German Opposition Party Cancels Event Featuring American Anti-Semite Max Blumenthal

November 6, 2014 6:46 pm 15 comments

In this widely circulated image, anti-Semitic American writer Max Blumenthal is seen donning a yarmulke and "praying" to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Facebook

The leader of the main opposition party in Germany, the far-left Die Linke (“The Left,”) has shut down a forthcoming party seminar at the German parliament featuring Max Blumenthal, an American writer of Jewish origin whose visceral attacks on Israel are widely regarded as anti-Semitic.

Gregor Gysi, the Jewish leader of Die Linke – a successor organization to the former ruling Communist Party in East Germany, and the largest opposition bloc to the governing Christian Democrat/Social Democrat coalition, with 64 parliamentary seats – told the daily Berliner Morgenpost that “the event will not take place.” Gysi reached his decision after Benjamin Weinthal, a Berlin-based journalist who writes for the Jewish and general press, presented him with evidence of Blumenthal’s anti-Semitic activities and writings.

The seminar had been scheduled for this coming Monday, November 10 – one day after the 76th anniversary of the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom in Nazi Germany. Blumenthal’s appearance was secured by two Die Linke MPs, Inge Höger and Annette Groth, who were both on board the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship that attempted to illegally break the Israeli security blockade of Gaza in 2010.

Speaking with The Algemeiner by phone, Weinthal reported that promotional materials for the event had emphasized that Max Blumenthal is the son of Sidney Blumenthal, a confidante and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Sidney Blumenthal’s support for his son’s latest anti-Semitic screed, a book about Israel entitled “Goliath,” led noted scholar and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz to warn that his stance could create unnecessary problems for any future Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Max Blumenthal’s books and articles frequently compare Israel to Nazi Germany, an analogy which many experts on anti-Semitism view as anti-Semitic, since it deliberately seeks to  wound the Jewish state by portraying it as no different from a regime that systematically murdered six million Jews and millions of others. A State Department briefing paper on anti-Semitism states unequivocally that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is anti-Semitic. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has included Blumenthal in its “top 10″ list of anti-Semitic slurs for 2013, because of chapter headings in “Goliath,” such as “The Concentration Camp” and “How to Kill Goyim and Influence People.”

More recently, Blumenthal is credited with having invented the Twitter hashtag #JSIL, which stands for “Jewish State in the Levant.” Israel is the equivalent, he believes, of the Islamic State terrorist organization currently engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Christian, Yezidi and Kurdish minorities in Syria and Iraq.

Along with Gysi, other Germans on the left reacted with horror to the Blumenthal invitation. The Green Party MP Volker Beck, who is also chairman of the German-Israeli parliamentary group, declared that “while there are legitimate criticisms of Israeli policy, Blumenthal has consistently made anti-Semitic comparisons between Israel and Nazism.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner that Gysi should be “lauded” for canceling the Blumenthal event.

“It’s especially important, because there are so few people in the progressive camp that have put down any red lines when it comes to criticism of Israel,” Cooper said. “The fact that Gysi pulled the plug on this has global implications, because someone has finally woken up and said, ‘this isn’t about criticizing Israeli policies, but aiding and abetting those who want to see the end of Israel.’”

Cooper added that while the Wiesenthal Center would never endorse the idea of German collective guilt, Germans nonetheless have a “collective responsibility” when it comes to anti-Semitism. “Germans have a responsibility, and they will always have, to do no harm to the world’s largest Jewish community,” Cooper said.

15 Comments

  • The US State Department is undeniably Jewish dominated, and has been for a long time. What the Jews say about how the world should view the Jews is not objective.

  • If only Die Linke had similar animosity for anti-Germans.

    Does the “Do no Harm” to Jews policy include allowing anyone who is Jewish advocate for extreme leftist policies in Germany, although Israel maintains the most effective ethnostate in the world? After the last of the Holocaust survivors and WWII vets die off, are modern Germans meant to allow themselves to be destroyed out of guilt for something they did not do?

    Frankly, its strange when any leftist group draws a line in the sand regarding any ethnostate, because such a state is firmly antithetical to core leftist ideology. Why does Israel get a pass? Why does the existence of isolated Jewish culture and Jewish State borders matter if we are all the same? If you can draw a line for the Jewish State, and one that obviously practices effective genetic isolationism, why can’t such a line be drawn for every country?

    I have my politics and revile the antithesis of those politics, but I can at least respect political consistency. If leftists aren’t consistent, they only prove themselves to be ideological sell-outs or otherwise compromised. Such people deserve no respect, and should be only be viewed as moral hypocrites with nothing substantial to offer the world.

  • stevenL, no such luck! Inge Höger and Annette Groth are representing their party’s views on Israel, chairman Gysi does not. He is a clever tactician though.

  • http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/03/what-and-who-andrew-breitbart-faced/

    One of the best videos showing Blumenthal’s cowardice is when Larry O’Connor and Andrew Breitbart confronted him and essentially silenced him for accusing a friend of racism. It is worth watching so I added it in the links above.

    Blumenthal’s connections with other bigots like Rania Khalek and David Sheen are telling.

    It’s good to see Germany cancel his speech, hopefully they will stick to their guns.

  • steven, Inge Höger and Annette Groth will not be kicked out of their party. They are far more representative of their party’s position on Israel than Gysi.

  • What irony! A German group retracts an invitation to a Jewish speaker because he is an anti-Semite! Good for them!! Max Blumenthal is a disgusting human being. He does not deserve to call himself a Jew! Mazel Tov to the Germans for realizing he is a disgusting liar!

  • Harvard Student

    My lord – I just took a look at Max’s Twitter feed. It is full of nothing but psychotic rantings against Israel. Does Sidney Blumenthal’s son have anything else in his life other than feverish deranged and obsessive hatred of Israel and Jews? I for one will not vote for Hillary Clinton until she unequivocally renounces the entire Blumenthal family.

  • He must be the offspring of incestuous parents; hence his mental state.

  • Blumenthal is coward at an event a friend of mine confronted Blumenthal.Blumenthal became frightened started stuttering and backed away he feared my friend would physically attack him,which he had no intention of doing.
    lets not forget in the next election how Sidney a trusted advisor to the Clintons threw a book Party for him that means his father agrees with maxie.

  • Bluementhal is a self loathing deranged man and anyone or any organisation that gives him a platform must be listed as antisemitic. Blumenthal’s venomous twisted portrait of Jews and of Israel is evil, this is he’s way of gaining money and notoriety. Shame on him and anyone who listens to him.

  • No, these people – Max Blumenthal, Nam Chomsky, etc. – are simply mentally deranged and should be locked up in an asylum. It is interesting that Jews are the only people who harbour this kind of lunatic in their midst, this type of self-hatred seems to be a Jewish trait, no doubt the product of two millennia of persecution. A sort of “if you can’t lick ‘em join ‘em” attitude.

    • jack markowitz

      that is exactly what I have been saying for years…you will not find another people who have this self-loathing trait as the Jews…it must be a unique Jewish gene…

  • Jewish hatred of Israel is based in cowardliness.
    The cowardly Jews are afraid to stand with their oppressed and endangered people.

  • Mireille Mechoullsm

    Bravo for all those who will not support to demonize the State of Israel.
    Thank G-d for those who see evil and reject it.

  • There are decent Germans and both Inge Höger and Annette Groth, “the rot” should be expelled from the party for supporting antisemitism and insulting Germany.

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