Why neo-Nazis sympathize with Hamas

Why neo-Nazis sympathize with Hamas

Hamas' attack on Israel produces unusual friendships: In Germany, right-wing extremists are suddenly cheering with Islamist terrorists and calling for attacks on Jews. Other extreme groups could also soon be taking to the streets hand in hand with Palestine sympathizers.

A few days after the Hamas attack on Israel, a Palestinian flag flies at a well-known neo-Nazi house in Dortmund. A white and blue banner with the slogan "The state of Israel is our misfortune" is stretched between two windows. The neo-Nazis reach deep into the slogan box of Hitler's Germany. The Nazi hate newspaper "Der Stürmer" had also once written: "The Jews are our misfortune". On the same day, the police and fire department take down the flag and banner. State security investigates for incitement to hatred.

Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 produces unusual friendships. But the fact that neo-Nazis show solidarity with Islamist terrorists only seems incongruous at first glance. Anti-Semitism is a link between the two political camps, says Reiner Becker, head of the Hesse Democracy Center at Philipps University Marburg, in the ntv podcast "Wieder was gelernt" ("Learned something again"). "It functions in parts of right-wing extremism and in political Islamism, but is also very important in the so-called center of society. Anti-Semitism offers a wide variety of narratives because it is so old and has taken on so many forms."

"Inspired by Hitler"

It's surprising, but the Islamist Hamas has much more in common with neo-Nazis than you might think. "Hamas is inspired by Hitler," says US author Paul Berman in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He calls their ideas a "hellish mix of Islamic fundamentalism and Nazi ideologies".

Nazi ideology because Hamas refers in its charter to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a forged, anti-Semitic diatribe. It speaks of a Jewish world conspiracy. The Nazis distributed it to Arab countries at the end of the 1930s. The Hamas charter calls for Jews to be killed in order to achieve an Islamic Palestinian state.

This is how Nazi thinking seeped into the Islamist movements. Hamas has completely adopted the ideas. In a way, Hamas terrorists are the new Nazis.

Attacks on Jews worldwide

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also compared the Hamas murders to the Nazi massacres in the Third Reich during a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. This comparison does not apply to the ideology as a whole, says right-wing extremism researcher Becker, but one parallel is the "absolute will to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people". This was at the core of National Socialist ideology.

The phenomenon does not only exist in Germany; Jew-haters worldwide are exploiting the war in the Middle East for their own purposes. In France, the UK and Austria, anti-Semitic incidents have increased dramatically since the Hamas attack on Israel over a month ago. In Germany alone, there have been around 200: Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue in Berlin, people were attacked at rallies and memorials, and Stars of David were daubed on house walls.

In the USA, groups linked to neo-Nazis have also called for attacks on Jewish communities. At the beginning of November, a student at a university in the US state of Massachusetts is said to have beaten a Jewish fellow student.

Various forms of anti-Semitism

Right-wing parties and groups in Germany post anti-Semitic and racist propaganda on websites and social media channels. So far, this has been rather sporadic. The right-wing scene is still keeping a low profile, says Becker. The small right-wing extremist party III. Weg described the Hamas attacks on its website as a "counter-attack on the Zionist entity Israel". "It uses very clear anti-Semitic language and draws a line in the sand." The far-right party Heimat, the former NPD, has also spoken out clearly against supporting Israel.

The III. Weg works with Israel-related anti-Semitism. This questions the right of the state of Israel to exist and thus coincides with the program of Islamists such as Hamas. However, the demand can also be found in the middle of society and in the far-left milieu. For decades now.

Another form of anti-Semitism, on the other hand, is the "cult of guilt": Jews are accused of exploiting the memory of the genocide for their own gain. This formulation is mainly used by right-wing populist parties such as the AfD.

Left-wingers take up right-wing slogans

But this view is also widespread in parts of the left - they now seem to be getting louder during the Gaza war. This was evident in Berlin in mid-October: around two weeks after the Hamas terror attack, there was a sit-in in front of the Foreign Office. Several hundred demonstrators chanted: "Free Palestine from German guilt".

Jens-Christian Wagner, historian and director of the Buchenwald-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial, called this demonstration at X: "A left-wing variant of the right-wing extremist 'cult of guilt' narrative". The demonstrators were primarily concerned with freeing Germany from "guilt and responsibility".

Anti-Muslim racism

Left, right and Hamas supporters have a common enemy: Israel. Right-wing extremism expert Becker can well imagine that these very different groups will soon be demonstrating together. Just like during the pandemic. "There are issues, political issues, where people from groups that normally have nothing in common come together. The coronavirus crisis has documented this well." People from an esoteric spectrum as well as people from the far-right scene and the Reichsbürger context were present at demonstrations.

But similarities and sympathies have limits. Despite the cult of guilt, the AfD backed Israel in the Bundestag and called for the expulsion of Muslims who had celebrated the Hamas attack in Berlin-Neukölln, among other places.

This anti-Semitism is not found among the working German population, explained the deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group, Beatrix von Storch, in the Bundestag, explaining her party's position. On the 85th anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, of all days.

1. Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group, asserted that their party does not support the anti-Semitic sentiments seen among some Muslim communities, especially in response to the Hamas attack on Israel.
2. During the Hamas attack on Israel, right-wing extremists in Germany showed solidarity with the Islamist group, flying Palestinian flags at their buildings and making inflammatory statements about Israel.
3. Reiner Becker, head of the Hesse Democracy Center, argued that anti-Semitism is a common thread between far-right extremism and political Islamism, providing a shared narrative that can be manipulated for various purposes.
4. The similarities between Hamas and neo-Nazis are more pronounced than one might initially believe, with both groups drawing on anti-Semitic themes, such as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
5. The AfD, a right-wing populist party in Germany, has been accused of using anti-Semitic and racist language on their websites and social media channels, particularly in response to the Hamas attack on Israel.
6. In the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel, neo-Nazi groups in the United States have also called for attacks on Jewish communities, highlighting the global nature of anti-Semitic sentiment and hostility towards Israel.

Source: www.ntv.de