SPALTE1-HEFT-TITEL

Heft SPALTE1-HEFT-NUMMER / SPALTE1-HEFT-JAHRESZEIT

Lecture & Discussion
Friday, August 22, 2025, 19:00
Chachachicas, Hasenheide 9, 2. Hof,
10967 Berlin, near Hermannplatz

Unconditional solidarity with Israel – against the reunited German left!

This summer, in which the European left is preparing for pogroms, primarily against Israeli Jews, and is already striking; in which only the IDF is struggling to save the Syrian Druze from further massacres by the universally courted Islamist government; in which wearing a Star of David on a necklace can earn you a broken nose and school authorities no longer take action to uphold the principle of neutrality against anti-Semitic extermination threats on clothing, this summer is also peak season for German left-wing doubters who find that is has become too risky to show solidarity with Israel.

Those who still count themselves among the “more reasonable Israel supporters” today must, if only to limit the damage, agree with the Haaretz article of June 26, 2025, in which the paper lets an IDF soldier talk about “killing fields” in Gaza. That was the signal word that made the text an international hit, even among people who would not normally be considered part of the Palestinian People's Storm. A radical change was carried out on behalf of many by the weekly magazine Jungle World, which is suspected of speaking out in favor of Israel, in its Jungleblog on June 27, 2025. Richard Schuberth blames the “Netanyahu gang” for ‘excesses’ that amount to “barbarism.” “Speaking out clearly against it or remaining silent” is the order of the day for true friends of Israel, “if they do not want to confirm the worst prejudices of their opponents,” which, as we know, regularly culminate in allegations of a Jewish Auschwitz in Gaza. The Jungleblog does not remain silent, but courageously speaks out what needs to be said. There is no need to use the terrible word “killing fields” in one's own text; it suffices to quote the article from Haaretz approvingly as a primary source to evoke the memory of the 1.7 to 2.5 million Cambodians murdered between 1975 and 1979. The “more reasonable Israel-solidarity” folks have tasted blood and, in their twisted minds, think they can top the Khmer Rouge's crimes by suggesting the existence of a Jewish-run killing camp. In the Jungleblog, they have found, alongside the murdered, the “survivors of Gaza,” whom the Netanyahu government “does not want to exterminate, but it wants to make their lives so unbearable” — so that they would rather shoot themselves to be released from their suffering? No, it is even worse: “[...] so that emigration becomes their most fervent wish.”

The land and its inhabitants, whose hands are stained with the blood of 1,200 murdered Israeli civilians and hundreds of IDF soldiers; this land, under which at least another 200 Israelis have been murdered and possibly 20 more are still vegetating in what is likely a terrible physical and mental condition, must be defended to the last square meter and to the last drop of blood of the brothers and sisters waiting for food, who are being shot at patriotically and excessively as proof of Jewish barbarism — that is the battle cry issued by the United Nations and its front organization Hamas to all the fair- and just-minded people around the world, which has now also been taken up by the supposedly pro-Israel left in Germany.

How could we have come to this? That is the question being asked this summer by those whom an outraged world is pointing the finger at because they are suspected of unconditional solidarity with Israel. Have not even those of us who normally cope well with “some cognitive and ethical dissonance” been instrumentalized by figures who believe that “not enough Palestinians can die for this cause, so brutalized have they long since become”? By people who see “Netanyahu as a tool of the world spirit,” equipped with the mission not to save civilization, but “Jewish civilization”? Richard Schuberth was not the only one to ask this question in the Jungle World. Many agree with him that it was also our fault that we tolerated people who found their “life's work and substitute religion” in Israel, this “pea-sized country on the Mediterranean,” for far too long instead of driving them out of all left-wing circles.

Justus Wertmüller's lecture will focus on this pea-sized country and the question of why Israel's existence as a sovereign state is a prerequisite for any effort toward emancipation.