A Year on the German Left after October Seventh

Who can we count on? Who can we still work with in good conscience, and who has drifted toward supporting reactionary ideologies?

AntiNote (12 October 2024): As mentioned in the authors’ disclaimer, the following statement from the Bochum chapter of the German climate action network Ende Gelände was written within and for a specific and rather narrow context. It is an attempt to address the disturbingly dismal state of discourse on the German left with regard to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

By publishing this statement in English translation, we exploded the scope of EGB’s intentions and audience, and careful readers will notice (and have!) that the text fails to use that word, genocide, at any point. The authors also attempt to apply their criticisms of German leftists evenly between those who support Israel and those who purport to work for Palestinian liberation—a device which gives the very unfortunate impression of putting these two causes themselves on equal footing. They are not, of course.

Included in feedback we have received following the publication of this translation were links to additional articles in English from German sources, analyzing Germany’s and Germans’ very mixed-up ways of relating to the state of Israel and its manifold, accelerating crimes. We are happy to include them (here and here), as well as an additional one we especially like, to accompany the text and provide additional context for non-German readers.

It may yet be inadequate. Our goal as a publication has never been to achieve perfection, but to provide insight and inspiration from movements on the ground in all their messiness.

Disappointment, Incomprehension, Indignation: One Year in the Left Scene after 7 October
by Ende Gelände Bochum (Germany)
7 October 2024 (original post in German)

Disclaimer: This text is not an attempt at a complete political or historical analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which would have to go into much more than the past year in order to fully account for the long chain of events that led to the incidents of 7 October 2023. We are simply sharing our experience of the German left scene over the last twelve months.

One year since 7 October.

One year since Hamas and aligned forces massacred Israeli civilians and took hundreds of people hostage.

One year of renewed escalations of Israeli violence against the Gaza Strip. One year of bombs, tanks, and snipers targeting the Palestinian civilian population in the name of fighting terrorism.

One year of blood, death, and tears.

Over the past year, Gaza has been laid waste. Dozens of hostages are still missing. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are dead, many more are injured and sick, and the military violence does not appear it will stop.

As a German group, we are observing this catastrophic situation only from a distance; nonetheless it makes us feel grief, horror, outrage, and powerlessness.

What we have experienced in the past year within the German left scene, where we ordinarily feel a sense of belonging, has produced many other feelings: disappointment, frustration, anger, incomprehension, and indignation.

It is not new for the Israel-Palestine conflict to polarize the left scene. But many comrades and fellow travelers have said and done things in the past twelve months that have shocked us and that are diametrically opposed to many of the progressive values that we thought we shared. Both individually and as a group, we have been regularly and thoroughly baffled and unnerved: who can we still count on? Who can we discuss things with, and who just throws around escalatory and loaded accusations at the drop of a hat? Who can we still work with in good conscience, and who has drifted toward supporting reactionary ideologies?

To stay silent about this conflict has always felt wrong, but many of the unreflective, overzealous, and reality-distorting statements being made in the name of solidarity with Israel or Palestine have been just as wrong. We have been let down and disgusted by so, so many “leftists.”

By “leftists” who celebrate the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) as if it were a soccer team, and gaze lustfully at images of Israeli tanks and snipers.

By “leftists” who find reactionary, fundamentalist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis worthy of support and who base their arguments for Palestinian liberation on blood-and-soil ideology.

By “leftists” who use German history as an excuse to silently accept Israeli war crimes or downplay them as “necessary collateral damage.”

By “leftists” who chant Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (Women, Life, Freedom) in the streets, but publicly mourn the Iranian president who robbed women of their lives and freedom. Or who declare that Islamist regime a “protector of Palestine” that must be supported, thereby kicking the people of Iran in the face.

By “leftists” who flag-wave for Israel as the “defender of Western values” and eagerly take on board every piece of Israeli war propaganda.

By “leftists” who, in order to oppose “Zionists,” demonstrate in front of synagogues and former concentration camps, thereby ensuring that Jewish people can no longer feel safe in large parts of the left scene.

By “leftists” who stifle any criticism of the radical rightwing Netanyahu regime as “antisemitism,” thereby falsely conflating Jewishness with the Israeli state.

By “leftists” who, in the name of Palestinian liberation (!), mourn Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, who has besieged and starved Palestinian refugee camps.

By “leftists” who fantasize that the antisemitic jihad of Hamas, which also oppresses the Palestinian population in Gaza, is actually a liberation struggle.

By “leftists” who silence others during intra-scene conflicts and create the appearance that addressing the “Middle East” issue is only useful for opportunistically raising one’s profile and taking the moral high ground.

By “leftists” who march in the streets shoulder to shoulder with Gray Wolves and other Islamist organizations, and turn a blind eye to their fascist and antisemitic slogans in the name of “antiracism.”

By “leftists” who so oversimplify, ideologize, and make black-and-white a complex geopolitical issue that critical discourse, education, and questioning are impossible from the jump.

None of this is good. We don’t want anything to do with any of this, even if that considerably constrains our space for action. Measured and nuanced opinions, steadfast solidarity work, and valuable analyses keep getting overshadowed by the kinds of behaviors and expressions listed here. This signifies a real impoverishment of our scenes.

Our hearts are with the relatives of victims of both the Hamas attacks of 7 October as well as the countless dead in Gaza. Our hearts are with the injured, the starving, the forcibly displaced, and all those who desperately seek to get themselves and their loved ones out of Gaza, and all those who have lost their homes in airstrikes.

The Middle East conflict is unfortunately just one of many depressing issues of the past year. Brutal wars are still raging in Sudan and Congo, with huge numbers of victims. Russia is still being fought off in Ukraine at great cost; our Kurdish comrades in Rojava still have to defend themselves from Turkish attacks. Climate change strides ever forward, causing famine and devastation, as most recently with flooding in central and eastern Europe or with Hurricane Helene. Fascist forces continue to advance worldwide, and here in Germany is no exception.

As a small climate justice group, we will attempt, despite all this wretchedness, to fight on, and to stand by our values:

Against all antisemitism. Against all racism. Against all religious fundamentalism. Against all fascism. Against all nationalism. Against murder of civilians, against the glorification of violence, against populism. And for global justice.

Translated by Antidote

Featured image via Ende Gelände Bochum (Mastodon)

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