It is so extremely irresponsible to conflate Jews and Israel, in the name of fighting antisemism no less. In my opinion this should be the biggest hammer to bash centrists on the head with every time they do shit like this: their lack of seriousness and their irresponsible political conduct. Mélenchon has been particularly good at doing this, regardless his other flaws.
Mélenchon, the guy who said that the Jews killed Jesus? That antisemtism is not a problem in France? That Zemmour said what he said because he reproduced Jew cultural scenarii? Nah, he has a lot of qualities, but he’s not good on this subject.
Hmm, I’m not one to give leftists a pass for antisemic statements, but having looked up a bit the context, I think you’re misrepresenting Mélenchon’s actual words, putting them in the worst possible light, where a good faith reading of his statements would place them in the “unfortunate wording of a somewhat valid point” that Mélenchon actually apologized for afterwards.
The “Jews killed Jesus” incident apparently was him trying to make a point about Macron being attacked internally and that sometimes members of your own group turn on you. So it wasn’t about calling Jews christ-killers, it was a bad use of a trope that he should have known to not use, and for which he apologized.
He also didn’t say that antisemitism isn’t a problem, he said it’s residual in France, which, you know, means it’s still there. He did minimize the issue, that’s true, but we do live in an environment like the one described in the OP article where antisemitism is used very irresponsibility.
The Zemour thing is also kind of weird? He was trying to defend Zemour, who’s a Jewish french nationalist, against an accusation of antisemitism by saying that his conservatism is part of how Judaism has survived over the centuries. He then also apparently subsequently admitted he expressed himself poorly.
So, overall, this all looks to me less like an antisemite and more like someone who runs his mouth a bit more than he should. It is perfectly reasonable however to criticize him for his own irresponsibility and for the hurtful nature of his comments.
That said, my argument is not that he’s really good at “handling antisemitism” (these cases obviously prove he sucks at it). My point was that he’s good at calling out centrist irresponsibility and lack seriousness in general, eg when it comes to the economy. He’s an example of how I think the left should attack the centre, not an example of how the left should talk about antisemitism. Je me suis mal exprimé comme Mélenchon évidemment.
my argument is not that he’s really good at handling antisemitism
I was saying nothing more than that he’s bad at handling antisemitism. I don’t think he is antisemitic, but by his unfortunate words (fueled by the fact that he downplays the strength of antisemitism in France and in French left) he normalizes, unwillingly, antisemitism.
Yea that’s fair.
I’ve never heard of Die Linke and just the context of the headline tells me everything. The so-called liberals are siding with fascists against people who want an affordable cost of living, aren’t they?
Die Linke are left of center (not even very left) and probably one of the very few major parties that says “hey, maybe there are some war crimes happening in Gaza” (not even agreement on the genocide). And for that, they’re labelled as antisemites.
nobody’s denying war crimes, but yes reasonable people are very careful with their rhetoric.
German leaders deny war crimes.
In December 2024, after Amnesty International released a report accusing Israel of genocide, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Sebastian Fischer stated that “genocide presupposes a clear intention to eradicate an ethnic group. I still do not recognize any such clear intention.”
Merz criticised the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes during the Gaza war. In February 2025, one day after the 2025 German federal election, he announced his intention to invite Netanyahu to Germany, “as an open challenge” to the decision of the ICC.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/7/what-has-germanys-position-been-on-israels-genocide-in-gaza
Merz emphasised that Germany could no longer ignore the worsening toll on Gaza civilians while continuing to support what he described as Israel’s “right to defend itself” and the need for the release of captives held by Hamas.
i wrote “reasonable” in the context of the Linke party, certainly not Merz.
I’m sorry, I don’t speak to genocide denialists and you are in no position to define what “reasonable” means.
No reasonable people have been calling it a genocide for a long time, downplaying the intent to erase the Palestinian people is genocide denial.
They have targeted every hospital & cultural center, it’s clearly intentional erasure of Palestinian, even if it’s not the goal to litterally kill every Palestinian… Yet
yes, i remember pamphletes from the 70’s (just shortly after the replacement of the Egypt and Jordanian occupiers of what was supposed to form Palestine by Israel) where that new occupation was described as genocidal. afaict the Palestinian population grew ever since. so, if there’s really such intent as you imagine, “they” just haven’t learned from the Germans how to do it properly.
you should also clearly condemn the installation of military installations close to civil infrastructure. i think building beneath such also qualifies as war crime. maybe you get the supposed targeting motivation right then as well.
you should also clearly condemn the installation of military installations close to civil infrastructure.
Have you seen where the IDF puts it’s military installations?
i remember pamphletes from the 70’s (just shortly after the replacement of the Egypt and Jordanian occupiers of what was supposed to form Palestine by Israel) where that new occupation was described as genocidal.
Yeah, some people were ahead of the curve on realizing that Israel was a genocidal project to ethnically cleanse Palestine.
afaict the Palestinian population grew ever since.
Just an insane argument to make, Holocaust deniers make the same argument about Jewish population growth in the Jewish Ghettos the Nazis created
Basically plagiarism at this point. Centrists tried to call Bernie Sanders an antisemite ffs. Just power through it, stay on message, don’t give them the time of day.
Anecdotally I know a German that completely shuts up like a clam as soon as there is any talk criticizing Israel. My guess is the subject is still extremely toxic in Germany.
IMO that kind of social inability to debate an issue is what feeds parties like AfD.
We had something similar here in Denmark, it used to be socially unacceptable to criticize immigration, and the result was that we got a new party with the exclusive goal to prevent immigration, and at their height they achieved 20% of the vote for parliament.
The main reason they have dropped since, is that the other parties began to actually adopt some of their policies. 🤥😳I don’t see how Jews could be seen as a big political problem in Germany, so the centrists are probably exploiting social stigma, and that stigma is in itself harmful, and centrists exploiting it will only pave the way even more for AfD.
It’s insane that some people consider it antisemitism to criticize Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
Am German, your guess is correct. As soon as anything goes it that direction it’s all blamed as antisemitism and you should know your Erbschuld.
Basically, as Merz said, we’re fully supporting Israel. And that’s also one of the things causing more and more issues and gap between politics and reality here.
For the record, as a German I do remember the lessons we learned from our grisly past: That genocide is evil and that it’s very easy for a country to sink into utter barbarism. I wish we could take the principled stand we owe to our past victims and condemn Israel for its actions.
Unfortunately, that’s just what the German people learned. German politicians apparently learned from our past that our mistake was to genocide the wrong people and to lose the war.
Tja nun.
Supporting Israel is making the same mistake twice.
To make it a little more nuanced let’s say that supporting genocide is doing it again.
HR has asked you to find the differences in these images.
Because it’s really easy to get stuck on one event, and then consider it “over” and not learn anything to carry over the next time.
In Germany they actually teach school children about the atrocities of WW2 exactly to try to prevent them from happening again.
So they don’t just consider them “over”, very far from it!Oh I know what they teach, but clearly there’s quite a few who seem to have learned the wrong lesson.
äh sag mal wo sind denn die Einsatzgruppen und Vernichtungslager “again”?
Mensch hier direkt die erbschuldkeule aus dem nazivokabular ausgepackt
Willst du damit sagen dass in bawü mindestens 3 Jahre lang alle Schüler von nazis unterrichtet wurden?
Das haben wir so ein gehämmert bekommen.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erbsünde
Außerdem deutlich älter als Nazis vom Begriff her.
Willst du damit sagen dass in bawü mindestens 3 Jahre lang alle Schüler von nazis unterrichtet wurden?
das ist evident, denn auf eurer seite der Labe konnten die allermeisten Lehrer nach reichsende ja weiter unterrichten.
dann ist es auch so, daß wir hier in der norddeutschen tiefebene, bei den leuten im ländle wirklich nicht über irrationalität überrascht sind. siehe die hohe Antroposophen- und Evangelikalen-dichte bspw.
aber was ist euch denn da so herzlich pädagogisch nun “eingehämmert” worden? erst benutzt du die (im kontext der Shoah) nazivokabel (wenn du es strikt willst: post-nationalsozialistische vokabel im diskurs des sekundären antisemitismus) “Erbschuld”, nun verlinkst du nen artikel zu einer theologischen kategorie.
(soll ich auch ein paar begriffe, die semantische verschiebungen erfahren haben, aufzählen?)
Wir sind da in zwei völlig verschiedene Richtungen abgebogen und nichts wäre mir ferner als nazi zu sein; im Gegenteil bin ich eher links orientiert.
Bezüglich des Begriffs habe ich mich mit informiert und tatsächlich scheint da ein Wandel gewesen zu sein. Heute ist der Begriff quasi mit anderer Verwendung und Kontext als noch vor 30 Jahren.
Ja, wir haben in der Schule mindestens 3 Jahre vorgeworfen bekommen wie wir böse nazis waren und was unsere, ja, Erbschuld ist die und zu Lasten läge. Dazu muss man sagen da ist man im Teenie Alter und bekommt Schuld für etwas zugesprochen zu einer Zeit als man noch nicht einmal lebte.
Dazu kommt, dass eventuell die Großeltern beteiligt waren - oder auch nicht, ein Teil von meinen musste unbeteiligt zum beispiel fliehen.
Didaktisch habe ich noch nie davon gehalten. Denn wenn man das Thema so angeht erzieht man sich vielleicht gleich die nächste Generation die aus Protest einfach mal dagegen läuft.
Zurück zu Punkt, eine nazi Vokabel ist es imo nicht. Belege bitte, ich bin immer gerne bereit dazu zu lernen und da ich eben nicht in solchen Kreisen bin kann es sein dass ich da was verpasst habe, insofern geht mein Begriff und die damalige Verwendung tatsächlich auf genau die verlinkte Wort Nutzung zurück.
Machen wir es kurz:
- Die nazi Zuordnung beim Wort war weder gewollt noch bewusst sondern ein gängiges Zitat aus der Schule vor 30 Jahren.
- Wenn die Wort Verwendung heute anders ist nehme ich das gerne zur Kenntnis.
History has shown again and again, when centrists are forced to chose between left and fashism (right), they chose fashism. All centrists are fashist-enablers.
