Hier klicken um den Aufruf auf Englisch zu lesen/
Click here to read the appeal in English:
On Sunday, October 25th, 2009, anti-Semites violently prevented a screening of Claude Lanzmann's Film »Why Israel«, scheduled by the cinema b-movie and the group Kritikmaximierung.
Members of the »Internationales Zentrum B5«, the group »Sozialistische Linke«, (SoL), and the »Tierrechtsaktion Nord« (Action for Animal Rights North, TAN), prepared for physical conflict with gum shields and weighted-knuckle gloves, barred visitors from entering the cinema. Attendees were deliberately punched in the face and abused as "Schwuchteln" ("fairies") and "Judenschweine" ("Jewish pigs"). During the following days, members of the audience who were recognised in the streets by participants of the blockade where threatened and, in at least one case, physically attacked.
In an official declaration, the B5 justified the use of violence and dismissed it as "minor scuffles". That declaration once again abounds with anti-Semitic stereotypes such as characterising "Zionism" as a "racist project" used for "artificially maintaining the Jewish character." For Jewishness is always associated with artificiality in this mindset, while all other peoples are 'natural'.
We think it is intolerable
- that a cinema program should depend on the good-will of a neighbouring 'Clean Screen' campaign;
- that Leftists organise themselves into an anti-Semitic fighting squad to prevent unwanted events about Israel;
- that a film by Claude Lanzmann, French Jew, Résistance fighter under the German occupation, and director of »Shoah«, the most important documentary on the extermination of the European Jews, can become the target of a militant blockade in Germany.
»Why Israel« not only shows the diverse facets of Israeli society. It is about the importance of the Jewish state as a consequence of the Shoah from the perspective of a diaspora Jew. Anyone who, like the B5, considers the screening of such a film a "provocation" has taken sides with barbarism.
These groups have been known for some time for violently acting out their anti-Semitism. These are the same people who bullied their way into the »Freies Sender Kombinat« (Free Broadcasters' Combinate, a community radio station) in 2002, beating up a critic of their Israel-hate in a professional manner; who, at an anti-fascist demonstration in January 2004, clubbed the bearers of a banner saying "Deutschland denken heißt Auschwitz denken" ("Thinking Germany means thinking Auschwitz") off of the protest; who on numerous occasions since then threatened, hit or threw bottles and rocks at people carrying Israeli flags or badges or for some other reason not fitting into their world view.
What has so far always allowed these groups associated with the B5 to continue their assaults is the fact that they did not have to fear any determined resistance from the majority of the Left. Hardly anyone on the Left explicitly takes sides with them; but too many were willing to reserve a little space for them in the alliance, on the street party or somewhere else on the political scene.
Because we know that letting anti-Semites have their way would be irresponsible as well as perilous; because we know the thugs will only get stronger with every success, we think it essential that on December 13th, when the film is re-scheduled to be shown, this must take place under any circumstances.
In order to politically isolate the attackers of October 25th, and to render a reprise of their anti-Semitic spectacle of violence impossible, we call for a demonstration to the b-movie cinema on that day.
Start rally: 1:30 in front of the Rote Flora
End rally: 3:00 in front of the b-movie
Bündnis gegen Hamburger Unzumutbarkeiten (Alliance Against Hamburg Unacceptabilities), 2009-11-18
