State and ‘Antideutsche’ hand in hand –a call to exclude Zionists from leftist spaces

On May 1, 2024, a racist incident directed toward a Palestinian comrade and friend occurred at the Berg Fidel quarter festival in Münster. The comrade confronted a group of around ten well-known Zionists who were also at the quarter festival. Specifically, these were people who had repeatedly attracted attention in recent years for their anti-Palestinian racism. He rightly criticized their presence and confronted them. He was then photographed by these Zionists, who then threatened to call the police. The very fact that he was photographed is a clear attempt at intimidation. To the person photographed it is communicated that they now have no control over which groups and chats the photo is shared in. As it turned out, this concern was justified: in the weeks following the incident, the comrade was confronted by people he did not know and described as a threat to other people. The fact that people from a self-declared “radical left-wing” group are threatening to call the police on a migrant person without a German passport and with a precarious residence status is an unacceptable, disgusting racist attack. It is a calculated action because it exploits the racist structural power relations in order to avoid an unpleasant discussion. When the comrade pointed out the structural power difference to the Zionists, they just laughed at him. Even when he explicitly told them “you know, if the police come for me, I’m finished”, they just continued to laugh at him.

As if this racist behavior were not enough, on 11 May the group published an “anonymous” statement through the Instagram page of the “Plattform Minimum” [1]. This statement once again reveals the methods Zionists use to distract from their racist behavior and a confrontation with their unacceptable content positions. In the statement, the confrontation is strategically reconstructed as a “sexist, racist and anti-Semitically motivated assault”. It is claimed that the people were insulted in a sexist, racist and misogynistic way, without any evidence. The “insults” mentioned are “Zionism”, “complicity in the gen*cide of Palestinians” and “white genocidal apartheid Zionists”. It is also claimed that it was an altercation between two men and two women, when the Zionists were in a group of at least ten people. The reconstruction of the incident is taken to the extreme in the statement by saying that the “assault in this case (coincidentally) hit two non-Jewish FLINTA” and that this shows “the projective, delusional hatred of anti-Semitism for everything ‘Zionist’, ‘somehow Jewish’ or in solidarity with it, which will sooner or later also be unleashed on Jews”. This classification follows the same principle that the Israeli state uses to immunize itself against criticism. Anyone who confronts Zionists as legitimizers and supporters of the Israeli state’s racist and genocidal policies is slandered as anti-Semitic. The equation of “Zionist” with “Jewish” is anti-Semitic; it denies Jewish anti-Zionism and the growing worldwide movement of Jews, including in Germany, who oppose the Israeli state, genocide, apartheid and occupation and take to the streets hand in hand with Palestinians and other people in solidarity with Palestine. In the Zionist worldview, Jews are a monolithic bloc that stands unreservedly on the side of Israel. Yet, at the same time, Jews are exclusively victims, denying them of their humanity. The fact that Zionists use such narratives to protect their own positions from criticism, and do so in the name of Jews, is an unscrupulous sabotage of the fight against antisemitism. It neither protects Jews from anti-Semitic attacks nor contributes to social education about anti-Semitism and its manifestations. The fact that the group has reported the incident to RIAS (NRW), the governmental office which collects reports of anti-Semitism, is an additional attack on Jews who are actually affected by anti-Semitic attacks. We are very concerned about this trend of non-Jewish people stylizing themselves as victims of anti-Semitism. Moreover, the talk of a “threat situation” deliberately echoes the state and media agitation against “dangerous Palestinians”. As we demonstrate below, this is not the first time that Zionists in Münster have tried to use and fuel this image.

The incident shows why certain groups cannot be tolerated as part of an anti-fascist and anti-racist movement and cannot be tolerated in left-wing public spaces. The Plattform Minimum, like several other structures in Münster, belongs to the environment and to the pre-front organizations of the anti-German (‘Antideutsch’) group “Eklat”. Members of the Eklat group were also personally involved in the incident on May 1st in Münster. This group describes itself as a “radical left-wing group”, but Eklat is neither left-wing nor radical. We expect left-wing groups to share certain basic values. These include the persisting fight against racism, militarism and for basic human rights. On these points, however, the Eklat group represents racist, reactionary and inhumane positions. This becomes particularly clear in two statements that this group has published in the last two years.

At the end of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the group wrote in a statement in August 2021:

“Against the rhetoric spread on the left, which sees the military intervention of the USA and its allies as the reason for the destabilization of the region, it is important to note: It is not the operation in Afghanistan against the Taliban that is the problem, but the fact that they were never entirely serious about this [operation] and the fight against Islamism. Even if no profound democratization and liberation followed or could follow from the military operation, Islamist forces can and must be fought with the armed means of liberal democracies: Islamists belong to the category of monstrous behemoths that must be stopped from the outside. And the military presence in Afghanistan has so far at least held back the catastrophe that is now unfolding.” [2]

This quote reveals several unacceptable positions: on the one hand, it is assumed that the Western invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which has cost the lives of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and destroyed the country economically and infrastructurally, was necessary or even desirable. But the 20-year occupation is one of the main causes of the Taliban’s resurgence. The NATO invasion was accompanied by lies of “liberation” and “civilization”. These narratives stem from European colonial racism, which was intended to justify the occupation, enslavement and exploitation of large parts of the world. Anyone who follows this line of tradition is neither left-wing nor progressive. The reason for NATO’s military operations in West and Central Asia, as well as worldwide, is geopolitical and economic interests, not a commitment to democracy or human rights. It is a duty for left-wing, progressive groups to criticize and fight this imperialist policy offensively.

Another statement by the group “Eklat” on the Israeli army’s current war in the Gaza Strip, which was released in November last year, contains the following passage:

“Free Gaza from Hamas remains the slogan. We can hardly judge the military tactics of the IDF, but we know about the structural dangers within military organizations. This is the setting that must always be considered when it is rightly asked whether the army’s precautions to avoid civilian casualties are effective and feasible; whether the initial cut-off of water and electricity supplies as a non-military means of pressure is appropriate; whether holding up humanitarian supplies out of concern that they will fall into Hamas hands is acceptable. These questions can be asked.” [3]

In a situation that has long since made clear the inhuman brutality with which the Israeli army is proceeding in the Gaza Strip, this quote and the statement it belongs to is an insult to all people with even a spark of humanity in them. Regardless of how one feels about the Israeli occupation regime, it is unworthy of the left to stand behind the army leadership of a bourgeois and imperialist state and to give this army leadership carte blanche for its decisions. As leftists, it is our duty to judge and condemn the actions of the IDF in the Gaza Strip. With the statement that one could discuss “whether the initial cut-off of water and electricity supplies […] is appropriate”, the group openly flaunts its contempt for humanity. Anyone who considers cutting off water and electricity for two million civilians to be even worth discussing is removing themselves from any left-wing discourse, not to mention completely concealing the starvation of the population as a result of the blockade. These actions are a clear war crime and are aimed at the physical extermination of an entire population. Anyone who defends this has no place in left-wing contexts.

The attacks by the anti-Germans of Eklat and Plattform Minimum are part of a series of right-wing and state / bourgeois attacks on Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists in recent months and years. These include the police violence and the attempted bans on assemblies against the Palestine demonstrations last year. [4, 5] In January and February, several pizzerias run by Arab operators received anti-Palestinian, racist messages and death threats. [6, 7] Also in January, Palestinian and migrant youths at the anti-AfD demonstration were attacked and beaten by alleged “leftists”, including some from the Schwarz-Rote-Hilfe Münster. [8] The Schwarz-Rote-Hilfe had already attracted racist attention in 2021: they had refused to help a Palestinian person because they were in solidarity with Palestine. [9] At the same demonstration, a speaker from the Jugendbündnis gegen Antisemitismus, another organization with an overlap to Eklat, cut his speech short due to the presence of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. In a statement published afterwards, he fantasized a “threat to the speakers” in order to exploit and fuel the prevailing image of “dangerous Palestinians”. [10] At the end of January, the Young Forum of the German-Israeli Society (a right-wing lobby organization) and the Jewish Community of Münster exerted pressure on the Institute of Ethnology, preventing a public screening of the film about Israeli apartheid. [11] When students screened the film in a self-organized way, the university management threatened them with de-registration. [12] In February, the German-Israeli Society and the Jewish Community again tried to prevent a screening, this time together with the City of Münster’s anti-Semitism commissioners and the Youth Alliance against Anti-Semitism. [13] In the same month Antenne Münster / medienforum censored the broadcast of an interview with a member of Palästina Antikolonial out of fear. [14] This is reminiscent of 2021, when a program with Palästina Antikolonial was subsequently deleted because the Young Forum of the German-Israeli Society exerted pressure on various institutions. [15] In March, the now disbanded Leo:16 pub collective refused to give the spaces of Leo:16 pub for a solidarity concert entitled “Stop the Genocide”. [16] In April, the Bennohaus canceled a lecture by Jüdische Stimme, Revolutionäre Linke and Palästina Antikolonial – presumably after pressure from outside. [17] A few days later, the anti-Semitism commissioner of the University of Münster incited against a Palestinian speaker who planned a presentation about his childhood in southern Lebanon and tried to put pressure on the organizers to cancel the event.

All these examples show that bourgeois actors such as the German-Israeli Society, the Youth Alliance against Anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism commissioners are primarily responsible for attacks on Palestinians and Palestine solidarity. This is no wonder, as bourgeois forces go hand in hand with the state and are often financially dependent on it. The anti-Germans also belong to this spectrum. As has been shown, they share the narrative of the bourgeois state and its shift to the right in key areas, aligning themselves with imperialist interests. Having once emerged from the streets as a progressive movement, the anti-Germans are now increasingly represented in bourgeois institutions and parties (e.g. Jusos / SPD and Campus Green / Greens) as well as state institutions, where they meet their logical counterpart, the state with its reason of state. They make common cause with the state and collaborate with it when it comes to the persecution of politically active Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists, plus the social legitimization of the state’s imperialist foreign policy. Their actions must be clearly classified as a cross-front strategy. This is also shown by overlaps in personnel: A leading figure from Eklat / Jugendbündnis gegen Antisemitismus sits on the board of the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft Münster.

From all these points, it is very clear to us that the Eklat group and its apron organizations have no place in left-wing spaces. Palestinians experience racism and oppression in Germany every day, while their families, friends and acquaintances in the Gaza Strip are starved and murdered. Supposed leftists who defend this must not be tolerated at events such as the Berg Fidel Solidarisch quarter festival. Especially when they even use the police to take action against racialized people. A left-wing milieu that claims to be anti-racist and to stand up for human rights must not tolerate these people at its events or in its premises. The Eklat group and its members present a left-wing image to the outside world, but their actions and opinions are reactionary, conservative and belong much more to the right-wing spectrum. The Eklat group and its entourage are a danger for racialized people and for leftists – spaces where they are tolerated cannot be regarded as safe spaces.

We call on all left-wing initiatives, groups and space providers in Münster to put a stop to the conservative and bourgeois “Eklat” group and exclude it from their structures!

At this point, we also clearly criticize Berg Fidel Solidarisch’s silence and lack of solidarity. As the organizer of the Viertelfest, they have not fulfilled their responsibility to draw attention to the presence of known racists and to expel them from the event. The Zionists‘ threat to call the police on the comrade was also not taken as an opportunity to set a clear boundary. Even after the publication of the defamatory statement by “Plattform Minimum”, Berg Fidel Solidarisch did not show any solidarity with the affected comrade. We expect more from a group that has “Solidarity” in its name.

Signing groups so far: