JAFFA, 30 November 2003 — For my generation, the name of Danny the Red, or Daniel Cohn-Bendit, is forever connected to the glorious revolution of 1968, of Godard’s La Chinoise and Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, of “Defense de defense” signs in universities, of hippies’ long hair, of marijuana and free love, of barricades in Paris and in Berkley, of the sweet wind of freedom that swept across the continents. Like its great predecessor, the Spring of Nations in 1848, the revolution of 1968 failed, but it transformed Europe and the United States. Danny the Red was a mover of the revolution, and a great source of inspiration for us, who sought freedom and equality.
Years passed by, and Cohn-Bendit, now a respectable member of the European Parliament from the German Green Party, is visiting Jerusalem. Times have changed, and he has changed with the times, not only his waist. He is no Zionist, he stresses, neither is he an anti-Zionist. Jews can live in Europe, too; they do not have to move to Israel. He supports the creation of a Palestinian state, he says, he is against the occupation. He feels that Sharon, too, is against the occupation — maybe Sharon wants to have a slightly Greater Israel, but not much greater. The wall, inhuman as it is, is a proof of Sharon’s intention to limit Israeli expansion.
He tells of his meetings with the “boys” — his new friends, the War party in Washington. Perle and Wolfowitz shared with him their plans for the Middle East, he says. They want to give Iraq to a Hashemite ruler, push Palestinians into Jordan and create a Palestinian state there. Then, the Jews will get the whole of Palestine. They are Bolsheviks, he says. “Bolshevik” is a swear word for this new Danny. He has a better, much better plan: Give a state to the Palestinians, and bring Israel into NATO and into the European Union. Make Russia, China, everybody declare their support for the Jewish state, the best and the only democracy in the Middle East. If the Americans go along, he can deliver European support for the American occupation of Iraq, he says. Even his hosts from the liberal Zionist Peace Now shudder uneasily.
Cohn-Bendit feels he can do it. He has many achievements behind him. He promoted dismantling of Yugoslavia. He supported NATO bombing Serbia into submission. But the Jewish cause occupies much of his time and effort. He is proud that Germany supplied Israel with the nuclear-capable submarines at the expense of the German taxpayer. “This gift is their payment for the holocaust”, says this German parliamentarian. Why are a million of potential casualties (most probably Arabs) the desired atonement? Isn’t he worried that Iran or Syria can become a target of the nuclear-armed missiles from these submarines? — I ask him. No, he is not worried. But if the homicidal maniacs now ruling the Holy Land consider “taking the world down with them”, in the words of Martin van Creveld of Hebrew University, I push him; his country is also liable to suffer.
What country? — Danny asks innocently. Born in France, serving in Brussels and Strasbourg, loving Israel, he forgot he represents Germany. Can’t a Jew love his country? Yes, if he knows which one his country is.
Still, he does not think Israel is always right. One may, on certain conditions, criticize Israel. These conditions are rather rigorous and hard to meet. In March last year, a member of a German state assembly from Cohn-Bendit’s party, an immigrant from Syria, Jamal Karsli, called on Germany to stop providing Israel with weapons of mass destruction and referred to the “strong Jewish influence in the German media”. Cohn-Bendit and his Parteigenossen practically lynched Karsli for “anti-Semitism”. Their attack was supported by Michel Friedman, “the most eloquent Jewish spokesman in Germany.” It was before this best friend of Belarusian whores was apprehended while pushing cocaine.
Have you no qualms, I ask him, for invoking anti-Semitism like Bush and Ashcroft, Friedman and Foxman do? That is a Bolshevik attitude, he says. “One should be able to express a view even if a similar opinion is expressed by some unpleasant folks”. Bravo, Danny! But why did he not think of it when he expelled Karsli from the party for “repeating the Nazi canard of Jewish control”? Why did this brilliant thought not stop him — or other Jews — from forever appealing to the Protocols of Zion as their best defense? If the Protocols say the Jews take over the media, then no one is allowed to notice the steady takeover of the European media by Jewish interests. Why can’t the same maxim, “One should be able to express a view even if a similar opinion is expressed by some unpleasant folks” be applied here?
The reason is that as a rule a Jew is unable to apply Kant’s categorical imperative, to make a universal rule. It could provide a definition of a Jew: “A person unable to make an objective moral judgment”, for the old religious or ethnic criteria do not apply anymore. His judgment will be forever different whether it is good for Jews or bad for Jews. WMD are bad if in Gentile hands, good if in Jewish hands. Nationalism of a goy — bad, devotion to the Jewish cause — good. Equal rights for Jew and non-Jew in Europe — good, in Palestine — bad. Karsli was bad for Jews, so he had to go.
Expelled by Cohn-Bendit from the Green party, Karsli joined the FDP of Juergen Moellemann, a brave German politician who objected to rearmament of Israel and to Jewish control of German media. In a short while, Juergen Moellemann met with a fatal accident: Both his parachutes did not open. (Practically at the same time, Anna Lindh, the Swedish foreign minister and steadfast supporter of the Palestinian cause was assassinated in Stockholm.) Karsli’s political career was nipped in the bud.
It was just the beginning of Cohn-Bendit’s campaign against Arab immigrants in Europe. Recently the European Union commissioned research on anti-Semitism in Europe. A group of Zionist researchers took the job, and produced a report that blamed anti-Semitism on Semites — more precisely, on Arabs.
It was an improbable suggestion. Ethnically and religiously heterogeneous, the East never knew racism. Everyone with even a limited knowledge of Arabs knows they have no racial prejudice against Jews. In the past, as David Shasha, a Syrian Jewish researcher wrote, “Jews and other ethnic minorities served within the Islamic polity as recognized members of a cultured society and participated in an intimate way in the evolution and development of that society”. In the present, dozens of Jews — supporters of the Palestinian cause — stay in Arab Palestinian homes from Rafah to Jenin. Be it Norman Finkelstein or Jennifer Loewenstein, they never experienced racial hatred. As for myself, I always felt at home with the Arabs, with Maghribis in Marseille and Saudis in London, with Egyptians in Cairo and Palestinians in my own Jaffa.
In order to show the desired result, the researchers included anti-Israeli activity within their scope and came to the conclusion: “Muslims and pro-Palestinian activists stand behind anti-Semitism in Europe.” Rightly, the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) shelved the report for it was “tainted by anti-Muslim bias and the use of inappropriate research methods.” Instead of recognizing their errors, the researchers went to complain to the Israeli daily Haaretz that the Europeans dismissed their report due to “excessive political correctness.”
When do the Jews object to political correctness? Whenever it interferes with their Muslim-bashing. The European anti-racist watchdog judged “the focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators to be inflammatory” and liable to cause “civil war in Europe.” But a civil war in Europe against millions of Arabs and other Muslims is a Zionist objective, part and parcel of the US-led war on Islam. Haaretz reported: “Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leader of the Green party in the European Parliament Tuesday strongly denounced the EUMC for shelving the report.”
“The completely mad thing is that they didn’t want to continue because they were afraid to offend a certain Muslim opinion in Europe,” he told Israel Radio. “This is a completely crazy and wrong approach.”
Cohn-Bendit, currently on a visit to Israel, said the decision to shelve the study was a “big, big, error” and that his party would question the move in the European Parliament at the first opportunity”.
Apparently, Cohn-Bendit is not afraid to upset Muslim sensibility or cause a civil war. Who cares? Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda pours out of the Jewish-controlled media in Europe.
While Cohn-Bendit spoke to the students in the Hebrew University, at the other end of the city, Ariel Sharon offered a photo opportunity to the visiting leader of Italian fascists, Gianfranco Fini. The message was clear: Right or left, Green or fascist, all are welcome to enter a pro-Zionist entente against Islam. In Germany, after the expulsion of Karsli and the untimely death of Moellemann, timid pro-Palestinian groups became even more fearful. They are constantly attacked from the mainstream left and the mainstream right. The malaise of the German national psyche is best expressed by the rise of a crazy pro-Israel and anti-German “left”. Their hero is “Bomber” Harris, the British mass murderer who razed German cities and killed millions of German civilians during WWII. Their love is given to Jews. My friend, pro-Palestinian activist Ingrid K. (German friends of Palestine are afraid to be exposed in the media) wrote to me: “The so-called Anti-Deutsche Antifa (anti-fascists) worship Bomber Harris. They are a disastrous group, their main profession is to act as hyper-Zionists, and attack the left-wing. They managed to divide the small left in Germany with their focus on ‘Anti-Semitismus’. (It’s as if we Germans stop thinking when it comes to anti-Semitism.) The left have come to a sad degree of powerlessness and disorientation. To stand up for Palestinians is a kind of courage test as one risks being cited as an anti-Semite”.
Germany is a much-needed member of Europe. Together with France, Germany could be a stumbling block for the Zionists and neocons. Its support is necessary for the Palestinians and the Iraqis. But this great country, home to Hegel and Marx, Beethoven and Goethe, is sick if it is represented by the likes of Cohn-Bendit, a man who promotes strife between the native Germans and the Muslim immigrants, who supplies Israel with WMD to blackmail Germany in future, who befriends the American and Israeli enemies of international law, who stops the pro-Palestinian voice in Germany with the anti-Semitism libel; in short, a man who prefers the Jewish cause to the cause he upheld once, the cause of freedom and equality.
— Israel Shamir is a leading Russian-Israeli intellectual, writer, translator and journalist. Shamir (50) lives in Jaffa.
