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On 09.12.2012 22:14, Angelus Novus wrote:
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Paul Flewers wrote:
still lurks around the German left in respect of the prevalence of
pro-Zionism
Yeah, again, this is nothing that originated with the Anti-Germans. You can
consult Ulrike Meinhof's earliest writings to see that it was fairly
uncontroversial that the pre-67 New Left in Germany was basically supportive of
Israel. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Noam Chomsky writes in _The Fateful
Triangle_ that pre-67, pro-Israel sentiment was fairly widespread in the New
Left internationally.
Then there were debates around the time of the first Intifada in the mid-80s concerning the legacy
of anti-Semitism in the extra-parliamentary left of the 70s, which is largely unknown to people who
aren't familiar with the history of the post-war (West-)German left. Incidents like the Tupamaros
West Berlin planning to bomb the Jewish Community Center, or one part of the Revolutionary Cells
engaging in a separation of hostages into "Jewish" and "non-Jewish" during an
Air France hijacking.
All of this is completely unfamiliar to most British and American leftists, since in the
British and American context, "anti-Semitism" is usually just a cudgel wielded
to silence criticism of Israel, whereas in the German left of the 1970s and early 80s,
there were actually very real, very ugly manifestations of anti-Semitism, and the
autonomist milieu of the 80s and early 90s was engaged in a critical process of
processing those experiences.
It gives too much credit to the Anti-Germans to assume they had much of anything to do with it. All they
ever did was introduced obfuscatory jargon and idiotic "theory" into the discussion, like the
completely bananas notion of any criticism of finance being a "structural anti-Semitism" (for a
good critique of this bonkers notion, see Gerhard Hanloser's piece here:
<http://communism.blogsport.eu/2011/07/18/attac-the-critique-of-globalization-and-structural-antisemitism/>
)
All I can say is that the arguments I've encountered again and again
both in the Antifa and in and around DIE LINKE within the former GDR
aren't a re-hash of the arguments in the West German left during the
1970s or 1980s but more or less watered-down versions of the hardline
anti-German arguments developed around Jungle World and Bahamas.
which has a grip in the Left Party. He added that a move to expel the
hard-line pro-Zionists from the Left Party was defeated
It's been a while since I took a look at the party program, but I'm fairly
certain the position on Israel and Palestine is standard peace movement
boilerplate, support for the rights of both peoples to live in peace and
security, a full withdrawal of Israel to the 67 borders and compliance with UN
resolutions, dismantling of all settlements, etc. Basically, what folks like
Chomsky and Finkelstein demand. This is more or less the consensus position.
You're more or less right about the party programme, it's more or less
the same as the consensus position within the German peace movement. But
sections of the FDS (Realos) - going beyond the "anti-German" spectrum -
wanted to include a statement defending "Israel's right to exist" and
they haven't gone away - but this probably had more to do with their
desire to be accepted as a possible coalition partner by the SPD and the
Greens than with any question of principle. And the attacks by some not
unimportant party members on Inge Höger, a Bundestag member who was on
the Mavi Marmara when it was stormed by Israeli commandos, were
particularly vicious.
Einde O'Callaghan
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