Re: [Marxism] The German Left and Israel

[Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yossi Bartel writes:

> One of the reasons for the love affair between Germany and Israel is
> further connected to the weakness of the German Left in criticizing
> Israel.

Is this meant to imply that this was historically always the case?  The debates 
concerning Israel in the 1980s ignited by writers like Wolfgang Pohrt and Eike 
Geisel, as well as the urban guerrilla group Revolutionary Cells/Red Zoras and 
the Communist League, were primarily a response to what was regarded by many as 
an excessive *Anti*-Zionism in the 1970s on the part of remnants of SDS and the 
RAF.  Too many times on Internet forums and publications, I have seen people 
ignorant of the German left make sweeping statements as if the German left has 
always been treading on egg shells regarding Israel.  That is simply not the 
case.  In the 70s, aspects of the Left's Anti-Zionism crossed the line into 
Anti-Semitism, such as when the Tupamaros West Berlin planted a bomb in the 
Jewish Community House in Berlin.

Within the youthful post-Autonomist and post-Antifa milieu, a differentiated 
attitude towards Israel is indeed probably hegemonic, but this is in no way the 
case for groups coming out of the M-L or Trotskyist spectrum.  And the embrace 
of Israel by certain sectors of the Left Party has less to do with principle 
and more to do with the essential statist and nationalists character of the 
party.


> Although I do not wish to go deeply into this matter here, the existence > of 
> a dubious ideological strand which dubs or dubbed itself 
> âanti-German"

I don't much like Anti-Germans of any type, but there is no "strand" called 
anti-German, because "anti-German" refers to a variety of particular 
tendencies, just as the terms "Maoist" and "Trotskyist" do.

It refers to the esoteric neo-conservative "communism" of publications like 
Bahamas, it refers to publications like Phase 2, which emerged from the 
dissolution of the federal organization of Antifascist Action, and it refers to 
the monthly magazine Konkret, which is actually quite orthodox communist in 
almost all other regards and would be indistinguishable in content from most of 
what is written on lists like this with the exception of its positions on 
Israel.  And the variety of tendencies that can be subsumed under this term is 
by no means exhausted.  Please people, research before opening your mouths or 
reaching for your keyboard.

> within the youth movement of the party there exists a group that calls 
> itself by the Hebrew word âshalomâ and with funding from the party 
> organizes events on behalf of Israel, distributes racist and militaristic
> propaganda and terrorizes any party member who dares to criticize
> Israel.

"BAK Shalom" are shameless apologists for Israel, but I have never seen a 
single piece of literature by them that can even be loosely understood as 
"racist".  They are not Bahamas.  And to say that they "terrorize" other party 
members is really a joke.  They are an insignificant minority within Solid (the 
Left Party youth group), and have come perilously close to having their funding 
revoked twice, only to eke by at the last minute.  So much for their 
"terrorism".

Yossi Bartel lives in Berlin, so there really isn't any excuse for ignorance.  
There are presumably numerous publications he can refer to.  He's entitled to 
whatever opinion he wants concerning the German left and Israel, but he should 
at least get his facts straight.




      

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