question du génocide (1982), English: The Future Of A Negation: Reflexion On The Genocide Issue , German cited by Henryk M. Broder, Der ewige Antisemit p. 100
  65. ^ Henryk M. Broder: Anti-Zionism - Anti-Semitism from the left? , in: From Politics and Contemporary History Volume 24, 1976 (pp. 31–46)
  66. ↑ The anti-Germans and the debate of the left about Israel by Patrick Hagen 04/05 online newspaper
  67. ^ Henryk M. Broder: The eternal anti-Semite , 2nd edition 2006, pp. 66–70
  68. ↑ Thomas Haury: "From the left criticism of Zionism to anti-Semitic anti-Zionism from the left." In: Samuel Salzborn (Ed.): Antisemitism - history and present. Giessen 2009 (2nd edition), pp. 127–158
  69. ↑ Samuel Salzborn, Marc Schwietring "affective mobilizations in the social center. The 'Möllemann Debate' as a catalyst for secondary anti-Semitism. ”In: Samuel Salzborn (Ed.): Antisemitism since 9/11. Events, debates, controversies. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2019, p. 34 f.
  70. ↑ request of the CDU / CSU, SPD, FDP and Alliance 90 / The Greens: Stepping up the fight against anti-Semitism, continue to promote Jewish life in Germany (German Bundestag, 16th electoral term, printed matter 16/10775, November 4, 2008; PDF; 70 kB)
  71. ↑ Friday 2020/02 [1]
  72. ↑ German: In the name of anti-Zionism. The image of the Jews and Israel in the caricature (s) since the second Intifada. Numerous picture examples and signatures from Arabic media