25.05.23

Editorial Note

At the end of this month, Moshe Zuckermann, a Prof. Emeritus at Tel Aviv University’s History and Philosophy of Science Institute, will speak via Zoom at two events in Switzerland organized by Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

The meetings, to be held on 30 May in Basel and on 31 May in Zurich, are titled “The Right Wing and Repression in Europe.” According to the invitation, the discussion will be on “Israel is currently experiencing a massive shift to the right and violence against the Palestinian population continues to escalate. At the same time, pro-Palestinian activism in Europe, especially in the German-speaking world, is increasingly criminalized and anti-Zionist Jewish voices are marginalized.”

Samidoun’s website explains that “Palestinian prisoners are at the center of the struggle for freedom and justice in Palestine – they represent the imprisonment of a people and a nation. The Palestinian prisoners’ movement has always been at the center of the Palestinian liberation movement and remains so today. Palestinian prisoners stand and struggle on the front lines daily for return and liberation for all of Palestine and all Palestinians. The Canadian and U.S. governments are deeply complicit and directly implicated in the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the crimes of the Israeli state. Rather than standing for human rights, they enable, fund, and support occupation, apartheid, mass imprisonment, land confiscation, dispossession and settlement-building. In response, it is our responsibility to create grassroots accountability, raise awareness, and take action to those Palestinian prisoners who daily struggle for the freedom of their homeland – and the freedom of the oppressed of the world.”

Zuckermann has a long history of appearing in pro-Palestinian events. IAM reported before on some of them. 

Last year, a website providing News In Germany in English reported an event in which Zuckermann took part. It said “To call Moshe Zuckermann controversial is an understatement. The sociologist, son of Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors and supporter of critical theory, regularly offends people with his polemics against Israel and against German ‘anti-Semites’, who defend the Jewish state against criticism. Above all, the Jewish scientist attacks the Israeli settlement policy. Zuckermann repeatedly claims that there is apartheid towards non-Jews in Israel. Many consider this opinion to be unfounded – and quite a few even anti-Semitic themselves.”

The News In Germany website accused Zuckermann of regularly defending the pro-Palestinian BDS movement. “On Thursday, Moshe Zuckermann will appear in Frankfurt, in a hall in the Südbahnhof that belongs to the municipal Saalbau Betriebsgesellschaft – although Frankfurt does not actually want to rent any rooms to organizers who are close to the BDS. In 2017, the city parliament passed a corresponding, so-called BDS resolution: enemies of Israel should not receive any financial grants or rooms from the city. However, a judgment by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig now practically overrides this decision. A BDS supporter had sued the city of Munich, which had decided similar to that of Frankfurt, because they did not want to rent out event rooms to him. He failed his lawsuit before the Munich administrative court, but the higher court in Leipzig agreed with him: A blanket ban on BDS events violates freedom of expression, the judges ruled. The Frankfurter Saalbau Betriebsgesellschaft therefore announced that it would again rent out to organizers from the BDS environment.” 

Zuckermann’s discussion was entitled “Apartheid in Israel too – not just in the occupied territories?”. As News In Germany reported, it was organized by the “Working Group Near East Bremen,” the Palestinian Community of Hesse and the Frankfurt Palestine Forum. “The Frankfurt branch of Amnesty International is also promoting the event, but has toned down the provocative title in its announcement. The Amnesty website no longer speaks of apartheid’ but of ‘ethnic discrimination’.” 

Zuckerman’s participation at the Samidoun event is not surprising. Like many of his pro-Palestinian comrades in Israeli academia, Zuckermann is a master of one-sided rhetoric which absolves the Palestinians from gross mistakes which contributed to their situation today. IAM repeatedly documented these facts: flirting with Nazi Germany during WWII; refusing to accept the UN Partition Proposal; launching a war; and, more recently, refusing to sign the Oslo Peace Agreement. Zuckermann and his colleagues should have listened to the IDF evaluation on the extent of the Iranian grip on the Palestinian territories via Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a wholly owned subsidiary of Tehran, and to a lesser extent, Hamas. As could be expected, Zuckermann had nothing to say about the appalling human rights situation in Gaza, which is run by a brutal dictatorship, and the West Bank, under the undemocratic control of kleptocracy.  

Israeli academic activists should speak out about the brutality inflicted on the Palestinians by their leaders. Instead, they whitewash the Gaza Strip and the West Bank situation to trash Israel. 

References: 

https://samidoun.net/2023/05/30-may-basel-31-may-zurich-the-right-wing-and-repression-in-europe/

Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

• Events

30 May, Basel & 31 May, Zurich: The Right Wing and Repression in Europe

23 May 2023

Israel is currently experiencing a massive shift to the right and violence against the Palestinian population continues to escalate. At the same time, pro-Palestinian activism in Europe, especially in the German-speaking world, is increasingly criminalized and anti-Zionist Jewish voices are marginalized. Moshe Zuckermann, Dror Dayan, Tarek and a comrade from Samidoun Geneva will talk about these developments.

With: Dror Dayan, Tarek (FOR-Palestine), Samidoun Geneva und Moshe Zuckerman (Online)

Basel: 
Tuesday, 30 May 
7pm 
Gewerkschaftshaus 
Rebgasse 1 

Zürich: 
Wednesday, 31 May 
7:30 pm 
Volkshaus 
Stauffacherstrasse 60 

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https://samidoun.net/about-samidoun/

About Samidoun

Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is an international network of organizers and activists working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom. Samidoun developed out of the September-October 2011 hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, seeing a need for a dedicated network to support Palestinian prisoners. We work to raise awareness and provide resources about Palestinian political prisoners, their conditions, their demands, and their work for freedom for themselves, their fellow prisoners, and their homeland. We also work to organize campaigns to make political change and advocate for Palestinian prisoners’ rights and freedoms.

Samidoun seeks to achieve justice for Palestinian prisoners through events, activities, resources, delegations, research and information-sharing, as well as building bridges with the prisoners’ movement in Palestine. We seek to amplify the voices of Palestinian prisoners, former prisoners, prisoners’ families, and Palestinian advocates for justice and human rights by translating, sharing and distributing news, interviews and materials from Palestine.

We work to organize annually for April 17, the Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners, organizing rallies, events and actions and distributing news and alerts about actions around the world marking April 17.

Palestinian prisoners are on the front lines of the Palestinian struggle for liberation on a daily basis. In the jails of occupation, Palestinian prisoners confront the oppressor and the occupier, and put their bodies and lives on the line to continue their people’s struggle to achieve justice and freedom for the land and people of Palestine. Within the prisons, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement engages in political struggle – demanding their rights, securing advances, and serving as leaders to the entire Palestinian movement, inside and outside Palestine. The Israeli occupation has criminalized all forms of Palestinian existence and Palestinian resistance – from peaceful mass demonstrations to armed struggle to simply refusing to be silent and invisible as a Palestinian. Palestinian prisoners are men and women – and children – from every part of Palestine, from every family. Their absence is keenly felt in the homes, communities, villages, towns, labour, women’s and student organizations from which they were taken by the occupation. They suffer torture, isolation, coercive interrogation, denial of family and lawyers’ visits, on a daily basis. And it is their hunger strikes, their calls to the world, their unity and solidarity, and their continued leadership in the Palestinian movement that must inspire us daily and remind us of our responsibility to take action.

Samidoun also stands in solidarity with Arab and international political prisoners, and, in particular, political prisoners in the United States, Canada and Europe targeted for their work with liberation struggles and freedom movements, including Arab and Palestinian movements, Native and Indigenous liberation and sovereignty struggles, Puerto Rican independentistas, Black liberation organizers, Latino and Chicano activists and many others targeted by racism, colonialism, and oppression, and we recognize the fundamental connections between imprisonment, racism, colonialism, and the criminalization of immigrants, refugees and migrants. We demand the freedom of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, jailed for over 35 years in France, for his commitment to the Palestinian struggle.

Building solidarity with Palestinian prisoners is, indeed, a responsibility. Palestinian prisoners are at the center of the struggle for freedom and justice in Palestine – they represent the imprisonment of a people and a nation. The Palestinian prisoners’ movement has always been at the center of the Palestinian liberation movement and remains so today. Palestinian prisoners stand and struggle on the front lines daily for return and liberation for all of Palestine and all Palestinians. The Canadian and U.S. governments are deeply complicit and directly implicated in the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the crimes of the Israeli state. Rather than standing for human rights, they enable, fund, and support occupation, apartheid, mass imprisonment, land confiscation, dispossession and settlement-building. In response, it is our responsibility to create grassroots accountability, raise awareness, and take action to those Palestinian prisoners who daily struggle for the freedom of their homeland – and the freedom of the oppressed of the world.

Samidoun chapters, affiliates and links around the world:

• Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
• Samidoun Occupied Palestine
• Samidoun Gothenburg (Sweden)
• Samidoun Stockholm (Sweden)
• Samidoun Malmo (Sweden)
• Samidoun España
• Collectif Palestine Vaincra (France)
• Samidoun Région Parisienne
• Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine
• Samidoun Netherlands
• Samidoun Greece
• Samidoun Deutschland
• Samidoun Hungary
• Samidoun Toronto
• Samidoun Vancouver
• Samidoun NY/NJ
• Samidoun Albuquerque
• Samidoun Brasil
• Samidoun Iran
• ACTA (France)
• Anti-Imperialist Action Ottawa
• Center for Study and Preservation of Palestine – Portland
• HIRAK: Palestinian Youth Mobilization (Germany)

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network has chapters and affiliates in the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Palestine and Lebanon and we work with groups around the world. Would you like to form a local chapter or become an affiliate? Contact us at samidoun@samidoun.net.

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https://newsingermany.com/criticism-of-bds-discussion-with-moshe-zuckermann/

Criticism of BDS discussion with Moshe Zuckermann

12 months ago

To call Moshe Zuckermann controversial is an understatement. The sociologist, son of Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors and supporter of critical theory, regularly offends people with his polemics against Israel and against German “anti-Semites”, who defend the Jewish state against criticism. Above all, the Jewish scientist attacks the Israeli settlement policy. Zuckermann repeatedly claims that there is apartheid towards non-Jews in Israel. Many consider this opinion to be unfounded – and quite a few even anti-Semitic themselves.

The fact that Zuckermann regularly defends the pro-Palestinian BDS movement also causes trouble. The acronym stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. BDS fights for an economic boycott against the Jewish state and, for example, puts pressure on musicians who perform in Israel or artists who exhibit their works in Israeli museums.

BDS lawsuit successful in court

At rallies of the BDS movement, which is primarily characterized by left-wing activists, calls have often been made to create a Palestine that reaches “from the river to the sea”. What is meant is an area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea – de facto that would mean the end of Israel. But Zuckermann argues like a mantra as soon as the BDS movement is labeled anti-Semitic.

On Thursday, Moshe Zuckermann will appear in Frankfurt, in a hall in the Südbahnhof that belongs to the municipal Saalbau Betriebsgesellschaft – although Frankfurt does not actually want to rent any rooms to organizers who are close to the BDS. In 2017, the city parliament passed a corresponding, so-called BDS resolution: enemies of Israel should not receive any financial grants or rooms from the city.

However, a judgment by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig now practically overrides this decision. A BDS supporter had sued the city of Munich, which had made a decision similar to that of Frankfurt, because they did not want to rent out event rooms to him. He failed his lawsuit before the Munich administrative court, but the higher court in Leipzig agreed with him: A blanket ban on BDS events violates freedom of expression, the judges ruled. The Frankfurter Saalbau Betriebsgesellschaft therefore announced that it would again rent out to organizers from the BDS environment.

Antisemitism in art, culture and science

The discussion with Moshe Zuckermann is entitled “Apartheid in Israel too – not just in the occupied territories?”. It is organized by the “Working Group Near East Bremen”, the Palestinian Community of Hesse and the Frankfurt Palestine Forum. The Frankfurt branch of Amnesty International is also promoting the event, but has toned down the provocative title in its announcement. The Amnesty website no longer speaks of “apartheid” but of “ethnic discrimination”.