Open Letter to Aachen’s racist Mayor – Withdrawing an Art Prize Because of Support for BDS is the Behaviour of a Fascist
When German Racists Condemn BDS they are Expiating Their Holocaust Guilt at the Expense of the Palestinians
Please write to Mayor Philipp to tell him what you think! Keep it polite as racists can be very touchy!
Dear Marcel Philipp,
I understand that you are the Mayor of Aachen a magnificent city which was Charlemagne’s was capital. I also understand that you have withdrawn an artistic prize from a Lebanese-American artist, Raad, because of his support for BDS. (Boycott Divestment & Sanctions) against Israel. In other words you are penalising him because he is, unlike you, an anti-racist.
You are also I understand a member of the CDU, a deeply racist party which after the war was infested with Nazis such as Hans Josef Globke. Globke was Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s closest advisor, Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the West German Chancellory. Globke wasn’t just any old Nazi. He had been instrumental in drawing up the 1935 Nuremburg Race Laws which paved the way for the Final Solution
Charlemagne’s Capital
Gerald Reitlinger in his book The Final Solution described the Nuremburg Laws as ‘“the most murderous legislative instrument known to European history” yet your party had no problem employing Globke and his friends in senior and influential positions in the German state. Some 77% of legal staff in the German Ministry of Justice post-war were ex-Nazis
Aachen’s racist Mayor Phillip
The quid-pro-quo for not saying anything about this from Israel was the delivery of submarines and the payment of reparations. In case you are unaware of the history of your own party and its relations with Israel I am quite happy to enlighten you
David Ben-Gurion visited by Adenaeur, who rehabiliated Germany’s Nazis
Israeli historian Yechiam Weitz in his review of “The Furnace and the Reactor: Behind the Scenes at the Eichmann Trial,” by Ora Herman wrote:
“Ben-Gurion was determined,” wrote the author, “that Israel would establish a system to defend itself against another Holocaust – the [nuclear] reactor in Dimona.”
‘Therefore he [Ben Gurion] insisted on developing unconventional weaponry and was prepared to accept essential aid for its development from any country, including West Germany….
West Germany under Konrad Adenauer… was very helpful in the development of this weaponry – a fact that can be seen as an irony of history. …
‘Hans Globke, the chancellor’s right-hand man … also had “a glorious past” in the days of the Third Reich: He was the man responsible for the “legal formulation of the Nuremberg Laws that authorized the deportation of the Jews and subsequently their slaughter.” As legal adviser to the Interior Ministry, Globke had helped Eichmann find a “legal” way to steal the property of German Jews. The West German government in Bonn did all it could to forestall the possibility of his name and his deeds coming up in the [Eichmann] trial. Even before the proceedings began, Adenauer sent a personal emissary to Jerusalem to clarify with Ben-Gurion whether Globke’s name would be mentioned. The prime minister, who was perfectly familiar with the man’s Nazi past, reassured the emissary and told him things that are hard to view as justifiable: “There is no need to talk about Globke since Adenauer investigated his past much better than Israel could, before taking him on as his adviser.”
Globke had another achievement to his name. He was responsible for the August 1938 Law on the Alteration of Personal and Family Names. All Jewish men had to have the addition of ‘Israel’ to their identity cards and women had the name ‘Sara’ added. This was extremely helpful when rounding up Germany’s Jews prior to their deportation and deaths.
As you can see Globke was very well qualified to run the German Chancellory on behalf of the party of which you are a member.
I won’t comment on Israel and Ben Gurion’s turning a blind eye to this. Zionism has always tolerated anti-Semitism and it had a friendly relationship with the Nazis up to 1939. Racists have a habit of getting on fine with each other as you are more than aware.
I understand that despite your vindictive McCarthyite withdrawal of the art prize, the Ludwig Forum of International Art has decided to ignore you and award it anyway. That is extremely gratifying
Germany’s Bundestag voted to condemn BDS as ‘anti-semitic’ – the neo-Nazi AfD wanted to go further and make it illegal
The German Bundestag recently passed a motion declaring that BDS was anti-Semitic. You might therefore assume that Alternative for Germany, a neo-Nazi party that has 13% of the seats in the Bundestag would lead the opposition to the motion. After all if BDS is anti-Semitic and AfD are racists then that would seem logical.
However the AfD far from opposing the motion wanted it to go further and legally ban BDS. According to the Guardian:
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) brought forward a separate motion calling for a complete ban of the BDS movement. Jürgen Braun, an AfD MP, claimed his party was the true friend of Israel in the German parliament, adding that “antisemitism comes from the left and Islam”. The AfD abstained on the government’s motion.
How is it that the AfD opposes BDS, despite containing large numbers of Nazis? According to The Times of Israel 88% of AfD respondents will celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary. The answer is not hard to find.
Israel is everything that the far-Right and racists like you admire today. It is an ethno-nationalist state where your rights and privileges depend on your (Jewish) ethnicity. When Donald Trump told 4 Black Congresswomen to ‘go back home’ he also added that they hate Israel and therefore Jews. This from someone who is himself deeply anti-Semitic and who believes Israel is the ‘real home’ of American Jews.
Trump is not alone. Nearly every far-Right party in Europe supports Zionism and Israel from Matteo Salvini to Viktor Orban. Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi founder of the US’s alt-Right defines himself as a White Zionist. He loves the Jewish Nation State Law which defines Israel, not as a state of its own citizens, but of Jews.
Israel is a state which refuses to accept non-Jewish and in particular non-White refugees and asylum seekers because that would threaten its ‘Jewish racial identity’.
Israel is a state which confines its 20% Arab population to 2% of the land. It is a state that demolishes Arab homes and villages such as Umm al Hiran to make way for Jewish towns such as Hiran.
All this and more was perpetrated against Germany’s Jews from 1933-1939. They too were confined to certain parts of town, banished from parks and barred from many German towns altogether. It is no surprise that people like you should find in Israel such a congenial friend. After all Israel is Hitler’s posthumous victory.
You have the gall to call BDS anti-Semitic. It is clear you do not understand what anti-Semitism is. It is hatred of Jews not hatred of racism or Israel. Israel is not a Jew and it is not a Jewish State except in a narrow racial sense
The original Captain Boycott
The Boycott of racially oppressive regimes is, without exception, the weapon of the oppressed. It was first employed in the sugar islands of the West Indies against slave grown sugar. It was used in Ireland against British colonialism, from which the word Boycott comes. In 1933 Jews throughout the world (with the exception of the Zionists and bourgeois Jews) launched a Boycott of Nazi Germany. No doubt in your twisted mind this too was racist against Germans.
In more recent times there was a Boycott of South Africa, a state which was Israel’s closest partner and today, for exactly the same reason there is a Boycott of Israel.
It is perfectly understandable that racists and white supremacists the world over should oppose the Boycott of Israel. Racists have always opposed the use of BDS. It is therefore no surprise that as a member of a racist German party should oppose Boycott.
My only message to you Mr Philipp is not to expiate your guilt over the Holocaust at the expense of the Palestinians. It was people like you who were responsible for Auschwitz and Treblinka, not the Arabs of Palestine.
The annihilation of the Jews in the Holocaust is no justification for the racial oppression and genocidal murder of the Palestinians today. Your party was once full of Nazis. It would seem that old habits die hard.
Tony Greenstein
