Dieter Elken:
Zionism, Fascism
and the Discussion about Old and "New Anti-Semitism"
Lenni Brenner's rich and thoroughly researched study of the relationship between Zionism and fascism will provide German readers with material which will influence the debates in this country about anti-Semitism. It is inevitable that current political debates shape our view of the past, but it is equally vital that with every political debate the respective positions are placed into their respective historical contexts so that debates do not lose touch with reality. Lenni Brenner's work casts light on an area of history that has been tabooed by many authors, particularly in the German discussion. The results of his research will make it clear to readers that there is a key element the current debate that must be put right — the false assumption that the Zionist movement up until 1945 made a serious contribution to the fight against anti-Semitism and fascism and that Israel is continuing this fight. This book sticks to facts, and this is why it will help to dispel some well-preserved, ahistorical myths that abound in the current debate.
What is this debate about?
As early as the mid-19
th century and in the course of the emerging European nationalist movements, there had been initiatives that strove for the new foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Initial colonial settlement projects were prepared as early as 1848, but none of them were of any great significance.
[1]
This was not to change until later on in the 19
th century when a new kind of anti-Semitism, which was partly founded in nationalism and partly in racism, began to spread through Europe. The pogroms of 1882 in tsarist Russia and the Dreyfus Affair became symbols of this anti-Semitism. Its social basis was initially the old petty bourgeoisie which had seen itself ruined by the emergence of capitalist industry and thus vented its fears for its livelihood as aggression towards Jewish competition. As a reaction to this growing anti-Semitism, movements were created including a Jewish national movement known as Zionism.
[2] In his 1882 work, ”Auto-emancipation”, Leo Pinsker adopted a biological and racist view of Jewishness and was the first to propagate the ”return” of the Jews to Palestine as a solution to their national problems. Following Pinsker, and above all Theodor Herzl and his book ”The Jewish State”, the Zionist movement looked for the solution to its problems in the creation of a Jewish state.
”So Zionism is a very young movement, the youngest of the European national movements. But this does not by any means stop it (much less so than all other nationalist movements) from maintaining that it draws its substance from a very distant past. Whilst Zionism is, in reality, a product of the last phase of an already rotten capitalism, it still holds claim to having its origins in a more than two-thousand-year past. Whilst it is in fact a reaction to the linking up of feudalist and capitalist tendencies to break up groups in society - something that was so disastrous for the Jews - Zionism sees itself as a reaction to Jewish history since the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 A.C. Its young existence is of course the best proof of the fact that this claim is untrue. (...) However, like all national movements - and to an even greater extent than others - Zionism sees its past in the light of the present. The image of the present is thus distorted. (...) and Zionism is attempting to create the myth of eternal Judaism which has always had to battle against the same kind of persecution.”
[3]
”All of these idealistic notions are of course inextricably linked to the dogma of eternal anti-Semitism. 'As long as the Jews are living in diaspora they will be hated by the indigenous peoples'. This fundamental notion of Zionism, its whole framework so to speak, is of course nuanced by different currents. Zionism applies modern anti-Semitism to all eras”.
[4] This is still true today.
[5]
Zionism's relationship to other hostile nationalist movements, as well as to anti-Semitism, is however not as unambiguous as unbiased minds might believe. The Zionist movement must, on the one hand, be against anti-Semitism, but it is at the same time reliant upon the existence of anti-Semitism as a prerequisite for its own existence. Zionism needs the reactionary effect of anti-Semitism in order for the flow of Jewish immigrants to Israel not to dry up. Nathan Weinstock observed in his book ”Zionsim against Israel”: ”The causal link between racist persecution and the progress of Zionist nationalism is obvious. Every stage of the Jewish colonisation of Palestine corresponds to an intensification of anti-Semitism. After all, the waves of emigration that began in 1882 and 1904 are direct products of pogroms”.
[6]Indeed, leading representatives of Zionism have seen the movement's most dangerous enemy not in anti-Semitism itself, but in the assimilation of Jews into other populations. In the words of Nahum Goldmann, the former president of the ”General Jewish World Congress” and the ”World Zionist Association”: The danger of the Jewish community assimilating into the populations amongst which they live is much more serious than the external threat of anti-Semitism.”
[7]
Zionism and Anti-Semitism: A hostile symbiosis
The relationship between Zionism and anti-Semitism is not only that of a kind of hostile symbiosis.
As an ideological product of the nationalism of the 19th century, Zionism has taken on a number of ideological set-pieces from the dominant ideologies of its time. These ideological loans do not necessarily apply to the whole Zionist movement, which comprised a wide ideological spectrum right from the start. The Zionist movement did however carry several reactionary features from the start.
Joachim Prinz, Zionist and then influential rabbi in Berlin as well as post-war leading member of the American Jewish Congress, enthused in 1934 in the tones of blood and soil romanticism:
”Farming tied the non-Jew increasingly closer to the soil and the village. But fate simply drove the Jew into the towns. The Jew as a city type is no consequence of his own inner urge. It is the consequence of his unfinished emancipation (...) In the cities we completely lose real life, a life that knows danger and adventure (...) But asphalt does not create anything real.”
[8] And: ”The extent to which we have degenerated can only become clear if, on looking back, we see the figures against which we must be measured in order to see the extent of our destruction, but also the path into the future”.
[9]
Prinz despised assimilationists such as Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx or Kurt Tucholsky. He regarded anti-Semitism as a kind of natural phenomenon and as such immutable. Consequently, he declared with great pathos: ”Because we are one people, hatred for us grows everywhere, everywhere where we lived scattered amongst other peoples. Because we are one people, one people with its own blood, of its own kind, we have been appointed to special positions in the lives of other peoples. (...) Only once we have grasped this, only once we have felt in the joy of this message what the first generation of fighters for the Jewish traditions felt, only then will our own pride be reborn, we will stand up straight, the obsession with mimicry will disappear, 'the creeping and stooping' will disgust us — and a new Jew will emerge, with new Jewish power and with a new, fulfilled declaration of Jewish faith.”
[10]
This fundamental stance is expressed not least in the ”stereotypical” pictures in which Zionist authors described the search for a new Jewish identity. Amnon Rubinstein, Israeli minister in Rabin's cabinet during the 1990s, writes: ”...at the beginning Zionist literature was full of such pictures: the old Jew compared with the newborn Hebrew; the Jew living in diaspora next to the sabra born in Israel; the Yid of old next to the resurrected Maccabee; the subordinate Jew next to the Superjew”. Rubinstein sums up: Zionism was, especially in Eastern Europe, founded on this utter refusal of Jewish existence in galut
[11] (...) Zionism is not content with the Jews regaining their lost sovereignty and returning to their never-forgotten homeland; it also wants to be the midwife who helps the Jews to give birth to a new person. This revolution is — just as much as the political demand for independence — the foundation of Zionist philosophy.”
[12]
Conversely, this stance implied of course that the Zionist movement had a certain understanding for anti-Semitism. Herzl believed that he could recognise ”how much of anti-Semitism is raw jest, common envy of others' incomes, inherited prejudice and religious intolerance — but also how much is supposed self-defence!”
[13](Note: what he means is the ”self-defence ” of populations against the Jews!). Herzl therefore also spoke quite logically of ”decent anti-Semites”.
[14]
The idea of creating a new, strong Jew, created by way of a kind of national rebirth, was complemented by a racist ideology of superiority borrowed from the then widely spread colonialist and racist world view. In the words of historian Joseph Klausner: ”Our hope of one day being master in our own house does not rest on our fists or our swords, but on our superiority over Arabs and Turks.”
[15] The attitude of Jabotinsky, leader of the Zionist Right, was equally unambiguous. He declared that Zionism was turning to the East but taking the culture of the West with it: ”We Jews have nothing in common with that which is called 'the East' and we thank God for this.”
[16]
However, Jabotinsky had few illusions about the relationship to Arabs. Unlike Herzl he did not spin yarns about Palestine being a country without people; instead, he formulated quite openly the aim of Zionist politics in his 1923 article ”The iron wall. Us and the Arabs”: ”Zionist colonisation, however limited it may still be, must either be stopped or continued regardless of the will of the indigenous population. Therefore, this colonisation can only be continued and developed under the protection of a force independent of the indigenous population — an iron wall that the indigenous population cannot break through. This is, in short, our policy towards the Arabs. To express it differently would be nothing less than hypocrisy.”
[17]
Alliances with alternating imperialist powers
It should therefore be of no surprise that the Zionist movement's ideological closeness to the European nationalist movements and the racist parallels with anti-Semitic currents represented in Europe favoured right from the start the political rapprochement of the Zionist colonial project to the imperialist powers. Up until the First World War, the Zionist movement strove for an alliance with, above all, the rising German Empire, which also had the best connections to the Ottoman Empire. After this time co-operation (often extremely tense) was forced with the British Empire, although parts of the Zionist movement in the 1930s and even still during the Second World War in the 1940s looked for possibilities of coming to an arrangement with fascism for completely different reasons. After the Second World War the United States became Zionism's most important ally and have remained so to this day.
Zionist collaboration with the Nazis
The Zionist Association for Germany (ZAG), whose leaders had played a dominant role in the Zionist world movement until the First World War and who still exerted great influence at the time, was until 1933 only a very small minority amongst German Jews with (1930) just 9,059 members who were not even properly organised. Their leaders had always deliberately stayed out of German interior policy and had concentrated on their colonial project. The battle against anti-Semitism and rising fascism was of no great importance to them and they thus neglected it. Only the ”Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith” - which was non-Zionist and represented the overwhelming majority of organised German Jews - had for years before 1933 directed its efforts towards the battle against anti-Semitism and in the end also against National Socialism.
[18] The ”Reich Representation of German Jews” did not believe it had any prospects for effective resistance, but it did denounce its tormentors even under the fascist regime on 29 May 1933: ”German Jews are facing the fate of being deprived of their rights in their German homeland. Their honour under attack, the German Jews cannot defend themselves as a small minority of the German people.”
[19]
The
Jüdische Rundschau, the publication that was at the time the most important mouthpiece of the Zionist movement in Germany, recognised an opportunity for the Zionist cause in this new situation. On 4 April 1933, one newspaper commentary urged in reaction to the newly begun Nazi campaign to boycott Jewish shops: ”Wear the yellow mark with pride!”
[20] And: ”April 1
st 1933 can be a day of Jewish awakening and of Jewish rebirth. If the Jews want it, if the Jews are ready and possess the inner greatness.”
[21]
The influential Berlin rabbi Joachim Prinz wrote: ”The essence of anti-Semitism (...) lies in the peoples, deep within, ultimately indestructible, ultimately unbeatable.”
[22] His conclusion: ”That all over the world the symptoms are growing that point to a move away from the fundamental principles of liberalism; that the value of parliament and democracy are beginning to falter; that the exaggeration of individualism is being seen as a mistake; and that the concepts of nation and people and their realities are gradually gaining more and more ground — all of these events in the world can be noted by the calm and rational observer as facts. The development from the human league of the enlightenment to the people's league of the present contains the principle of development from the concept of humanity to the concept of the nation. (...) It has found the last and most powerful formulation in the rejection of internationalism, in the demand for a socialism that is built upon the uniqueness of every people and upon that people's own special requirements — this is why it is a national socialism.”
[23] And: ”It is
we who have fought against mimicry, against baptism and mixed marriages. Stronger powers have come to our aid. (...) We want something new to replace assimilation: a declaration of belief in the Jewish nation and the Jewish race. A state that is built on this commitment to the purity of nation and race can only have respect for the Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind.”
[24]
The early readiness of the ZAG leadership to collaborate with the Nazis was therefore not imposed by the circumstances. It corresponded with the mood and the attitude of the special Zionist mainstream altogether. What was born out of necessity for the non-Zionist organisations — the creation of a separate Jewish school system, the propagation of a separate culture and the desire to emigrate
[25] — was the aim of the Zionist movement from the very start. After the so-called seizure of power by the Nazis, the ZAG made efforts to come to an arrangement with the Nazis. In its statement of 21 June 1933, it made the following comment on ”the position of the Jews in the new German state”:
”Baptism and mixed marriages were being favoured in political and economic life. It therefore came about that several people of Jewish origin found the opportunity to take on important positions and to stand up as representatives of German culture and German life without their Jewishness becoming apparent.
And thus a situation emerged which can be described in today's political debate as the 'falsification of Germanness' or 'Jewification'.
(...) Zionism is not mistaken about the problematique of the Jewish situation, which lies above all in unusual job stratification and the lack of a spiritual and moral stance which is not rooted in the Jewish tradition. Zionism recognised decades ago that, as a result of assimilation, symptoms of decline would have to emerge that it would try to overcome by realising its demands — demands that would completely change Jewish life.
(...) Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life — as has happened in German life through commitment to Christian and national values — must also occur for the Jewish people. For Jews too, descent, religion, common destiny and work ethic must be decisive for how they choose to shape their lives. This requires them to overcome, by means of public spirit and a willingness to take on responsibility, the selfish individualism that has emerged in the age of liberalism.
(...) On the soil of the new state - which is based on the principle of race - we want to fit our community into the whole structure in such a way as to be able to carry out fruitful work for the fatherland in the sphere that has been assigned to us.
(...) For its practical goals, Zionism believes it can win the support of a fundamentally anti-Semitic government; because dealing with the Jewish question has nothing to do with sentimentality, rather it has to do with a real problem which all peoples, in particular the German people at this current time, are interested in solving.
(...) Boycott propaganda — as is currently being directed against Germany from many sides — is of a non-Zionist nature, because Zionism does not want to fight, it wants to persuade and build.”
With this declaration, German Zionism was holding out a collaborative hand to National Socialism and rejecting any thoughts of anti-fascist resistance.
[26]
The Zionist world movement was in on this from the very start. Their representatives Chaim Arlosoroff and Dr. Arthur Ruppin of the Jewish Agency for Palestine led together with Jewish-Palestinian bank delegates and ZAG representatives the negotiations
[27] that would result in the Haavara (transfer) Agreement of August. This agreement allowed German Jews who were prepared to emigrate to pay their capital in Germany into a transfer bank. Palestinian importers were able to use this capital to buy German export goods that were then sold in Palestine. Once the costs incurred had been deducted, the emigrants received their capital back once in Palestine. The money that the British mandatory power demanded for the issue of an entry visa was covered by the income from the goods transfer. This scheme was successful in moving 66,000 German Jews to emigrate to Palestine up until the start of the war. What must also have played a significant role was the fact that all other kinds of capital transfers were heavily taxed by the German government.
[28] In 1935 the implementation of the agreement from the Zionist side was placed under the control of the Jewish Agency.
For the Zionist movement of the 1930s, this capital transfer was extremely important. Approximately 60% of the capital invested into Palestine between August 1933 and September 1939 came into the country thanks to the Haavara Agreement. A total of 139.6 million Reichsmark were transferred — a gigantic sum of money at that time.
[29] This capital was used to make the first significant investments into the area of industrial production.
[30] It was only logical that the 18
th Zionist World Congress, which took place in Prague and hotly debated the question of a boycott against Germany, rejected the boycott in favour of the transfer agreement; the 19
thWorld Congress confirmed this stance with 177 votes to 35.
[31] In doing this, the Zionist world movement took the opposing view to the worldwide majority of Jewish organisations that were trying to secure a boycott against Nazi Germany.
[32]
This collaboration also extended to one of the most important Zionist organisations in Palestine, the Hagana. According to Adolf Eichmann, the Hagana was a secret underground army in Palestine for the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and had a widely spread network of spies at its disposal. In negotiations with the SS security service (SD) led by one of its commanders, Feivel Polkes, the Hagana declared its readiness to co-operate with the express aim of strengthening the Zionist colonisation of Palestine. Eichmann's department reported on 17 June 1937 that Polkes was prepared, in order to achieve this goal, ”to give active support to German foreign policy interests in the Near East..., if the German control regulations on foreign exchange were relaxed for Jews emigrating to Palestine”.
[33]
As far as pro-Zionist authors are even prepared today to enter into a discussion about the collaboration of the Zionist movement, they cannot seem to manage without some not very discreet falsifications of history. For example, Stephen Grigat disputes the notion that there was Zionist collaboration by presenting the illusory argument that the majority of international Jewish organisations turned against the Haavara Agreement: ”Organisations such as the 'Zionist Association for Germany' did believe that Nazi anti-Semitism could help them to better defend their position against the liberal Jews of Germany. But this does not mean that they would have welcomed the Nazi regime.”
[34] Grigat fails to mention that the ZAG was the traditional collective movement of German Zionism and he plays down its willingness to collaborate. At the same time he is suggesting that the act of collaboration is on a par with the accusation that the Zionists were responsible for National Socialist crimes. Instead of evidence he presents a fair amount of demagogy: ”The whole perfidy of anti-Zionist argument comes to the fore when the central role of Auschwitz is acknowledged, but then because of this mass extermination is portrayed as a kind of co-production of Nazis and Zionists.”
[35]
Other authors point out that only revisionist Zionists would have expressed Jabotinsky's sympathies with fascism, above all with Italian fascism
[36]; or like Thomas Haury they angrily denounce that the Left is using ”contacts between a few rightwing extremist Zionists and the SS (when it was still pushing for Jews to emigrate)”
[37] to prove that there was collaboration. But these arguments do not hold, because the act of collaboration did not require any direct sympathies between those involved. It did however require at least a certain ideological closeness — and this closeness did exist. The willingness to systematically co-operate with an aggressive, virulently anti-Semitic, racist and anti-democratic terror regime would have been a reactionary political crime even if there had been no Nazi genocide. The way in which these authors reduce National Socialsim to Auschwitz leads to a disturbing relativisation of the other political crimes of fascism.
Today, the opinion is often expressed that the Zionist movement simply wanted to do what was possible to save the German Jews from imminent extermination. Siegfried Moses, chairman of the ZAG in 1933 and later an Israeli politician, has also defended this view
[38]. This is historical misrepresentation. Even the additional embellishment that one has to consider the diametrically opposed motives of Zionists and fascists
[39] is clearly false, and beside the point.
Up until the start of the Second World War, and even afterwards, the Zionist movement and the leadership of the Nazi regime were in agreement over their aim to push forward with Jewish emigration out of Germany.
[40] In 1933, hardly anyone could imagine the genocide to come. And it must be stressed that collaboration does not require agreement over policy or world view. The French marshal Pétain and the Vichy regime did not collaborate with National Socialism because they had become Nazis themselves, but because in their own interests and in the interests of large parts of the French bourgeoisie willing to collaborate they wanted to come to an arrangement with the temporary rulers of France.
It cannot be denied that a large part of the Zionist movement and its central leadership in Germany as well as on an international level not only wanted to collaborate with the Nazis, but actually did collaborate. This should at least set people thinking. Stating this fact has nothing to do with anti-Semitism — not least because the Zionist movement of the 1930s was a long way from representing the majority of Jews. It was actually only Jewish communists and socialists who resisted German fascism. The mainstream of bourgeois Jews did not put up any resistance, but at least they did not try to actively co-operate with the Nazis.
[41] Only the Zionist movement actively collaborated with the Nazis.
Statements suggesting that the Jews themselves are in this way being made responsible for the Holocaust, or that feelings of guilt are being projected, do not even come close to possessing any hint of logic or plausibility. It is not anti-Semitic to call into question the Zionist movement's claim to represent the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide (the overwhelming majority of whom were non-Zionist). Nor is it anti-Semitic to state that the Zionist movement, of all political Jewish currents, is least qualified to do this because of its history of collaboration. Conversely, there is plenty of reason in view of this historical background to be sceptical about all attempts to want to compensate for the crimes of National Socialism with uncritical support for the Zionist colonial state of Israel.
The colonial project Eretz Israel was never the product of an imagined Zionist anti-fascism, nor was it a project to save German and European Jews from extermination. It could not have been either of these things, because the Zionist leadership at the time was not expecting imminent world wars or imminent genocide. The Zionist leadership even played down the significance of the Second World War once it had started. The Zionist movement did not even help as many German Jews as possible to escape anti-Semitic terror in Germany.
A document from the German Foreign Office dated 25.01.1939 contains typically the following statement: ”One can question whether international Jewry is actually serious about wanting the mass emigration of its race from Germany and other states without the equivalent of a Jewish state. The tactics wrapped up in all Jewish suggestions until now seem to be aimed more at achieving the transfer of Jewish assets rather than the mass emigration of Jews.”
[42] The Nazi analysts were not mistaken. Following the night of pogroms in 1938 (referred to by the Nazis as ”Crystal Night”) David Ben Gurion — one of the most important Zionist politicians at the time and also post-war — declared that it would be a threat to Zionism if the ”human conscience” of different countries moved them to open up their borders for Jewish refugees from Germany: ”Zionism is in danger!”
[43]
The collaborative hand that the Zionists held out, at least for a few years, was seized by the Nazis who initially saw an opportunity to exploit the Zionists for their own purposes. Von Mildenstein, the head of department within the SS security service who was originally responsible for Jewish policy and who, together with the leadership of the security service, pursued emigration as a solution to the Jewish question, had carefully noted every tiny advance of Zionism amongst German Jews: ”Every Zionist success was seen by the men of II 112 as their own success; Zionist defeats were to them defeats for the security service. It took the National Socialists to take over power, as proudly stated by II 112, ”in order to lead a number of the Jews in Germany back to Jewish nationalism'. (...) And a Zionism observer within the SS security service would suspiciously note the activities of the anti-Zionist Jews...”.
[44] For the Zionists this meant that they could continue their activities with the support of the SS, that they could continue to run training centres for those wanting to emigrate and that the Zionist youth organisations in their brown shirts could continue to work when the work of the non-Zionist Jewish organisations was already being seriously impeded
[45]; it also meant that the Zionists succeeded with the help of the Nazis in turning from a 2% minority of German Jews into the dominant force amongst German Jews.
For some German Zionists this did not go far enough.
Georg Kareski, a Berlin banker who was chairman of Berlin's Jewish community between 1928 and 1930, and who had long been against the abstinent attitude of the ZAG when it came to interior policy, joined Jabotinsky's rightwing Zionist movement. He pushed for greater collaboration with the Nazis and founded the ”State Zionist Organisation”. With the help of the Nazis he became head of the Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Alliances. An interview which he gave to Joseph Göbbels' Nazi newspaper ”Attack” was given the title ”The Nuremberg Laws also meet old Zionist demands”
[46]; in the interview, he expressed his approval of the Nuremberg Laws — in agreement with the Zionist mainstream:
”For many years now I have regarded a clear divide between the cultural matters of two co-existing peoples to be a prerequisite for harmonious co-existence; and I have long since defended such a division which requires respect for the sphere of a foreign people.” When asked what he ”had to say from a Jewish-national viewpoint” about the ban on mixed marriages, apart from their ”racial political significance”, Kareski replied: ”On the Jewish side, the immense importance of a healthy family life needs no explanation. If the Jewish people has managed to preserve itself up until today, two thousand years on from the loss of its state independence and despite a lack of settlement community and linguistic unity, then this can be put down to two factors — its race and the strong position of the family in Jewish life. The loosening of these ties has been a cause for serious concern over the last few decades, even on the Jewish side. Halting this process of dissolution - which was fostered by mixed marriages - in wide Jewish circles is to be utterly welcomed from a Jewish viewpoint. For the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine these two factors — religion and family — are of decisive importance.”
It is of no surpise therefore that a good 25 years ago, John Bunzl wrote quite accurately about Zionist ideology: ”The criticism (of Zionism) corresponds with the knowledge that there are in fact many parallels between Zionist and anti-Semitic views. One only has to think of the rejection of assimilation, which was justified by many Central European Zionists with racist arguments. They did not fundamentally reject anti-Semitism and saw it as a mobilising factor in their efforts. They even adopted anti-Semitic 'diagnoses' in order to justify their 'therapy'. One can see this to be 'identification with the aggressor' which found expression amongst rightwing Zionists particularly in militaristic behaviour, and amongst leftwing Zionists in self-hatred and self-aggression in the form of physical labour. Both want to overcome the supposed 'parasitic' Jew within them and create a new 'Arian' Jew, so to speak, who can then be presented to the anti-Semites as confirmation and/or as counter-evidence. This is one explanation for the fact that pro-Israeli sympathies are without doubt present amongst many anti-Semites.
This also explains why contemporary reactionary historians adopt Zionist arguments. They too see assimilation (as ever) as a 'magnificently wrong path', successful integration as 'fiction' and individual efforts to achieve this as 'hopeless' and as a morally reprehensible attempt to wipe off the 'eternal mark of Cain'. The loss of 'Jewish substance' and 'national uniqueness' are characterised as 'uprooting', 'self-abandon' and 'Jewish self-betrayal'. This is meant to kill two birds with one stone; the 'assimilation Jews' can still be made responsible for the decline of western culture (that is to say all progressive and democratic developments) and at the same time the reasons for the destruction of integration can be removed from German society and placed into Jewish history or the Jewish group — and be claimed to be 'sensible'. It is no wonder that this leads to the success of a retrospective, teleological justification of Zionism.”
[47]
Uncritical lack of historical awareness
Quite a significant number of the authors who write about Zionism and anti-Semitism avoid any kind of critical debate about the Zionist movement, its history and ideology, as well as about Israeli politics. They also consistently ignore the historical continuity of the connection between the Zionist movement and Israeli politics.
[48]
Typical of this kind of demagogical reasoning is the following: ”There are no reasons to methodically destroy millions of people. Therefore the practice of historisation, of new 'categorisation', of the 'lifting of thought bans', of 'removing taboos' is nothing but an attempt to play things down; they are the smaller variants of the Auschwitz lie. Historians are working on an ahistorical consciousness by trying to relativise and forget things. But it is precisely these attempts that strengthen the subconscious feelings of guilt which were the original reason behind the attempts (...) This has carried the older generation's feelings of guilt over to the younger post-war generation.”
[49] The study of history and the explanation of contexts is declared here as being a lack of historical awareness; historiography is interpreted just like in George Orwell's ”1984” as the refusal to forget; vulgar psychology replaces analysis. This is the ground on which one Henryk Broder can announce to great applause such a profound discovery as ”one can be against Auschwitz and still be an anti-Semite”
[50] and declare it to be almost irrefutable evidence for his theory that whoever criticises Israel is and always has been an anti-Semite.
Contemporary historians inspired by such pseudo-logic do not investigate the real developments in Israeli-Arab relations; they simply observe through the spectacles of Zionist propaganda. Arab resistance to the racist policy of oppression of Arabs with an Israeli passport is ignored
[51], as is their being deprived of rights and the Israeli policy of apartheid
[52]; contrary to all facts, Israel is stubbornly declared to be the only democracy in the Near and Middle East, and it is claimed that Israel is simply defending itself against Arab terrorism.
Without exception, this narrow-minded view is justified by claims that it is inappropriate for Germans to criticise Israeli policies. Germany is obliged to always guarantee Israel's right to existence — of course not because of the unjustifiable theory of collective guilt, but because of its replacement, a kind of moral collective liability, a 'special responsibility' of the Germans for the Jews.
False lessons from history and the myth of growing anti-Semitism
According to this, the lesson to be learnt from fascism is not the need for commitment to universal humanism, rather it is the need for uncritical and unconditional support for Israel which, from this viewpoint, represents the victims of fascism.
These authors are therefore not concentrating their attention on the rejection of the real anti-Semitism of old Nazis and neo-Nazis; their attention is focussed on the denunciation of any critical debate about Israeli politics. Even clearly justified and concrete criticism of Israel's policy of occupation is attacked as an attempt to attend to the 'latent' anti-Semitism of the masses - ”Why criticise Israel of all places? Why not criticise other states?”
Anyone who sees Israeli policies to be a danger to world peace, as 60% of the German population do, is regarded by these authors as having been incited to anti-Semitism by German media such as Der Spiegel. This should apply all the more so to the 50% and more of Germans who have been reminded of the crimes committed by the Nazis with their occupation of European countries when they see images in the media of Israeli occupation policy in the Palestinian areas that Israel has occupied since 1967.
The majority of contemporary anti-Semitism researchers defends the theory that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Germany (but not only in Germany). In actual fact there is no empiric evidence for this oft-repeated claim.
[53] The advocates of this theory admit themselves that ”the judgement of Jews as an inferior race is condemned to a very great extent in European society and can only be found in small neo-Nazi circles”
[54].
They justify their judgement by assuming that there is a 'latent' or 'secondary' anti-Semitism which exists but which is not openly expressed due to the fact that nationalist, racist anti-Semitism since 1945 has been made a taboo subject. They believe that this anti-Semitism is expressed in Germany, alongside anti-Israel sentiment, above all in the accusation levelled at Jews that they exploit people's feelings of guilt.
[55] The pre-modern, clerical, Christian anti-Semitism of the late European Middle Ages no longer has any significant role to play and is hardly mentioned anymore. And the hostility towards Jews felt — for completely different reasons - by parts of the Arab-Islamic immigrant population can hardly be cited as being characteristic of the inner attitude of the majority of the population here.
In order to save their theory of eternal anti-Semitism, these authors immediately return to the Middle East conflict, which has supposedly been misjudged by the German media and Islamic immigrants, by an anti-Zionist or anti-imperialist Left and by an extremist Right which has jumped on the bandwaggon — this misjudgement is supposed to form the basis of a new anti-Semitism, for which Israel is assuming the role of the ”collective Jew”.
[56] At the same time they always suggest in demagogic tones that any rejection of a state reserved exclusively for its Jewish citizens is aiming for the end result of the extermination of this state's Jewish citizens. However, anti-Zionist criticism is not calling into question the Jews' right of existence nor Israel's Jewish citizens' right of existence; what it does call into question is the right of existence of a state of Israel (not known by international law) that does not want to be and is not the state of its non-Jewish citizens.
[57]
This glaring nonsense advocated by the critics of anti-Zionism is hardly even pretending to have a serious academic approach. The most contrasting political currents are lumped together and, with reference to a supposed use of ”traditional negative stereotypes” (which are hardly ever mentioned and certainly not given with any concrete sources), are accused of a common anti-Semitism which does not exist and which is not and cannot be proven. Marxist anti-Zionists stress time and again that Zionism has never represented all political currents of European Jewry, let alone non-European Jewry
[58], and they also point out the fact that the majority of modern Jews prefer to forego the Zionist dream and live outside of Israel — but still anti-Zionists are automatically accused (and of course without mentioning Roß and Reiter) of seeing Israel as the ”collective Jew”. We are clearly dealing with a classic case of projection.
If one criticises Israel too harshly, especially when this criticism touches on the legitimacy of a state that only wants to be a state for some of its citizens, then these authors regard such criticism to be ”secondary anti-Semitism”. Angry comparisons between Israel's brutal policies in the occupied Palestinian territories in 1967 and the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe during the Second World War are not put to any kind of objective examination to see whether there is any legitimacy for such claims; instead, they are denounced as a projection ”to ease the guilt of Germany's past by playing down Nazi crimes, and a projection of guilt onto the victims and their descendants”.
[59]
Low points of the German debate or: Who is relativising fascist crimes?
This kind of polemic can only make sense if one foregoes an objective examination of the legitimacy of such comparisons and accepts an intensified form of the theory of collective guilt — not just the collective guilt of the German people during the 1930s and 1940s which crossed all class barriers to encompass the rulers and the ruled, but also what has now become an inherited guilt which crosses through several generations. This fact marks an intellectual low point in the debate and shows how lamentable a state the debate here in Germany is in.
This is where one fundamental error and logical flaw in the mainstream political debate in Germany about the crimes of National Socialism can have an effect. Few people challenge the theory that comparisons between other genocides and the Holocaust ”relativise” the latter. But comparisons with other crimes committed by other regimes at other times relativise neither the crimes of German fascism nor the war atrocities of other powers. They cannot ”discharge” anyone of any guilt either. Murderers are murderers, even when other genocides have been committed in the name of other fascist or democratic regimes in other places and at other times.
It cannot be denied that the Nazis not only committed genocide against the European Jews, but that they also used almost the same methods to commit another genocide against the Roma and Sinti
[60] — a genocide that has been pushed out of the world's awareness as a result of the dogma of the Holocaust's uniqueness
[61]. The fact of this genocide having been driven out of public awareness, coupled with daily racial discrimination against the Roma and Sinti is a disgrace to European society, but also to the pro-Zionist propagandists who are practising their own kind of selection amongst the victims of the Nazis.
The Zionist battle for a monopoly on victimhood
[62] is an unacceptable relativisation of the crimes of German fascism — and not only with regard to the Roma and Sinti. What is being relativised is the horrific total figure of 52 million deaths caused by a Second World War unleashed by German fascists — incredibly, there is no longer any mention of these 52 million dead in the public discussion. The historical responsibility of the capitalist system and its ruling classes for fascism, recurrent wars of atrition and recurrent genocide is covered up by the theory of the Holocaust's uniqueness. This theory only appears to make sense superficially with regard to the methods used for mass murder. But genocide against the European Jews was not unique — the Nazis used essentially the same methods to commit genocide against the Roma and Sinti. Between 60-70% of Germany's and Austria's Roma and Sinti were annihilated for racist reasons, and this terrible fact must not be suppressed..
Regardless of the fact that over time most Nazi war criminals have already faced prosecution, serious historians cannot limit themselves to moral and/or penal judgements of historical and contemporary political developments (and they should certainly not limit themselves to moral judgements distorted by party politics).
They must draw comparisons, classify events in terms of social psychology, structure, and history, and place events in the context of other developments in order to ”relativise” events in this sense (but only in this sense!) etc etc. Because political scientists and historians must strive to understand current political developments, it is of fundamental importance that no aspects are ignored.
Relativisation of Zionist crimes against the Arabs
In the context of this debate it has become common in Germany to vilify as anti-Semitic almost every reflection by German authors that is critical of Israel or Zionism with regard to the relationship between Zionism and anti-Semitism, the relationship between Zionism and Arab nationalism as well as with regard to political Islam in Palestine and the Middle East. At the same time the crimes of National Socialsim are exploited. Any kind of critical debate about Israeli politics or about the German government's comprehensive and unconditional support for Israel is stigmatised. In consequence this means that Israel's crimes against the Arabs can be played down and relativised by Zionist propaganda, which simply labels all Arab resistance to Zionist colonisation as anti-Semitic.
What is ignored today in the German discussion of Arab anti-Semitism?
Arab resistance to Zionist colonisation in Palestine had absolutely nothing to do with the social roots of European anti-Semitism. European anti-Semitism was a reaction to the inability of capitalism to make the consequences of the dissolution of feudal societies bearable by integrating those affected by it into modern bourgeois society. Zionist colonisation aimed right from the outset to suppress and destroy Arabic society in Palestine.
Before the start of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine in the 19
th century, there were no anti-Jewish pogroms or religiously motivated anti-Semitism in the Islamic world
[63]. As long as they did not indulge in any missionary activities, Christians and Jews were able to live in peace for centuries as a kind of second-class and socially disadvantaged religious minority in the Islamic world. Indeed, there was in the Arab-Islamic Middle Ages a kind of cultural symbiosis between Judaism and Islam. After the Christian conquest of Spain many of the Jews who were driven out moved to the considerably more tolerant Arabic world. In the Ottoman Empire Arab resistance to Zionist expansion in Palestine only began once it became clear that the aim of Zionist colonisation was not to integrate the immigrants into Palestinian society but to systematically suppress and destroy Palestinian society. In addition to this, the colonisation project was intended to create an autonomous, purely Jewish-Zionist enclave in the Arab world. As a minority he Zionists went about founding an exclusively Jewish state and in doing this they would always collaborate with the suppressers of Palestine's Arab population.
Resistance to the Zionist colonisation project was legitimate from the start. Once the League of Nations had giving its blessing to the British imperialist occupation of Palestine, this resistance took its place in the chain of national battles of liberation against imperialism. The Arab-Palestinian battle of liberation against imperialism and the Zionist colonialism with which imperialism co-operated cannot therefore be compared to anti-Semitic outbursts and campaigns in Europe; the former had an emancipatory social goal, whereas the latter was of an utterly reactionary nature. As long as this anti-imperialist resistance is placed on a par with European anti-Semitism we are dealing purely and simply with battle propaganda.
On the other hand it cannot be denied that the attempt to create an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine led to more widespread anti-Semitism amongst Arabs. Lacking clear analyses of the Zionist movement, its social causes, goals, strategies and methods, right-wing traditional Arab leaders in particular, but also powers tied to old, semi-feudal social structures, resorted to anti-Semitic patterns of explanation. The adoption of anti-Semitic ideology and the search for allies followed the simple pattern ”my enemy's enemy is my friend” - a pattern that was however also widespread in the Zionist movement. For example, in the 1930s and 1940s the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hadj Amin al-Husseini, tried (without success) to win Nazi support for the Arab cause.
In chapter 8 of his book, Lenni Brenner uses the example of the Mufti of Jerusalem's notorious development to describe how his reactionary and unjustified policies led the Arab cause into political dead-ends as early as the 1930s and 1940s
[64]. Anti-Zionist policies will only be successful if they are consistently anti-imperialist and if they free themselves of all forms of reactionary ideology.
The Zionist movement has always known how to exploit the fact that parts of the Arab resistance have resorted to anti-Semitic ideologies. This became one of the most powerful and effective ideological weapons of Israeli pro-Zionist propaganda in Europe and North America.
Considerable numbers of the Arab Left have understood this and distanced themselves from all attempts to place Judaism on an equal footing with Zionism.
Many Arabs in Palestine and many Muslims in other countries, including many Muslim immigrants in Europe do however still behave in a generally anti-Semitic manner. A few propagandists of political Islam have made statements that are directed at all Jews and not just against Israeli policies and the Zionist movement. In many countries with large Muslim populations anti-Semitic works - such as the protocols of the wisemen of Zion produced by the tsarist secret service - are widely circulated. If Engels' characterisation of anti-Semitism in the 19th century as the anti-imperialism of fools was correct, then one could describe today's Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism as the anti-imperialism of fools.
However, this does not change anything about the causes of the Middle East conflict, of continuing colonisation and of continuing Israeli-Zionist expansionism; it changes nothing about the actual balance of power in the Middle East. Israel is by far the strongest military power in the region, and it can resolutely drive forward with its aggressive settlement policy under the protection of its total military dominance, the continuous economic and military support provided by the countries of the EU and protection from the USA. Resistance to this remains legitimate, despite its political weaknesses and errors.
Furthermore, it reveals a real cynical insolence when people accuse the victims of these policies of not making the distinction between Israeli Zionism and Jewishness when putting up their resistance. This is insolent because the Zionist movement does not tire of stressing in its propaganda that the state of Israel is the state of all Jews, and because the Zionist movement continuously declares that it now has the support of almost all Jews. One cannot reproach the victims of Zionist policy for not recognising the inaccuracies of Zionist propaganda myths. Nonetheless, this kind of phenomena — which are down, not least, to a certain ignorance of European history — are political errors which above all harm resistance to Zionism.
In all necessary solidarity with the victims of Zionist policy, Marxists will of course criticise their political mistakes. But they will also oppose all attempts to strip this resistance of its legitimacy by the denunciation of these loans from the ideological arsenal of European anti-Semitism. They will certainly oppose any attempts to misuse these mistakes to legitimise Zionist colonisation. This would mean confusing cause and effect.
There is therefore no alternative to political enlightenment. Lenni Brenner's book has already made a major contribution to this in the English-speaking world. It is already a classic of its genre there. It will also make an important contribution to the clarification of matters in the academic and political debate here in Germany.
Footnotes:
| [1] | Mathias Mieses, Der Ursprung des Judenhasses (The Origin of Anti-Semitism), Berlin/Vienna 1923, p.576 |
| [2] | ibid., p.570ff |
| [3] | Abraham Léon, Judenfrage und Kapitalismus (The Jewish Question and Capitalism), 2nd edition, Munich 1973, p.103f |
| [4] | ibid., p.105 |
| [5] | See e.g. ”Warum Hass und Diffamierung, Verachtung und Lüge? Warum gegen Juden?” (”Why hate and defamation, contempt and lies? Why against Jews?”) at:http://www.hagalil.com/judentum/editorial/antisemitismus.htm |
| [6] | Nathan Weinstock, Le sionisme contre Israél (Zionism against Israel), Paris 1969, p.55 |
| [7] | Le Monde, 13.01.1966, quote from Nathan Weinstock, Le sionisme contre Israél, Paris 1969, p.38 |
| [8] | Joachim Prinz: Wir Juden (We Jews), Berlin 1934, p.38f |
| [9] | ibid., loc cit., p.75 |
| [10] | ibid., loc cit., p.136 |
| [11] | Explanation: galut means exile. Rubinstein is using an ideologically loaded term here. Already by the beginning of the Christian calendar, the majority of Jews had emigrated from Palestine voluntarily. |
| [12] | Amnon Rubinstein, Geschichte des Zionismus (History of Zionism), Munich 2001, p.25 |
| [13] | Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), Zürich 1997, p.16 |
| [14] | cf. Rubinstein, loc cit., p.46 |
| [15] | Joseph Klausner: Hashilo'ah, Bd. 17, Odessa 1907, p.574 — quote from Rubinstein, loc cit., p.83 |
| [16] | Quote from Rubinstein, loc cit., p.84 |
| [17] | Ze'ev Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall and the Arabs, http://www.saveisrael.com/jabo/jabowall.htm |
| [18] | Dolf Michaelis: Die Reaktion der deutschen Juden auf die nationalsozialistische Machtübernahme (The Reaction of the German Jews to the National Socialists' Seizure of Power), in: Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, Ludwig Pinner, Haavara-Transfer nach Palästina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933-1939 (Haavara Transfer to Palestine and Emigration of German Jews 1933-1939), Tübingen 1972, p.16; Klaus Drobisch, Rudi Goguel. Werner Müller: Juden unterm Hakenkreuz (Jews under the Swastika), Frankfurt am Main 1973, p.30f and 51ff |
| [19] | Quote from Dolf Michaelis, loc cit., p.17 |
| [20] | Documented in: Helmut Eschwege (editor): Kennzeichen J. Bilder, Dokumente, Berichte zur Geschichte der Verbrechen des Hitlerfaschismus an den deutschen Juden 1933-1945 (The J Mark. Pictures, Documents, Reports on the History of the Crimes of Hitler's Fascism against the German Jews 1933-1945), Berlin 1981, p.45 |
| [21] | Quote from Dolf Michaelis, loc cit., p.17 |
| [22] | Joachim Prinz, Wir Juden (We Jews), Berlin 1934, p.142 |
| [23] | ibid., loc cit., p.151 |
| [24] | ibid., loc cit., p.154 — italics in the original! |
| [25] | cf. the ”Erklärung der Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland” (declaration of the representation of Jews in Germany) following the decree of the so-called Nuremberg Laws, in:Jüdische Rundschau of 24.09.1935, documented in Helmut Eschwege, The J Mark, loc cit., p.81 |
| [26] | Klaus Polkehn, Die Zusammenarbeit von Zionismus und deutschem Faschismus (Co-operation between Zionism and German Fascism), Al Karamah no.9, 1988 |
| [27] | F. Nicosia, Deutschland und die Palästinafrage 1933-1939 (Germany and the Palestine Question 1933-1939), dissertation, Montréal/Québec 1977 |
| [28] | Axel Meier, Das Haavara-Abkommen (The Haavara Agreement), www.shoa.de |
| [29] | Klaus Polkehn, Die Zusammenarbeit von Zionismus und deutschem Faschismus (Co-operation between Zionism and German Fascism), Al Karamah no.9, 1988 |
| [30] | cf. Ludwig Pinner, Die Bedeutung der Einwanderung aus Deutschland (The Significance of Emigration from Germany), in: Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, Ludwig Pinner, Haavara-Transfer nach Palästina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933-1939 (Haavara Transfer to Palestine and Emigration of German Jews 1933-1939), Tübingen 1972, p.98 |
| [31] | Ludwig Pinner, Vermögenstransfer nach Palästina 1933-1939 (Transfer of Wealth to Palestine 1933-1939), in: Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, Ludwig Pinner, Haavara-Transfer nach Palästina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933-1939 (Haavara Transfer to Palestine and Emigration of German Jews 1933-1939), Tübingen 1972, p.146f |
| [32] | cf. Siegfried Moses in the introduction to the aforementioned book, p.10. Moses also celebrates the fruits of collaboration, the apartheid policy enforced by the Nazis in the 1930s: ”Building of Jewish schools, creation of establishments for Jewish adult education and for job retraining” (loc cit., p.11) |
| [33] | Report by Hagen, department head of the SS security service, from 17 June 1937, p.4, quotes Heinz Höhne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf. Die Geschichte der SS (The Medal Beneath the Skull. The History of the SS), Munich 1984, p.309 |
| [34] | Stephan Grigat, ”Bestien in Menschengestalt” Antisemitismus und Antizionismus in der österreichischen Linken (”Beasts in Human Form” Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism amongst the Austrian Left), at: www.cafecritique.priv.at/bestien.html — 55k |
| [35] | loc cit. |
| [36] | cf. Irit Neithardt, Die radikale Linke, Israel und Palästina. Eine Collage (The Radical Left, Israel and Palestine. A Collage), at: http://www.unrast-verlag.de/files/Neithardt.pdf, p.11f |
| [37] | Thomas Haury, Zur Logik des deutschen Antizionismus (The Logic of German Anti-Zionism) |
| [38] | This is Siegfried Moses' basic thesis, loc cit. |
| [39] | According e.g. to a reader's letter in the newspaper Gazette, see: www.gazette.de/Archiv/Gazette-Oktober2002/Beduerftig03.html |
| [40] | cf. Tom Segev, Die siebte Million (The Seventh Million), Reinbek near Hamburg, 1995, s.30f When there were later opposition to this in Nazi Germany, Hitler decided in 1938 that the previous orientation of the Nazi regime to continue pushing for emigration should be upheld. |
| [41] | cf. Arno Lustiger, Zum Kampf auf Leben und Tod! Vom Widerstand der Juden in Europa 1933-1945 (To Battle For Life and Death! Jewish Resistance in Europe 1933-1945), Köln/Erftstadt 1994, in particular: Nathan Eck, Jüdischer und europäischer Widerstand (Jewish and European Resistance), p.35ff; and Werner Jochmann, Zur Problematik des Widerstands deutscher Juden (The Problematique of German Jewish Resistance), p.44ff; as well as Arnold Paucker, Jüdischer Widerstand in Deutschland (Jewish Resistance in Germany), p.47ff |
| [42] | Poliakoff/Wulff, Das Dritte Reiche und seine Diener (The Third Reich and its Servants), Wiesbaden 1989, p.149ff |
| [43] | Quoted by Tom Segev, loc cit., p.43 |
| [44] | Heinz Höhne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf. Die Geschichte der SS (The Medal Beneath the Skull. The History of the SS), Munich 1984, p.307 |
| [45] | Adolf Eichmann: ”Everything that helps emigration is allowed... In ... the old Reich, the Zionist association has complete freedom to develop, and religious organisations have the freedom to practise their religion, as long as they are interested in and committed to emigration issues”, quoted by Friedrich Karl Kaul, Der Fall Eichmann (The Eichmann File), Berlin, p.50; cf. Also Klaus Polkehn, Die Zusammenarbeit von Zionismus und deutschem Faschismus (Co-operation between Zionism and German Fascism), Al Karamah no.9, 1988 |
| [46] | ”Angriff” (”Attack”) from 23.12.1935 |
| [47] | J. Bunzl, Überlegungen zu Antisemitismus und Antizionismus (Thoughts on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism). Manuscript, around 1980, quoted by Jakob Taut: Judenfrage und Zionismus(The Jewish Question and Zionism), Frankfurt am Main 1986, p.29f |
| [48] | cf. Hanna Braun, A Basic History of Zionism and its Relation to Judaism, www.steinbergrecherche.com/hannabraun.htm |
| [49] | Homepage of Walter Fruth/Antisemitismus004, www.link-f.org/leute/w.fruth/temas/antisemit004/html |
| [50] | Henryk M. Broder, Der ewige Antisemit, Über Sinn und Funktion eines beständigen Gefühls (The Eternal Anti-Semite: On the Meaning and Function of a Constant Feeling), Berlin 2005, p.11f |
| [51] | cf. also comprehensive on this subject Dieter Elken, Zum Existenzrecht Israels (On Israel's Right to Existence), at: www.marxismus-online.eu |
| [52] | Israel's policies were first described as apartheid policy by Hendrik Verwoerd in 1961. Verwoerd was then South African Prime Minister and architect of the apartheid policy at that time. In more recent times this characterisation was used by former US President Jimmy Carter in his book ”Palestine: Peace or Apartheid”, published in 2006. |
| [53] | The empiric studies that are supposed to prove this theory are very careful to forego making any precise distinction between generally anti-Semitic statements, acts and incidents on the one hand, and on the other hand stances that are critical of Israel. These studies are therefore lacking in academic seriousness. One example of this is the US government's report on anti-Semitism, which states: ”The demonisation of Israel or the vituperation of Israel's policies, including comparisons with leading Nazis and the use of Nazi symbols as caricatures, points to an anti-Semitic attitude and not to any justified criticism of Israeli policies in a controversial matter.” http://www.antisemitismus.net/2005/01/antisemitismus-1p.htm |
| [54] | e.g. Ralf Balke in: Israel as ”collective Jew”, ”The Wisemen of Zion” are still amongst us: 31 authors analyse old and new forms of anti-Semitism, Tagespiegel from 15.01.2007, with reference to: Klaus Faber, Julius Schoeps and Sacha Stawski (editors): Neu-alter Judenhass (New and Old Anti-Semitism), Berlin 2006 |
| [55] | cf. The study commissioned by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) and written by Werner Bergmann, head of the Berlin Centre for Research into Anti-Semitism and leading representative of this thesis, and Juliane Wetzel: Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the EU, Report 2006, p.18f. The first study in 2002 was criticised by the EUMC as not being sufficiently scientific due to its dubious and unclear definition of anti-Semitism. The approach taken by these authors — an extremely dubious one in terms of method — has been kept, see: www.antisemitismus.net/europa/antisemitismus-studie.htm |
| [56] | according to Ralf Balke with reference to Lars Rensmann, in: Klaus Faber, Julius Schoeps and Sacha Stawski (editors): Neu-alter Judenhass (New and Old Anti-Semitism), Berlin 2006 |
| [57] | cf. Jonathan Cook, Still Jews Only, at: www.weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2006/824/op12.htm |
| [58] | As in 1991: Meno Hochschild, Antizionismus, Palästina und Israel (Anti-Zionism, Palestine and Israel), at: www.marxismus-online.eu |
| [59] | cf. Yves Pallade, The Media's Secondary Anti-Semitism, Public Opinion and the Failure of the Social Elite as the Norm in Germany, in: Klaus Faber, Julius Schoeps and Sacha Stawski (editors): Neu-alter Judenhass (New and Old Anti-Semitism), Berlin 2006, p.49ff |
| [60] | cf. Michail Krausnick, The Genocide that was Suppressed, http://www.minderheiten.org/roma/index2.htm?http://www.minderheiten.org/roma/textarchiv/texte/krausnick_unterschlagen.htm |
| [61] | Against the Relativisation of the Genocide Against the Roma and Sinti, the documentation centre's position on recent publications on the topic, at:http://www.sintiundroma.de/v1/englisch/Start.htm |
| [62] | cf. Tom Segev's portrayal, Die siebte Million (The Seventh Million), p.52ff, and in particular p.553ff |
| [63] | See Bassam Tibi, Der importierte Hass. Antisemitismus ist in der arabischen Welt weit verbreitet. Dabei widerspricht er islamischer Tradition (The imported hatred. Antisemitism is widely spread in arab world although in contradiction to islamic tradition), in: DIE ZEIT 07/2003 (referring to work of islam scientist Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 1992 |
| [64] | compare: Klaus Polkehn, Zusammenarbeit von Zionismus und deutschem Faschismus (Collaboration of Zionism and German Fascism). part 1, "Der Deutsche" und der Mufti - und die Zionisten (The German and the Mufti- and the Zionists), in: AL KARAMAH, Nr. 9, 1988 |
