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"Jewish Anti-Zionism As a Total Illusion"Once the leader of the reformist wing of Eric Honecker's Socialist Unity Party (SED) in East Germany, Gysi supported the dismantling of his party even as he opposed reunification with West Germany. He has since emerged as one of the most charismatic figures of the current opposition in the German parliament, earning attention for his sharp oratory while waging an aggressive legal battle to suppress public discussion of his alleged role as a Stasi agent.
When Merkel's right-of-center Christian Democratic Union (CDU) rose to power, Gysi began his efforts to reposition Die Linke as a potential coalition partner capable of allying with the Green Party and the Social Democrats. This meant adapting right-leaning elements inside Die Linke like the Forum Demokratischer Sozialismus that aimed to crush the party's anti-war vestiges. (Most of the figures who signed the letter denouncing me, Sheen and our Die Linke hosts were affiliated with FDS.)
Following a stem-winding survey of the Zionist movement's history and its criticism from within the left, Gysi concluded, "If we choose a position of enlightened Jewish anti-Zionism...we still have the problem of ignoring the worst experiences of the 20th century, which expose enlightened Jewish anti-Zionism as a total illusion."
The Die Linke leader's speech echoed an address delivered in Israel's Knesset just a few months prior by Chancellor Angela Merkel in which she declared that preserving "Israel's security...is part of my country's raison d'etre."
In a sardonic assessment of Gysi's foreign policy pivot, left-wing columnist Werner Pirker wrote, "Gysi admires the Israeli democracy not in spite of, but because of its exclusiveness... With his anniversary speech for Israel Gregor Gysi passed his foreign policy test."
In June 2011, Gysi imposed a de facto gag rule on his party's left wing called the "Three Point Catalog." It read as follows: "We will neither take part in [political] initiatives on the Middle East which (1) call for a one-state-solution for Palestine and Israel, nor (2) call for boycotts against Israeli products, nor (3) will we take part in this year's 'Gaza-flotilla'. We expect from our personal employees and our fraction employees that they champion these positions."
A month later, Die Linke's executive board voted for the first time to recognize Israel's "right to exist." Among those who took credit for the vote, and for sustaining pressure on Gysi, was a recently formed pro-Israel organization called BAK Shalom.
The Anti-Germans
BAK Shalom drew its membership from adherents of the bizarre movement known as "die antideutsch Linke" -- in short, the Anti-Germans. Born after reunification against the phantom threat of a second Holocaust and in supposed opposition to German nationalism, the Anti-German movement aimed to infiltrate leftist anti-fascist circles in order to promote unwavering support for the Israeli government and undermine traditional networks of leftist organizing. BAK Shalom's manifesto pledges "solidarity with defense measures of any kind" against the Palestinians and backs American foreign policy on the basis of purely reactionary impulses: The US is Israel's most aggressive patron and the ultimate target of Israel's enemies, therefore opponents of "anti-Semitism" must lend it their total support.
Though many top Antideutsch ideologues emerged from Marxist and anarchist intellectual circles, they are united in their opposition to what they call "regressive anti-capitalism." According to BAK Shalom's manifesto, because "complex and abstract capitalist relations are personified and identified as Jews," anti-capitalism is a subtle but dangerous form of Jew hatred. In 2012, Anti-German activists mobilized in opposition to the Blockupy movement that occupied the European Central Bank and the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, casting it as an inherently anti-Semitic movement simply because of its opposition to globalized capitalism. Incapable of viewing Jews as individuals or normal people with differing viewpoints, the Anti-Germans inadvertently advanced the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish control over world finance.
In 2003, hardcore Anti-German activists took to the streets in 2003 to support George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. At rallies in support of Israel's assaults on Southern Lebanon and Gaza, Anti-German forces belted out chants alongside far-right Jewish Defense League militants and flew Israeli flags beside the red and black banners familiar to anti-fascist forces. One of the movement's top ideologues, the Austrian political scientist Stephan Grigat, oversees an ironically named astroturf group, Stop The Bomb, that advocates unilateral bombing campaigns against Iran. Grigat collaborates closely with right-wing outfits like the Simon Weisenthal Center as well as ultra-Zionist BAK Shalom allies like Die Linke's Petra Pau.
There might only be about several thousand Germans who identify with the Anti-German sensibility. The movement's intellectual avant-garde, a collection of dour critical theorists and political scientists gathered around obscure journals like Bahamas, numbers at most in the low hundreds. According to BAK Shalom spokesman and Die Linke member Benjamin Kruger, his organization contains only 140 members. But thanks to the Holocaust guilt that consumes German society, these elements operate on fertile territory. As the translator and anti-racist activist Maciej Zurowski explained, by infiltrating Die Linke and the Social Democratic Party's youth groups, along with key left-wing institutions like the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, "[Anti-German elements] are strategically well placed to promote 'young talent,' while cutting off their opponents' money supply."
Previously limited to the top-heavy realms of the country's political and financial establishment, it is through such sectarian groups that the pro-Israel lobby finally secured a base within the German left.
Good Jew, Bad Jew
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