The Same Fight
Israel, the Uprising in Iran and the Germans

The Germans – as is well-known - only want the best for the Jews. Since they were stopped by the Allies – even though too late –from succeeding with their project to rid the world of the “Jewish bacillus” (A. Hitler), they feel particularly “responsible” for the well-being of the citizens of the State of Israel because of “the history”. Therefore there is manifold German-Israeli cooperation in the fields of education, economy, culture, and more recently, owing to Angela Merkel, once again in the military sector. From this cooperation the Germans deduce that they are “friends” of the Israeli people, namely – because of “the history” – very “special” ones. And good friends - Günter Grass and Joschka Fischer already knew that - have to tell each other if something is wrong. And that is what happens: The Germans don’t like the fact that Israel defends itself against its enemies at all. As the Germans have learned from "history" that wars lead to ugly results, they advise their Israeli friends to try solving their problems by means of a dialogue – they even offer help with that since they know exactly what is going on in the Arab Nazis’ minds – due to “history”. Israel sometimes accepts this offer, but at the same time it doesn’t abstain from more effective methods of defending the country (just like some people use homeopathic products, but when it gets serious they prefer orthodox medicine), thereby annoying its German friends: For the stubborn Jews do not just resist the German proposals, but are in fact, as 59% of the Germans know, the major threat to “world peace”. And world peace means even more to the Germans than the Jews do.

Since Israel has been pointing out for years now that it intends to avoid the construction of an Iranian nuclear bomb by all means - as such a bomb would after all put its very existence into question - the Germans have intensified their commitment to friendly “criticism of Israel” even more in recent years. They know that nothing is worse than war, not even the Holocaust. The German chief poet Martin Walser for instance wants to “learn from lost wars”. He reckons: “It may be my private affair that I think that wars couldn’t be justified under any circumstances.” Not under any circumstances: If Israel did what its friends want it to do, it would watch Iran finish its nuclear weapon program and write open letters to Ahmadinejad. Especially now, the Middle East expert community keeps explaining, in the light of the uprising in Iran, Israel must not attack the theocracy because the population would unite against the common enemy then, and all the prospects of democratization and liberalization of Iran would be futile. But is that so?

The Iranian protest movement is extremely heterogeneous. Although the European media unisono say Moussavi were the leader of the opposition, not just small parts of the protest movement know that Moussavi isn’t any better than his former comrades. After all, Moussavi was as responsible for torture and murder of thousands within the eight years during which he was the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic. The possibility that the Iranians have forgotten that is quite small. They know who Moussavi is, and they know that he was a presidential candidate of Allah’s (i.e. the Guardian Councils) graces. Undoubtedly, many Iranians who are participating in the demonstrations against the coup d’etat and the impending coup by the Revolutionary Guards believe that life under a president Moussavi would at least be a bit more bearable. Others – and there are also a lot of them – even think that the “Islamic Republic” should be preserved; they only want a few reforms - for the benefit of the people and of course of the holy God in heaven who gave to them the gruesome green book. But at the same time there are democrats, communists, monarchists among the protesters, and who knows, if even some followers of Bakunin see the chance of their life in the uprising? Not to forget all those who don’t care about politics and simply wish to party in public and without having to fear beatings and torture, to hold hands on the street with her boyfriend or to present their fancy new hairstyle to the other boys and girls. The anger at a system which made the state of emergency the rule and is based on nothing other than naked oppression and violence unites these different groups. And they sense that every small change in that totalitarian system that they achieve may lead to the collapse of the whole system. Within very short time the unity of the various rackets – the ultimate leader Khameini – has become fragile, his throne is shaking. The regime is more divided than ever before; even the military alliances – particularly the army and the Pasdaran – are increasingly hostile towards each other. In this situation the smallest rise might cause a gigantic carnage.

Why should the protesters care about Israel in this situation? Why wouldn’t they, just as many Iraqis have recently, just ignore the so-called Middle East Conflict; don’t they have every reason for simply letting the Palestinians be Palestinians and Jerusalem be Jerusalem? No. And that is for reasons that the Germans who are not only friends of Israel, but also friends of the Iranian “reform movement”, will never understand: As Iran is building the atomic bomb in order to destroy the Jewish state, Israel will necessarily have to destroy the facilities that are used for the production of this weapon of mass destruction. Even if those attacks don’t release any nuclear radiation, and even if only a few civilians are killed, the war that Iran will then openly declare on Israel is definitely going to concern all Iranians. Even for that single reason one slogan of the protest movement should be “Stop the bomb! Solidarity with Israel!” But not only because of this: Anti-Zionism is the official state ideology of Iran, all aggression – not only external but also internal – is legitimatized by the hostility towards Israel. Those who oppose the regime or who aren’t behaving according to the conventions are considered Zionists and therefore are to be eliminated. Responsible for this elimination is no other than the vanguard of Islamic Anti-Semitism: Pasdaran, Hezbollah, Hamas. Some of the protesters have noticed that, but so far they haven’t made the necessary conclusion that the enemies of Israel are also the enemies of the Iranians’ freedom. Only if the protest movement understands that anti-Semitism is the center of the Iranian state ideology its struggle can be successful. Eventually the acceptance or identification with anti-Semitism must necessarily lead to the heinous political forms which are characteristic for Ahmadinejad’s regime: a secular Iran that continues the policy of extermination towards Israel is not conceivable. Either the Iranians are struggling for their freedom, then this fight includes solidarity with Israel, or they remain on the path of Khomeini, then the freedom from Islam – thus coercion, oppression and violence – will remain a dream.

However, not only the German left is far from such insight. The population and the rulers in Europe, and increasingly even in the U.S. – the despots in China and Russia anyway – deny the Iranian protest movement and Israel all practical solidarity. They keep watching while the regime in Tehran prepares for a second Holocaust and murders the opposition. The reasons for this ignorance can not only (but also) be found in political cowardice and economic interests, but especially in the peace mania that makes the Germans these good and reliable friends of the Jews – as long as those willingly accept to be slaughtered. The pacifism of the Germans is nothing more than the yearning for the quiet of a graveyard where once again only Jews – and those who are declared to be Jews – will be buried.

Against this murderous pacifism solidarity with all the Iranians that are fighting for a better life – beyond Islam, and thus beyond the hatred of Israel – is necessary. The shouts “Down with Russia!” and “Down with China!”, which some demonstrators shouted during Friday prayer in mid-July as an answer to the usual “Death to Israel!” voice choirs have been a promising start. Also, the fact that the colour green has disappeared to a large extent at the demonstrations and that more and more women put her headscarf off for a short time, gives hope. The fact that the “Allahu Akbar” cries on Tehran’s rooftops at night time, which aren’t only tactically motivated, as the German press claims, are sometimes over-shouted with un-Islamic slogans, is also pleasant, but that these shouts continue regularly is threatening, and it forces the protest movement to make an important decision: Will they rely on the barbaric delusions of Shiite Islam – particularly the martyrdom – or are they willing to break with Islam radically?

The exile-Iranian organizations that supply the protest movement in Iran with their ideology and that are trying to make their political ideas palatable play an important role in this decision-making. Precisely for this reason it is about time that groups like the Workers Communist Party give up their absurd ideas about a “third force against U.S. state militarism and Islamic terrorism”, instead of continuing to chum up with the ideology of anti-imperialism, whose vanguard after al switches the levers of power in Teheran. The brave Leninists don’t have a word of criticism for the hated regime when it comes to Israel; instead they continue to use the anti-imperialist jargon. This is also on account of the German Left – such as an alliance, which is About the Whole (Ums Ganze) and thereby not about Israel – that encourages their Iranian comrades to stick to this madness instead of confronting them with solidarity with Israel, which is so urgently needed right now. For: It is the same fight.

Solidarity with Israel!
Smash the Islamic Republic!

همبستگی با اسرائیل!
کردن با جمهوری اسلامی!


(08/05/2009)

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