#far-right
German memory culture, anti-Semitic Zionists and Palestinian liberation
Germany’s much lauded ‘memory culture’ is pure, empty, self-congratulatory propaganda.
Rachael Shapiro — Anti-Zionist Jewish activist based in Berlin
Published On 1 Mar 20241 Mar 2024
I am a #Jewish #pro-Palestine solidarity activist originally from the #NewYork area and now based in #Berlin. My #grandmother was a #Holocaust survivor from #Cologne who fled to the #UnitedStates during the Second World War at the age of 16. Her parents and much of her family were murdered during the Holocaust. I came “back” to #Germany about five years ago, a decision born largely out of the desire for intergenerational healing for me and for my grandmother, who was alive at the time. I learned German and was able to speak to her in her native language in the last few years of her life. I told her stories about living in Germany, she met some of my friends and she was grateful for the ways in which the country and its people had apparently evolved and atoned for their ugly history.
I am glad she died before I had the opportunity to recognise what a naive, idealistic delusion this was.
In the past few years as I have educated myself, become active in the movement for #Palestinian #liberation and extracted myself from the extreme #Zionist conditioning and #brainwashing baked into the fabric of my upbringing, my appreciation for German “Erinnerungskultur” (“memory culture”) has steeply devolved into the realisation that the entire concept is pure, empty, self-congratulatory propaganda. It is grounded in the intentional, racist displacement of anti-Semitism and responsibility for the Holocaust from the Germans who perpetuated it to the #Arabs, #Muslims and, above all, the #Palestinians, who they now demonise and scapegoat as a deflection and distraction.
A documentary from 1985, Ma’loul Celebrates Its Destruction, provides an account of the destruction of entire villages during the 1948 #Nakba. In it, an interviewer says to a Palestinian man who was displaced: “But they killed six million Jews.” His rightful response is, “Did I kill them? Those who killed them must be held accountable. I haven’t hurt a fly.” The fact that a truth this fundamental has been so deeply buried in the language of “complexity” and “conflict” is a testament to the commitment and breadth of the imperialist narrative disseminated by Israel, the #US and #Germany (and the #West in general). Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of all anti-Semitic incidents in Germany are attributable to the #far-right despite the media’s rampant efforts to ignore statistics, skew the reality of the violence and racism directed at Palestinians, and disguise the true apathy towards the so-called “fight against anti-Semitism”.
While actual incidents of anti-Semitism go largely unpunished, those of us standing in solidarity with Palestine are accustomed to brutal, state-sanctioned violence, repression and surveillance from police and the German government in response to peaceful #protests and #boycotts. This has intensified massively since the #genocide in #Gaza began in October, regularly under the guise of accusations of anti-Semitism and “Judenhass” (“hatred of Jews”). We are accordingly committed to remaining loud and visible, including through our refusal to be excluded from the fight against rising fascism and the extreme-right Alternative for Germany party ( #AfD ).
On February 3, I attended an #anti-AfD demonstration in Berlin as part of the pro-Palestinian bloc with the revolutionary #Marxist group #Sozialismus #von #Unten (“Socialism from Below”), in which I am an active member. I had quite a bit of trepidation about going to this protest after the violent, racist and disturbing experiences of my Palestinian and pro-Palestinian comrades at anti-AfD protests over the past few weeks. Folks protesting the AfD while showing solidarity with Palestine have been ruthlessly harassed, attacked, reported to the police and violently removed by both demonstrators and cops all over Germany.
In general, the #mood was positive, and there seemed to be more of a tangible solidarity in comparison with the earlier demonstrations. I stood with a sign that read, “ #Juedin #gegen die #AfD und #Zionismus, #fuer ein #freies #Palaestina” (“ #Jew #against the #AfD and #Zionism, #for a #free #Palestine”). We handed out flyers encouraging a strategic and systematic mobilisation against the AfD. We spoke to demonstrators about the link between fighting fascism and fighting for Palestinian liberation. We explained that Palestinians in Palestine are currently suffering under the fascist policies we are demonstrating against in Germany, and in Germany, Palestinians and those standing in solidarity with them are already experiencing the concrete infringement and denial of #fundamental #human #rights ( #freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly). We emphasised the importance of unconditional, #international #solidarity.
Some were cautious about engaging, ostensibly out of concern for being viewed as anti-Semitic, but many were curious, interested and open to learning. As much as the mainstream media have tried to distort and mangle news of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a recent poll showed that among German voters, only 25 percent answered in the affirmative when asked if they believe Israel’s attacks on Gaza are justified; 61 percent believe they are not. The latter cohort was clearly represented at the demonstration.
After about an hour, I came into contact with a representative of the 25 percent of that poll. An older German man with an aggressive expression approached me, stopped in front of me and half-shouted, “So what do you think the #similarities are #between the #AfD and #Israel?” I could tell he had no intention of engaging in a reasonable conversation but nonetheless began trying to explain. After a few words, he rolled his eyes and spat at me.
It is hard to describe the particular shade of red I saw, the sourness of the blood pumping to my head, the bitterness of the fury on my tongue. It looked like the lifeless faces of my great-grandparents at the mercy of #Nazis, deported and murdered in the #Warsaw #Ghetto as they have appeared in my dreams since I was a child. It felt like the fierceness with which I will unconditionally defend the Palestinian resistance, the right of every people to resist their oppressor in any single form, until my last breath. It tasted like the rage and incredulity that have boiled in the corners of all of our mouths as we scream at the top of our lungs, watching the world passively observe the slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children for more than four and a half months – silent, complicit and accompanied by the relentless echo of more than #75 #years of #occupation, #apartheid, #theft, #ethnicCleansing, #lies, #dehumanisation and unforgivable #injustice.
I ran after the man, shouting at him that my family was murdered because of fascism during a genocide – in response to which he spat at me again.
He goaded me: “What do you know? The AfD is a fascist party. What does that have to do with Israel?” I began to state the obvious – “Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza as we speak …” – but didn’t finish my sentence before he spat in my face for a third time.
As I was shaking, incensed and disgusted, my final comment was, “You are clearly an anti-Semite.” Up to this point in the interaction, he had been condescending and full of contempt, but (as I knew it would) this final shot sent him into a blind rage. As I turned and walked away, he shrieked: “WHAT did you say to me?”
A friend of mine recently said to me, “The #Germans will #never #forgive the #Jews for the #Holocaust.” These words have rung in my ears and sat in my chest with nowhere in particular to go, a hard, ugly truth at the core of German society that precisely reflects my experience living in it. It is bewildering, it is comical, and it is accurate.
From the neo-Nazis of the AfD to “anti-Deutsche” leftists who claim to be combatting German anti-Semitism by obsessively and unconditionally supporting Zionism, many of today’s Germans are brimming with repressed rage towards Jews. Whether they are aware of it or not, this is resoundingly apparent in the deep, hysterical hypocrisy of a reaction such as that of the man at the demonstration – spitting in a Jewish person’s face for standing against fascism and genocide on the basis of her personal, generational relationship to fascism and genocide and becoming enraged at being identified as an anti-Semite accordingly.
This fury is seemingly a reaction to the “injustice” of Germans having to repent for the actions of their ancestors, something they have been widely celebrated for on the global stage. The #resentment takes the form of #narrowmindedness and #bigotry: The only acceptable concepts of #Judaism, #Jewish people and “Jewish life” are those they themselves, #non-Jewish Germans, explicitly sign off on. (Refer to the “anti-Semitism commissioners” claiming to represent the interests of Jewish people in Germany – not a single one of whom is Jewish or an expert in any relevant or related field.) For many Germans, the only palatable Judaism is Zionism, which in fact is no kind of Judaism at all. When forced to contend with perspectives in conflict with this toxic narrative or with Jewishness that doesn’t align with their understanding of it, their anger surfaces violently, explosively. “Anti-Deutsche” weaponise the fetishisation of Jews through their obsessive Zionism to an extreme degree, spearheading aggressive hate and smear campaigns against those who do not share their views (including anti-Zionist Jewish people). How dare anyone, most of all Jews, call into question the authority of Germans in defining and relating to Judaism, anti-Semitism and genocide.
The sick, decades-long collaboration between Israel and Germany and the widespread assertion that Israel’s security is “Germany’s reason of state”(“Staatsraeson”), which upholds Zionist socialisation in the interests of political, racist ends, has created an atmosphere of fear, shame, guilt and ultimately self-righteousness that permeates much of German society. It punishes questions, dissuades education and quashes the necessary understanding of Judaism as a broad, differentiated and historically diasporic culture that existed long before Zionism – and will exist long after.
This designation of all Jews and all Judaism as a single uniform entity, necessarily speaking the same language (modern Hebrew), holding the same values (Zionism) and sharing an identical culture (which in Germany, must be determined by Germans), is, in fact, the precise definition of #anti-Semitic, #Nazistic #racial #segregation and the othering, dehumanising rhetoric they employed in its service. The rigid and inherently anti-Semitic conception of Jews as an undifferentiated people “native” to one land, characterised by the nationalist settler-colonial Zionist movement, has merely served as a #continuation of #Hitler’s #work. It has erased secular Judaism in Europe. It has #eradicated the #Yiddish, #Ladino, #Judeo-Arabic, #Judeo-Persian and #other #Hebraic #languages. Eighty years after the Holocaust, it has succeeded in upholding the view of Jews as a monolith, a foreign nuisance separate from German society, the attempted annihilation of whom can now be exploited to justify the annihilation of another group.
The #tradition of #policing #Jewishness has been passed down in Germany for generations now, which, as in the case of the man at the anti-AfD demonstration, revolves not just around an established, homogenous definition of Jews but, crucially, also the exclusive right and obligation of the Germans to dictate it.
So what are we left with? I believe we can see it in our aforementioned statistic. The majority of Germans know, despite what they have been raised and conditioned to believe, that at the very least, what is going on in Gaza is wrong. Many can see that there is something significant and conspicuous missing in the mainstream narrative around anti-Semitism, Israel and Palestine. I would venture that the majority of those in the streets marching against the AfD are doing it because they genuinely want to stand on the right side of history. Meanwhile, what is in reality a minority is simply louder, angrier and more visible in propagating their anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Semitism and pro-genocide views and, in being so, intimidate the rest into docile silence.
#No #one in the mainstream German #media has reported on my experience at the anti-AfD protest. Given the cultural context, this is not a surprise. But highlighting this hypocrisy and the prevailing, ever-more destructive narratives illustrated by such an incident represents a powerful opportunity for education and empowerment. Calling out the root causes and social backdrop of this moment make them available and necessary for all to grapple with. As so many are stepping into the streets, it is our responsibility to arm them with the facts as fuel, to enable every single person to raise their voice and know decisively what they speak for and what they speak against. We will continue – with more resolve than ever – in the fight for a free Palestine and in mobilising in this way against racism, Zionism, (actual) anti-Semitism, fascism and genocide. We will repeat it again and again until the rhythm of our words becomes the heartbeat of a society that attempts to snuff out our resistance but will ultimately fail at doing so: Never again means never again for anybody.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
#netherlands #far-right
What's behind the Netherlands' turn to the far-right?
https://www.euronews.com/2024/01/19/whats-behind-the-netherlands-turn-to-the-far-right
Far-right march in Jerusalem appears to be cancelled
The individuals were originally scheduled to arrive from West Jerusalem to Occupied East Jerusalem. However, it appears that the permit issued by the police,...#AlJazeera #AlJazeeraEnglish #Al-AqsaMosque #Al-Aqsacompound #Far-right #Gazabombardment #Gazawar #Hamas #IslamicWaqfCouncil #Israel #Israelmilitary #IsraeliUltranationalists #Jerusalem #JerusalemsOldCity #Netanyahu #OccupiedEastJerusalem #OldCity #Palestine #Waqf #WestJerusalem #alJazeera #aljazeeraEnglish #aljazeeralive #aljazeeravideo #aljazeeraEnglish #aljazeeralatest #aljazeeralive #aljazeeralivenews #latestnews #newsheadlines #waronGaza
Far-right march in Jerusalem appears to be cancelled
Is it everywhere the same? East or West, #Nazis are everywhere?!
While the far-right worldview of the Azov movement is clear, there has been an intense debate on whether the #Azov Battalion should be classed a “foreign terrorist organization” by the US Department of State.
“People always assume it (the Azov regiment and Azov movement) is one Death Star,” Rekawek said. “Year by year, the connections (between the regiment and the movement) are looser,” he said, explaining that the battalion’s ranks now include Ukrainians who have no affinity with its neo-Nazi past.
Ritzmann says the #far-right element in #Ukraine’s army is no different to what’s been detected in other militaries, such as in #Germany and the #US.
“Presumably, far-right extremists serve in the Ukrainian military as they do in all other militaries – valid data regarding the exact numbers are not available,” he said.
If it is everywhere the same, then I can understand why more and more countries are trying to dissociate themselves from white #supremacists.
#Far-right Ukrainian political leader #Dmitro #Korchynsky advocating for the targeting of #Zaporozhye NPPs.
He says the only way to stop #Russia is to strike the nuclear plants, even if it creates a lot of #collateral casualties it’s still worth it.
From Nuclear Falseflag on Zaporozhye NPP
Europe’s lurch to the right rolls on. Only unity on the left can stop it
The Guardian
Recent polls in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Finland tell the story of voters swayed by fear and prejudice. Progressive parties – take note Keir Starmer – need a clear, principled agenda to turn that tide.
Why does the left keep losing? It’s not a question liberals and progressives particularly want to confront, but look around. Reactionary parties of the political right and far right are once more on the rise and on the march across Europe, as shown again by last week’s lopsided election results in Spain and Italy.
(Text continues underneath the photo.)
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has called a snap general election in July after crushing polls setbacks in the country’s regions and cities last weekend. Photograph: Dumitru Doru/EPA.
Each country is different, its circumstances unique. Yet a broad pattern is discernible – and it’s not difficult to trace. The banal common denominator is that parties of the European left, hard and soft, are too fractured and fractious to build winning coalitions that offer convincing alternative solutions to voters’ problems. (...)
It’s not as though rightwing conservatives, populists, nationalists and assorted radicals and extremists have all the answers. Anything but! (...)
How may this Europe-wide tendency be reversed? Maybe resurrection for the left will be found in the example of Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister and Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) leader. (...)
In trying to rally the left, Sánchez seeks to expose his opponents’ divisiveness and hate-mongering. An alternative approach to neutralising the right is to absorb it – as attempted last month by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the Turkish opposition’s presidential candidate. (...)
The radical right’s resilience should ring alarm bells in Britain, too, which, despite itself, is not immune to European trends. By shifting rightwards in hopes of winning power in 2024, Starmer’s Labour risks empowering its opponents. Better to draw a line like Sánchez, Spain’s socialist leader, then set one’s own agenda, offer a clear choice and trust voters to decide. It’s not that complicated. Unity, plus well-defined, principled policy programmes, is the way the left stops losing – and learns to win again.
Tags: #politics #elections #far-right #spain #greece #turkey #finland #france #italy #hungary #uk #united_kingdom #labour_party #starmer #keir_starmer #Giorgia_Meloni #meloni #Europe #Pedro_Sánchez #Viktor_Orbán #orban #Recep_Tayyip_Erdoğan #erdogan #mitsotakis
Linksextremistin Lina E.: über fünf Jahre Haft | DW | 31.05.2023
Die 28-Jährige und ihre Mittäter wurden wegen einer Reihe von Angriffen auf Neonazis verurteilt.#far-left #far-right #extremism #terrorism
Linksextremistin Lina E.: über fünf Jahre Haft | DW | 31.05.2023
#politics #war #ukraine #far-right #fashists #nato
Canada’s Military Trained Ukrainian Fascists. Now It’s Claiming “Russian Disinformation.”
A report from George Washington University reveals that the Canadian Armed Forces trained a far-right Ukrainian group. Despite corroboration by its own internal documents, the Canadian military is calling the report “Russian disinformation.” (By Alex Cosh)
Last year, a report published out of George Washington University (GWU) revealed that members of a Ukrainian far-right group, the Military Order of Centuria, boasted online about receiving NATO training at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy. Despite newly unearthed documents showing that Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) officials initially admitted the report was credible, Canada’s military is now trying to claim — without evidence — that the report contained “doctored” photos to support “Russian disinformation.”
At best, the fact that CAF made this allegation without clear evidence or even specific examples suggests the military does not take the issue seriously. At worst, it signals a cynical attempt to exploit a chaotic information environment in order to deflect scrutiny from Canada’s military operations. In either case, the CAF’s claim about the report baselessly throws researchers and journalists’ reputations — and their personal safety — under the bus.
- full article @ https://jacobin.com/2022/12/canadian-military-train-ukrainian-fascists-azov-centuria/
The #far-right #TeaParty Patriots now support former " #progressive" hero, #Tulsi #Gabbard. Bill #Weinberg was right about her all along. https://globalganjareport.com/node/1746
Banned British #far-right figures return to #Twitter within hours of takeover | Far right | The Guardian
Well that didn't take long.
#UK #Politics #Fascism #Fascists #Nazis #HateGroups #ElonMusk
In a video message on Tuesday, opposition leader Benjamin #Netanyahu pleaded with Itamar #BenGvir and Bezalel #Smotrich, the feuding leaders of the #far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious #Zionism parties, to put aside their differences and renew the alliance that saw them win six seats in last year’s elections. Warned Netanyahu: “Only running together will ensure that these parties clear the electoral threshold” — and thus make it safely into the Knesset in the November 1 #elections.
Were one of the two Orthodox-nationalist parties to fall short, tens of thousands of Netanyahu-bloc votes would go to waste, and with them, quite possibly, the former prime minister’s prospects of a return to power. “We can’t take the risk,” cautioned the #Likud leader, doubtless recalling the disaster of September 2019, when Ben Gvir’s #OtzmaYehudit, running solo, failed to clear the threshold and threw away 83,609 votes.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/beware-itamar-ben-gvir-rising-far-right-star-with-a-destructive-vision-for-israel/ #israel #politics #nationalism
In August 2018, a Bellingcat investigation revealed that #ESA had been training a number of individuals from #Ukraine’s far right. In the course of reporting that investigation, representatives of ESA told Bellingcat and Polish #media outlets that they carefully checked all applicants’ backgrounds and would not train individuals with links to the #far-right.
Although experts told Bellingcat that the men featured in this investigation did nothing illegal by attending the ESA training sessions, these photos of Jastrząb and Marek B. call ESA’s earlier statement into question. They show that, after making these promises, ESA did it again — and not with a foreign white supremacist, but with at least two from their own country, on at least four occasions.
This case also raises questions as to whether far-right figures, including #neo-Nazis with alleged criminal connections and histories of #violence, have been able to access similar training at ESA and other #security academies worldwide.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/08/10/why-did-a-major-european-security-firm-train-white-supremacists-again/ #poland #wroclaw #roma #lgbtiq #ltw #bloodandhonour #belgium #gdansk #weapons
Why Trump and the GOP love Hungary’s authoritarian leader
“The reason that Orbán keeps winning is he has the control of a dictator,” said one political scientist. “So the question is, what are the Republicans in it for?"
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/viktor-orban-cpac-trump-gop-hungary-leader-rcna40199
He has extolled the value of racial purity, is vehemently anti-immigration, has cultivated close ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and was a speaker at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, in Dallas.\
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, 59, is widely criticized around the world for systematically dismantling his country’s nascent democracy during his 12 years in power — but that hasn’t stopped him from emerging as a darling of many on the right in America.\
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Orbán told a cheering crowd of conference delegates that he and other conservatives were in a battle to protect Western civilization against the forces of liberalism and mass migration.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/06/viktor-orban-cpac-far-right-us-trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orb%C3%A1n
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220727-holocaust-survivors-condemn-race-remarks-by-hungary-s-orban
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/04/hungarys-authoritarian-leader-no-gift-us-conservatives
#right-wing #far-right #conservative #usa #hungary #dictator #cpac #republicans #orban #orbán #viktor-orbán #racial-purity #anti-immigration #liberalism #mass-migration #mixed-race #racism #bigotry
On this episode of the It’s Going Down #podcast, we talk with both long-time anarchist organizer Suzy Subways and historian Spencer Beswick about how anarchists in the 1990s organized in the face of a deadly #far-Right attack on abortion access across the so-called United States.
With the growth of both the above ground organization Operation Rescue, which mobilized thousands to shut down #abortion clinics and the underground anti-abortion movement which targeted doctors and reproductive #health offices with firebombings and assassinations, abortion access was under threat like never before. But while #liberals stuck to legalistic attempts to sway the courts, anarchists, utilizing strategies and tactics from groups like Anti-Racist Action, brought a fresh perspective to the struggle and began to mobilize and build coalitions.
During our discussion we cover this #history as well as what led to the passing of #Roe v Wade; as Beswick argues that it was the creation of a mass, militant movement that centered bodily #autonomy and freedom that forced the #State to codify limited abortion rights into law. As the supreme court is poised to rule on striking down Roe v Wade, this history, and the lessons a nd questions that it raises, is needed now more than ever.
https://itsgoingdown.org/clinic-defense-1990s-abortion/ #usa #anarchism #scotus #antira
The right to #abortion has been on the books for half a century. But two generations of conservative legal activism primed the Supreme Court for today’s tectonic decision, and with the fall of #Roe, former President #Trump secured a defining moment for his #far-right legacy: It was his appointees who finally tipped the balance on the court, and ensured this ruling’s majority.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/06/scotus-dobbs-abortion-ruling-roe-dead/ #usa #women #scotus #health
Glenn Greenwald ~ The Pressure Campaign on Spotify to Remove Joe Rogan Reveals the Religion of Liberals: Censorship
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-pressure-campaign-on-spotify
“There are so many #ironies to the decision of #liberals to convert #JoeRogan into some avatar of #far-right #extremism. One is that he’s one of the few to give a #platform to #left-wing #voices like #OliverStone. Another is that he endorsed #BernieSanders.
#glenngreenwald #censorship #pressure #campaign #spotify #fear #politics #authoritarianism #corporate #media #disinformation #substack #rumble #freespeech #truth
Thousands have marched in #Warsaw to mark Poland’s Independence Day, led by #far-right groups calling for strong borders, while its troops blocked hundreds of new attempts by people to enter the country from neighbouring #Belarus in a tense political standoff.
#Security forces patrolled the capital and other cities for the holiday rallies, which in recent years have seen some violent attacks by nationalist extremists.
This year’s march was overshadowed by events unfolding along #Poland’s border with Belarus, where thousands of riot #police and troops are turning back people, many from the #MiddleEast, who are trying to enter the European Union. Makeshift camps have sprung up in forests on the Belarusian side near a crossing at the Polish town of #Kuźnica, and with temperatures falling and access to the frontier restricted, there are fears of a humanitarian #crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/11/far-right-leads-warsaw-march-of-patriots-as-polish-border-crisis-simmers #eu #nationalism #LGBTQ+ #pis #migration #nazis
Complete #archive of #anonymous #epik data on #alt-right and #far-right #fascist #webhost https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/Epik