Copenhagen 2002: EU shut up - for a new anti-Fascism

Under German leadership, the European union has pushed forward the supression of the "multi-ethnic-state" Yugoslavia in favour of "voelkisch", nationalist gangs (UCK) and states (Croatia, Slovenia). Furthermore the EU supports -morally and financially- the islamic and Arab fight for national identity under despots like Khomeini, Hussein and Arafat.

The European Union is the largest financier (over 4 billion euro since 1993) of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). That wouldn`t be so bad if the money were used to built up an functioning garbage disposal for Gaza or an non-anti-Semitic and non-islamistic education system. But it is no secret that the use of the EU money is not controlled. The money partially disappears on the private bank accounts of the corrupt Arafat-clique, but worse is the financing of weapons and explosives as well as the generous support for the bereaved families of suicide bombers (cf. for example the German newspaper "Die Zeit", 24/2002).
With the EU's support school-books are printed which deny the existence of Israel and suicide bombers are glorified, which raises the willingness to commit suicide attacks. Children grow up with anti-Semitic agitation and proto-fascist death cult: "Treachery and insidiousness are Jewish traits, and therefore one should be careful about Jews." (religion book for the 9th Grade, translated from German); "The noble soul has two goals: death and the desire for it." ("Our Beautiful Language", Textbook for the sixth Grade, Part1 2000-2001, p. 47, translated from German)

The state of Israel was founded in 1948 as a reaction to anti-Semitic persecution. As long as there is anti-Semitism, Jews can defend themselves against anti-Semitism effectively only in a state with a Jewish population majority - a conclusion from centuries of pogroms and especially from the mass extermination comitted by the Germans.

The UN dividing plan, which intended an Arab and a Jewish state in the British mandated territory, was rejected by the Arabs; the foundation of Israel was answered with war. Israels negotiation offers were regularly rejected by the Arab states. For these states (with the exceptions of Egypt and Jordan after the peace treaties 1978/1994), it makes no difference what Israel's policy concretely looks like or how small Israel is; it is the declared goal of the major part of the Arab world to "drive the Jews into the sea".

Israel is a place of refuge for victims of anti-Semitic persecution all over the word. Antizionism wants to take the Jews the possibility of military self-defence, relinquishes them there with to their enemies an is thus nothing else but anti-Semitism. After Auschwitz, anti-Semitism hardly occurs -at least in the more established social stratums of the western world- openly, but usually as antizionism and criticism of hallucinated "influential Jewish circles". At the same time, however, Europe sees the largest wave of anti-Semitic actions since 1945 in attacks on synagogues (Dusseldorf, Paris, ...) and anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish demostrations (Berlin, Rome, ...).

Until their expulsion in the 20th century, Jews had lived in islamic countries for centuries - as second class citizens indeed, but free of similar bloody persecution like in Europe. But self-confident and for sovereignty striving Jews did not fit in the concept of most Arabic neighbours, and so the hate for the Jews grew stronger with the Zionist settlement in what is today Israel. Climax of this was the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Hussaini, who collaborated unconcealed with the German national socialists, whose anti-Semitic projections he successfully made common in the Arabic world, and which was not limited to financial support for the Arabic national movements and the composition of muslim SS-divisions: in 1943 the Mufti called on the governments of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy to withdraw their permission for Jewish emigration and to send their Jews to Poland, "where they are under active control" (taken from Hussainis memoirs "Falastin", Beirut 1970, translated from German).
After the second World War, numerous NS war criminals fled to Arabic countries. An anti-Semitic author, Johann von Leers, who later became an advisor of the Egyptian government, was welcomed by the Mufti: "We thank you that you took it upon yourself to go to struggle against the powers of darkness which took shape in the Jews." (Robert St. John: The Boss, New York 1960, p. 153, translated from German)
E.g. the Baath parties (Hussein/Iraq, Assad/Syria) refered and stil refer very openly to the ideology of national socialism: "We were racists, we admired national socialism...Who lived in Damascus at that time can understand the inclination of the Arabic people to Nazism, for it was the power which could be the pioneer for the Arabic matter..." (Sami al-Jundi, former leader of the Syrian Baath-party, "al-Bath", Beirut 1969, p. 27ff, translated from German)

Books like the anti-Semitic fake "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with more translations into Arabic than into any other language and Hitler's "Mein Kampf" are almost undisputed best-sellers in the Islamic world; state-owned newspapers and tv channels surpass each other in anti-Semitic propaganda: "...I would like to point out that the spilling of human blood by Jews for the purpose of preparation of pastry for their holidays is a fact that can be proved historically and legally throughout the whole history. This namely was one of the main reasons for the persecution and the banishment of the Jews in Europe and Asia." ("Al Riyadh", influental Saudi-Arabian newspaper, March 10th, 2002, translated from German)
Information in which Israel is not presented negatively is infinitely rare respectivly forbidden; instead of this e.g. in Egypt - one of the two Arabic states which signed peace treaties with Israel - the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are currently shown as a televison programme -with the government's permission.

Opposition activists are persecuted as "zionist agents"; the delusion of the "Jewish principle" which is responsible for all the "evil things" in the world was successfully taken over from German national socialism. Islamism does not fight for a better life or satisfaction of needs but has declared war to the positive aspects of the modern world. Everything that does not submit to islamistic virtue terror and community delusion - sexuality that does not serve propagation and criticism of god-given circumstances - are persecuted remorselessly. Anti-Semitism and the hate for everything unislamic keeps the people together. Poverty and stupidity, village idylls and medieval social structures are glorified and prescribed as a cure for liberalism, decadence and incredulity which are made out especially in Israel and the US.

In capitalist societies luxury, individuality and personal fortune as a basic condition for a liberated society are by the enlightement at least imaginable. This unfulfilled bourgeois promise of fortune has to be defended against Islamic fascism - although it is of course only the other side of capitalism, although barbarism represents only the other side of the enlightement and although islamistic terrorism in large parts has been built up also by the western states through money and ideology.

According to the concept "land for peace" - which is supported by a majority of the Israeli society - the Israeli Prime Minister Barak offered the Palestinians an state in Westbank and Gaza with the Eastern part of Jerusalem as capital in 2000. Arafat rejected the offer e.g. because no "right of return" for Arabs who fled in 1948 was intended. But such a right of return, which includes even the offspring of the former refugees, would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state and a place of refuge. There were no talks about a right of return for the Jews who fled in 1948 from the Arabic states. It became clear that there was neither willingness to negotiate nor anyone serious to speak to on the Palestinian side.
The attacks against Israeli civilians are supported by a majority of the Palestinians, they do not demand an end of the occupation but an end of the Jewish state. Since the Palestinian National Authority does not fight terrorism but rather supports it, Israel hast to take the initiative for the safety of its inhabitants. The actions of the Israeli army such as the temporary re-occupation of the autonomous Palestinian towns lead to a decrease of terror. Despite of -also avoidable- mistakes, Israel is careful not to endanger non-combattants; while armed Palestinians favouritely stay behind and in the midst of civilians to provoke corresponding bloody televison pictures. Not only the radical left sees in these pictures the fight of a Palestinian David against an Israeli Goliath and projects its desire for revolutionary romance on stone-throwing Palestinians - they don't worry what this fight is about. Israel's self-defense is regularly criticized by most states and media, victims are made perpetrators. The media e.g. reported a "massacre" in Jenin which never took place (UN investigation report August 1st, 2002).
From the indeed bad living conditions of the Palestinians wrong conclusions are drawn; there is no progressive reaction, instead of that all problems are seen as produced by Israel. The Palestinian fight is not concerned in an end of an supposed oppression by the Israelis, not in an improvement of their social situation, but in killing as many (also pro-palestinian) Jews as possible, to die in the struggle for nation and god, to celebrate death cult and extermination.

Everytime when Israel attacks EU-financed terrorist infrastructure such as Arafats office or anti-Semitic propaganda machinery like the PNA's television broadcasting station, the EU pays the reconstruction and is bold enough to demand compensation from Israel. We do not contest that there were inhuman actions by Israeli soldiers. But in the Israeli society the army's actions are - different to all neighboring countries - discussed critically and conclusions are drawn from not justifiable actions. Interesting is also that the Falangists' attack on the "refugee camps" Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982 which was not prevented by Sharon is discussed again and again, while nobody talks about Jordan's ("Black September" 1970) and Syria's massacres against thousands of Palestinians; and that the occupation of the Westbank by Jordan and of Gaza by Egypt until 1967 was of no interest for those who today attack Israel for that - Israel's enemies don't seem to be interested in the Palestinians' well-being.
Anti-Semitism claims to explain the world. Exploitation is (not only in the anti-Semitic conception of the world) perceived only in the abstract side of capitalism, in the financial capital and in the trade; industrial production appears on the other hand as concrete, positive and rooted: "In the relation of the wages to the prices first is expressed what is held back from the workers. With their wages they accepted at the same time the principle of payment. The shop owner presents the change that they signed the factory owner. [...] The responsibility of the sphere of capital circulation for the exploitation is socially necessary appearance." (Adorno/Horkheimer: "Dialectic of Enlightement", translated from German)
The anti-Semite hallucinates the Jew as abstract, inconceivable, rootless, international and poweful. "Modern anti-Semitism consists of the biologization of capitalism - which itself is interpreted only in the form of the appearing abstract - as the international Jews." (Moishe Postone: "National Socialism and Anti-Semitism", translated from German)
An elementary component of capitalism is this projection, that does not necessarily have to be against the Jews, but whose structure can also hit other groups which are imagined to have "Jewish" characteristics: multinational companies, financial capital, organized crime, drug dealers, "world conspirators". Not only for this reason there can be no liberation without liberation from capitalism.

Anti-imperialism explains the world as fight of concrete, rooted peoples against abstrakt powers. The fact that these concrete peoples regularly turn out to be authoritarian force-collectives should make one think. The EU poses with pleasure as fighter for the people's rights against the US and Israel who stand alone with their military actions against the world wide intifada. A radical left must not demand any more support of the anti-Israeli war at EU summits, but has to attack the EU also for its partisanship for Israel's enemies. We are aware that Israel is a capitalist state, too. But if anticapitalist protest opposes against this area of protection for victims of anti-Semitic persecution and against the only democratic state in the Middle East, in which neither self-comfident women nor homosexuals are persecuted, and if anticapitalist protest declares solidarity with Israel's enemies, in consequence this protest calls for nothing else than global fascism.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)