FENCE OUT TERROR!

T
he anarcho-syndicalist Free Union of Male and Female Workers have, together with the supposedly anti-fascist organizations Antifa Weissensee and Autonomous Antifa Prenzlauer Berg, have scheduled for today, the 22nd of June 2004, an evening of discussion on the security fence in Israel.

These groups have imagined that they have secured the right to speak about Israel by inviting, to take part in their discussion, representatives of competent groups : namely, activists of the group Anarchist Against the Wall from Israel itself. Anarchists Against the Wall are an Israeli grass-roots movement which is mobilising to resist the building of a security fence between Israeli and Palestinian territory.

The security fence which is currently under construction deviates at almost no point from the “Green Line” marking the border established by the truce of 1967 and serves to separate the cities of Israel from the centre of Palestinian terrorism in West Jordan. It is a necessary measure because, in the past, no secure border prevented Palestinian terrorists from crossing the thin strip of land between Palestinian and Israeli cities and committing, in the latter, acts of terrorism. The Israeli government has emphasized that the fence does not represent any sort of fait accompli as regards a future border between Israel and Palestine, the latter being establishable only by a process of negotiation. The security fence is a necessary measure dictated by the need to protect the Israeli population from the violence of Palestinian terrorism and it has proven effective in doing so. In the regions where it already stands, Palestinian violence has been sharply reduced.

No sooner had the plans for the fence become public than there began a campaign against its construction, founded on the attempt to portray it as a massive “wall-construction” comparable to that carried out in Berlin – and this although no more than 5% of the security fence actually consists of wall and free passage is secured by several transit stations. In German media, reports about the fence are almost invariably accompanied by images of a gigantic cement wall. There has established itself a habit of talking about an “apartheid wall”. This implies that the motives behind the construction of the fence are racist, comparable to those motivating the former government of South Africa. No thought or consideration is given to the obligation of the Israeli government to protect its own population.

This talk of an “apartheid fence” has been taken over directly by the Israeli group Anarchists Against the Wall. The group assumes, in many of the communiqués it has issued, that the official reasons given for the building of the security fence are all lies and that the purpose is in fact to “ghetto-ize” the Palestinian population. In their idealistic anarchistic fashion, they demand that “no wall shall stand between the peoples” and undertake direct actions against the fence’s construction, actions provoking, understandably, stern repression from the side of Israeli security forces. According to their ideology, it is the occupation which is responsible for the terrorism of the Palestinians and not the Islamistic-Anti-Semitic ideology of the terror groups themselves. In total disregard of history, they compare the Israeli security fence with the Berlin Wall. It would certainly be possible, and even necessary, to engage, as regards these views, in a controversial dialogue with the Anarchists Against the Wall. Why we are opposed to doing so on this evening, in this place and within this context, however, can only be understood by reference to the current situation on the German Left.

The groups who have invited the Israeli anarchists to speak represent that part of the German Left which has stubbornly refused to draw the conclusions from Auschwitz and to recognize that anti-Semitism is a continuing present threat and that the foundation of the state of Israel was and is indispensable to the struggle against fascism. As supposed “anti-national” thinkers and activists, they insist on an immediate and indeterminate negation of all nation-states, this signifying (in the emphasis they place on it) the vanishing also of the state of Israel. They refuse even to discuss the idea of a left solidarity with Israel – as in the case, for example, of an anti-fascist demonstration in the run-up to the demo of 31.1.04 in Hamburg, when the divergent views of a group of pro-Israeli anti-fascists were shouted down by representatives of the Weissensee Antifa bellowing football chants. When, further, pro-Israeli anti-fascists were, in Hamburg, actually physically attacked, the attitude of the supposedly “anti-fascist” groups now playing host to Anarchists Against the Wall was characterized by complete passivity and indifference. The slogan “No state is our favourite!” belongs to the standard repertoire of such historically ignorant and indifferent political actors as the members of the Weissensee Antifa and the FAU. The latter group was not above shouting, on the memorial demonstration of 9th November last for the deported and murdered Jews of Moabit, such “social-revolutionary” slogans as “Solidarity with Florida Rolf!”, thus lowering the dignity of the memorial action.

Every attempt at the establishment of a pro-Israeli anti-fascist stance founders on the resistance of these groups. When signs emerged that such a position of solidarity with Israel might be represented on a demonstration against the Festival of German Unity on 3rd October 2003, the groups now playing host to the Israeli anarchists mobilised for an “anti-national” bloc under the slogan “All nations are hallucinations”. The meaning of the emphasis on the negation of all nations here is clear. The only case really at issue here is that of Israel and thus the emphasized “anti-nationalism” proves tantamount to a threat against the zone of protection around the Jews.

The invitation of an Israeli group as “guest speaker” speaks volumes.  Because one feels inhibited, by a lingering trace of anti-German “super-ego”, in questioning and challenging the policies of the Israeli state and yet still experiences a deep impulsion to do just this, one plays host to “alibi Israelis” who are supposedly entitled to enunciate what one all along oneself believed without being entitled to enunciate it : namely, that the policies of the state of Israel are criminal, repressive, racist. This procedure resembles that of the Junge Welt, which also requires a Uri Avnery  or a Fritz Teppich in order to articulate its resentment against Israel, or that of the Junge Freiheit, which, when it chooses to interview a Jew, invariably opts for an anti-Zionist.

In this evening’s all too German event we will not be taking part. To the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, we propose a separate controversial discussion regarding their activities. To the German Left we make the recommendation : “go home and, in future, keep your mouth shut about events in the Middle East.”

Germany, Shut Your Mouth!
Solidarity With Israel!

Autonomous Antifa Nordost 
[AANO] Berlin

	  22.06.2004
WEB    www.antifanews.de
MAIL   aanb@mail.nadir.org