October 7: Anti-Semitism as a cultural code: On the right side

First, red triangles and messages glorifying Hamas were daubed on the wall for weeks. Then there was an arson attack on September 29th. The attacks on the left-wing Berlin bar “Bajszel” are an expression of a growing trend: Anyone who shows solidarity with Israel and criticizes the various manifestations of anti-Semitism, even within the left, is viewed by parts of the left as an enemy, as not left-wing, as Zionist , which some now consider to be almost synonymous with fascist – and fascists are ultimately fought on the left.

It doesn’t take much to be marked as such an enemy these days. The traditional “New Left Review” – the theoretical organ of the international New Left since the 1960s that has never, and especially not since October 7, 2023, skimped on anti-Israel articles – was recently labeled “irrelevant” on the “X” platform “, CIA-controlled, fascism-supporting “garbage publication” attacked. The reason for this was an interview in which it was casually mentioned that there was a debate in the editorial team about “whether ‘genocide’ is the most accurate term for Israel’s carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip.” The digital mob raged in the comments section. Hesitation, reflection, doubt are not accepted – and it didn’t take long until the red triangle appeared here as an enemy marker.

Community and enemy marking

After October 7, 2023, videos released by the terrorist organization Hamas circulated on the Internet in which they marked Israeli targets with an upside-down red triangle before they were eliminated. The symbol quickly spread across the globe. In Germany, too, it became a symbol of groups that saw themselves as progressive during university occupations, demonstrations and on social media.

In addition to enemy markings, the symbol was also used to suggest belonging on banners and during occupations. The terror triangle became its own symbol, the identifying mark of a scene that accepts or even affirms the connection to Islamism and openly anti-Semitic hatred against Jews and Israel. Even groups that have a problem with open hatred of Jews use symbols and demands of Jew-haters. How can this even be possible? It shows that anti-Semitism has reinserted itself into the repertoire of 21st century cultural codes.

nd.DieWoche – our weekly newsletter

With our weekly newsletter nd.DieWoche look at the most important topics of the week and read them Highlights our Saturday edition on Friday. Get your free subscription here.

These symbols and attributions create meaning and community through the promise of being on the right side of history. This is done by an image of the enemy that goes far beyond criticism of the Israeli government, calls for a global decision of fate between good and evil and offers clarity: Israel. Where such a projection exists, we are dealing with anti-Semitism, which has appeared openly in the anti-Zionist mobilizations of the past few months.

In order to understand this connection, it is worth taking a look at anti-Semitism research from past decades and its examination of the relationship between leftists and Israel. The historian Shulamit Volkov introduced the term “cultural code” in the 1970s to describe how anti-Semitism spread widely in certain times. This is what we are currently experiencing.

A »signum kcultural identity«

Historically, the tabooization of anti-Semitism was a reaction to the Shoah, the German mass murder of European Jews, and the lost war. The National Socialists had activated the national community to eliminate everything “Jewish” from the world and were proud to be anti-Semitic.

Adolf Hitler’s first speech to a larger audience, given in the summer of 1920 at the Munich Hofbräuhaus, was entitled “Why we are anti-Semites.” In it, Hitler explained in detail that “the Jew” was the enemy of the Germans and that he brought evil into the world. This National Socialist escalation was ideologically prepared decades before in the Empire. This is where the word “anti-Semitism” was invented, behind which an entire political movement could rally.

According to Jean Améry, anti-Semitism is contained in anti-Zionism like a thunderstorm in a cloud.

–

In the 1880s, anti-Semitism was simply part of the conservative and right-wing repertoire. According to Volkov, anti-Semitism became a cultural code. It didn’t need to be explained or legitimized, but rather integrated itself naturally into discourses and debates, symbols and identities. Volkov describes the term as follows: “The commitment to anti-Semitism became a sign of cultural identity, of belonging to a specific cultural camp.”

Volkov herself had to realize that her diagnosis could by no means be limited to the 19th century and the German Empire, but that anti-Semitism appeared in many cases as a cultural code. Perhaps this insight has never been more relevant than after October 7th: Israel-related anti-Semitism has become a cultural code of the 21st century. Nowadays, hardly anyone is proud of being anti-Semitic – especially not on the left. Definitions of anti-Semitism, which are intended to carefully distinguish “criticism of Israel” and anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism, make it possible on the one hand to distance oneself from hatred of Jews, but at the same time to demonstrate against Israel in front of synagogues and to transfigure the Hamas massacre on October 7th as an act of liberation or places of remembrance of the Shoah smeared in the name of “criticism of Israel”.

This is all Israel-related anti-Semitism, with which people prove to each other that they are on the right side of history, and even that they belong to the social left itself. This identity-forming function of anti-Semitism is widely underestimated, but it is evident at the latest in how easily those on the left who are not in line are excluded. This development is not all that new. According to the Jewish author Laura Cazés in the “Jüdische Allgemeine,” October 7th is rather “the brutal culmination of continuities.” These continuities must be understood in order to reverse the trend.

In the 1980s, Volkov analyzed how “anti-Semitism as a characteristic of an entire subculture” of the New Left had functioned since the 1960s. Anti-Zionism in particular became a “sign of belonging” after the Six-Day War in 1967. In return they had to accept a “package offer” that included loathing Israel. For Jews in particular, adopting this attitude was a kind of “test of loyalty.” The result back then was that anti-Semitism became “respectable” again, as Jean Améry called it in 1969. Today one would perhaps say: socially acceptable. Anti-Semitism, Améry said, is contained in anti-Zionism like a thunderstorm in a cloud.

An urgent demand

In the immediate post-war period, it was the German left, not least the trade unions, that led the way with their pro-Israel position. The German Federation of Trade Unions had been organized together with the Israeli Histadrut in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions since 1949. The unions early on demanded that the German state establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The mood changed with the Six-Day War in 1967, in which Israel responded to persistent threats with a preemptive strike and was able to gain land within a very short space of time. From then on, many leftists identified themselves as anti-Zionist, and Israel was seen as an aggressor. The emerging left-wing radical guerrilla groups, together with Palestinian terrorist organizations, ensured that the following years were characterized by terror against Jews: in 1970, seven residents died in an arson attack on the Jewish retirement home in Munich; During the hijacking of the plane in Entebbe in 1976, leftists took part in the selection of the Jewish hostages.

Only a sharp, inner-left debate since the late 80s and, not least, self-criticism of individual groups led to a rethink. In 1991, the so-called Revolutionary Cells published their letter “Gerd Albertus is dead,” which is still worth reading today, in which, years after their participation in the same selection for the plane hijacking in Entebbe, they honestly and self-critically admitted: “We saw Israel as an agent and outpost of Western imperialism in the middle of the Arab world, but not as a place of refuge for the survivors and those who escaped, which is a necessity as long as a new mass extermination cannot be ruled out as a possibility by anyone, and as long as anti-Semitism lives on as a historical and social fact.

Such debates meant that there are also left-wing positions in Germany that are close to what Améry once called a “demand of practical political reason”: “that the solidarity of a left that does not want to give itself away (without that in doing so it must ignore the unbearable fate of the Arab refugees), to extend to Israel, yes, to concentrate on Israel.” This demand has lost none of its urgency to this day.

These inner-left debates hardly play any role anymore. They are only abolished in the enemy image of the “anti-Germans”, which spreads to everyone who continues to consider criticism of anti-Semitism to be a necessarily left-wing project – and thus disrupts the need for a united left, which all too often accepts its own anti-Semitism in return. Left-wing criticism of anti-Semitism damages the feeling of one’s own rightness.

Anti-Semitism as a cultural code of the 21st century, such as that found in Hamas’s red triangle, offers orientation in the political arena and creates community. The code is used by those who want to belong. In doing so, they construct a self-image that is fed by images of the enemy – a function that anti-Semitism generally has. He always promises to be on the right side of history and suggests a feeling of being able to see evil clearly. In a speech during the occupation at Munich University, a speaker said that only those who are pro-Palestinian are “a good person.” The right side of history also holds a promise of redemption. During the occupation of Berlin’s Humboldt University, “Gaza will free us all” was symbolically written on the wall.

Become a member of the nd.Genossenschaft!

Since January 1, 2022, the »nd« will be published as an independent left-wing newspaper owned by the staff and readers. Be there and support media diversity and visible left-wing positions as a cooperative member. Fill out the membership form now.

More information on www.dasnd.de/genossenschaft