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this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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The context here is that 17 people had their homes raided for what appears to be indisputable antisemitism. It doesn't matter if it's from the left or the right. The subset of people on the left who are also racist pieces of shit are unambiguous bad guys. The quote lists the left as a source of antisemitism. Your argument that this is focused on either all of the left or all critics of Israeli policy... seems a bit of a stretch. If you're contending that it's impossible for antisemitism to exist on the left or in pro-Palestinian movements, I'd like to know why. Especially when talking about antisemitism in Germany where it has to be hidden.
I've documented and organized against neo-Nazis. I've also fought for Palestinian rights and a Palestinian state for decades. I've seen Nazis at pro-Palestinian rallies I've attended. Even if you're mildly critical of Israel, they would happily stand beside you to further their cause even if they'd also happily murder you. It's naive to think that they aren't infiltrating or injecting antisemitism into those movements. People on the left aren't magical, mythical creatures either; they're just people. Some of those people are susceptible enough or dumb enough to buy into that bullshit.
This is more of a general comment than a direct response to what you said, so don't take it as an accusation. A lot of people - and a hell of a lot of people I've seen on here - have reacted to the indefensible position that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic by swinging to an equally indefensible position that you cannot be antisemitic as long as you're being critical of Israel. That's just plainly false. Literally every Nazi and antisemite on the planet is critical of Israel. If all people are doing to guard against that shit is to assess whether something is left-coded or framed as criticism of Israel, we're not doing enough. We also shouldn't give those people cover by being reflexively defensive of the left.
I'm not assuming they are. If they're talking about people on the left who match the descriptions of the people in the article... those people sound like fucking Nazis.That's an assessment of those people and not a general criticism of the left. Whoever those people are, they can go fuck themselves. If they're of the left, they can get the fuck out.
The guy making this quote is very much trying to do the indefensible thing. While you can absolutely be antisemitic in criticism of Israel, that is at most a tiny sliver of anti-Israeli speech on the left (not a Nazi pretending) and yet there is a concerted effort to try to use that to silence criticism by Israel whole cloth (including active government acts). This isn't a good faith advocate mistakenly blurring lines. He's very much trying to tar opposition to Israel (his birth country according to Wiki) or support for their enemy as hate speech. We don't need to pretend this is happening in a void, absent of ongoing campaigns to silence anti-Israel criticism or without the context of the speaker's own words trying to conflate a support for Israeli's victims as criticism with Jewish people.
I don't think it's naïve to make the assumption that these are all good arrests for actual hate speech (for one I expect there are many more than 17 public antisemitic statements), German municipal governments have banned pro-Palestinian events, so it's not really like you can be 100% sure the German government would never blur lines as the quoted speaker wants.
I guess I just don't read his comments as applying as broadly as you do. I would more or less agree with you if I did. I haven't really come across anything that would change my mind about him though.
Schuster was born in Israel - his parents were expelled from Germany in '38 by the Nazis - but he's lived in Germany since he was around 2 years old. This Q&A describes him as a "descendant of one of Germany's oldest Jewish families." He seems like a pretty moderate guy. He himself is critical of the Israeli government. He's opposed to the far-right, theocratic turn in Israel and the ratcheting up of hostilities with Palestinians. He also laments the abandonment of liberal values in Israel. He's specifically stated that criticism of the Israeli government is legitimate but that collectively blaming Israelis or Jews for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitism. In the past, he's called for the rule of law to be applied consistently when protesters in Berlin were chanting 'Death to Jews,' which doesn't seem like an extreme response. He seems to have been specific in opposing protests that call for violence. I've read criticism of his guest article in Bild that he used the word "barbarian" and there was a photo of Palestinian protesters. There's no way he had anything to do with that photo though, and the text of the article doesn't really match the criticism: "This has nothing to do with Islam . . . We are all part of this society together. It needs everyone . . . Where is the decency that has distinguished this community for so long? [It] is still there. I hope so and I believe in it . . . we don't want shields. We want to live freely in this open society." (autotranslated from German, so there could be some meaning there I missed) He's understandably angry that some Germans would celebrate the killing of Israeli civilians on Oct 7th, but he directs that anger narrowly toward Hamas. I think the contrast between his commentary and some of the extreme statements we saw from Israeli officials in the weeks after the attack is pretty stark anyway.
Most of the time when he's been in the press over the last five years or so it's for really uncontroversial stuff. Like, if someone vandalizes a synagogue, he'll call for more police protection of synagogues. Or he'll meet with a European official and they'll affirm their commitment to combating antisemitism. I can't find any instance of him calling for banning all criticism of Israel and it would seem inconsistent with his past behaviour. He's also not a member of the government so doesn't have any official control over any of these policies, though he seems well-respected and certainly has influence.