UBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" Pandering to subtle German anti-Semitism Sunday, February 21, 2010       7 Adar, 5770         Web JPost.com create JPOST.COM your Home Page       Jerusalem 25 °C fresh York 3 °C London 2 °C   Home | Headlines | Iranian Threat | Jewish World | idea | Trade | true Estate | Local Israel | Blogs | Arts & Culture | Français  | Classifieds  Israel | Middle East | International | Health & Sci-Tech | Features | go | Cafe Oleh | Magazine | Sports | Israel Guide | Subscribe | Services Archives JP Toolbar Christian World Youth Magazines RSS Feeds News Ticker More Services JPost Store Israel Hotels Vacation Rentals Philanthropy Green Israel Car Rentals Learn Hebrew JPost Mall Sderot Dove JP Travel Guide Links Purim E-cards Christian World Ten Tribes Advertise on JPost Media Kit לימוד אנגלית      Breaking News     JPost.com Jewish World Jewish News   .large_body p, .large_body span { font-size: 18px; } .small_body p, .small_body span { font-size: 12px; } Pandering to subtle German anti-Semitism BY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT 21/02/2010 14:57 Norman Finkelstein's attempt to secure locations for anti-Israel lectures recalls Marty Feldman's shifting hump.   BERLIN - Remember the late British Jewish actor Marty Feldman's role in the 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein? He plays Dr. Frankenstein's hunchback assistant Igor and moves his hump from shoulder to shoulder to deliberately perplex his boss.The controversial American Jewish political scientist Norman Finkelstein's attempt to secure locations last week in Munich and Berlin to bring forth anti-Israel lectures recalls Feldman's shifting hump.Finkelstein, whose planned talk ­ "One year after the invasion of the Israeli army in Gaza and the responsibility of the German government in the starvation of the Palestinian population"­ generated protests and cancellations last week, resulting,love Igor's hump, in a perpetual shift of venue. Initially, he was scheduled to speak in the Trinitatis evangelical church in Berlin, with organizational and financial support from the political foundations of the Green Party, Left Party, German-Palestinian organizations, and a fringe group of anti-Zionist Jews.Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel in 2008 since of his pro-Hizbullah solidarity activity in Lebanon. According to a February New York Times review of a documentary on Finkelstein, he waved a banner throughout a protest against the First Lebanon Conflict in 1982, urging "Israeli Nazis" to " cease the Holocaust in Lebanon."The Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated with the Green Party, pulled the plug on its involvement and stated in a statement: "We regret our decision... and since of careless, insufficient research we made a fiercely evil decision. Finkelstein's behavior and his theses hold space, in our view, not within the framework of justified criticism."There has always been an insatiable market, particularly among the Left, for Finkelstein's views in Germany, largely because he allows many Germans to air anti-Israel sentiments in a politically and socially correct way.A spokeswoman from the respectable Piper publishing house in Munich, which publishes his books, told The Jerusalem Post that Finkelstein¹s anti-Israel Holocaust Industry offered 150,000 copies in 2001, catapulting his book to best-seller status.It's not hard to elaborate the popularity of Finkelstein in Germany: If the son of Holocaust survivors can equate Israel with Nazi Germany and charge American Jewish organizations with exploiting the Holocaust to tap into the guilt and financial chords of Germans, than Germans can breathe more easily and alleviate their sense of guilt and connection to the Shoah.Finkelstein's background serves as a social-psychological crutch that allows many Germans to invoke his Jewish biography to insulate themselves from accusations of anti-Semitism.After the cancellation of the support of the Green Party foundation and the Trinitatis church, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which is affiliated with the Left Party, offered to supply a venue for Finkelstein. A diverse group of pro-Israel organizations ­ including the BAK Shalom Working Group within the Left Party ­ protested the foundation¹s decision. Henning Heine, a spokesman from the foundation, issued a statement, saying, "We underestimated the political explosiveness of Finkelstein's lecture" and rescinding its offer.BAK Shalom is a group of young Left Party members who seek to stop theirparty's adherence to flourishing anti-Zionist positions within the party.Rising pressure from the pro-Israel population also prompted the Amerika House in Munich to walk away from its support of Finkelstein's appearance.The last refuge for Finkelstein is the headquarters of the notoriously pro-Islamic Republic leftist junge Welt daily, a leftover from the previous communist East Germany. Finkelstein will deliver his talk on Friday in the gallery of the paper¹s building in Berlin.Finkelstein's counterpart in France, the German-born Alfred Grosser, is a another telling example of an anti-Israel Diaspora Jew who has a fan club among broad swaths of the Left in Germany. Following in Finkelstein's footsteps, he sees Germany as exposed to "an exaggerated, masochistic guilt consciousness."Grosser has argued in newspaper interviews that "Criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism have nothing to do with each other. It is rather Israel's policies that promote anti-Semitism globally."Grosser's book From Auschwitz to Jerusalem was released last year in Germany.His anti-Israel views resonate with Mathias Brodkorb, a member of the left-of-center Social Democratic Party in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state government, who endorsed the book. Brodkorb also conducted a recent interview for his own Web site with a formerly Maoist journalist, who attacked the American Israel Public Affairs Commission and its Christian Zionist friends in their talk.Despite the foundations "and other organizations" surprising withdrawal of support, Grosser and Finkelstein will continue to generate attention among enthusiasts in Germany. The demands of the German market will not consign the terrific interest in Finkelstein and Grosser to the margins of the intellectual arena.Like Igor's shifting hump in Young Frankenstein, the advocates of hardcore anti-Israel Jews will hold bobbing and weaving in whatever venues they can find to pander to subtle German anti-Semitism.       Rate this article         Talkback Add a Talkback describe Abuse Read all Talkbacks end Thank you for sending your comment. Your reply has been recieved. If selected for publication, it will appear on our site as soon as feasible. 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