The banality of AfD

It can be instructive to go back and read the archives of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the New York Times or other publications from the early and mid 1930s to try and get a sense of what the rise of the Nazi party looked like in real time, without the benefit of a long, historical lens. The stories usually show a sense of unhappiness and even alarm among Jews in Europe, Palestine and elsewhere, but in a limited and mostly banal way, a world used to anti-Semitism reacting to another anti-Semite.

Not to draw too close to a comparison, but the stories are not unlike those seen in the Israeli press Monday morning, broadcasting worry over the rise of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, to the Bundestag in German elections Sunday.

“Worrying alternative,” reads a headline in Israel Hayom, while Yedioth draws a more direct line to the horrors of the Holocaust with a “voices (or votes) from the past” headline, though it forms a strange juxtaposition next to the pictures of people cheering and German flag fonts used, lending it a celebratory air.

There’s little celebration going on among the Jewish and German voices quoted in both papers expressing fears of what the support or AfD means and looking at ways to thwart the party, which has been derided as anti-Semitic.

“This is a terrible day in our history,” Yedioth quotes Green Party head Katrin Goring-Eckart. “This is the worst thing that can happen,” the paper adds from a protester who went out Sunday night to demonstrate against the party. “This is a long term danger; five years ago it was impossible to imagine this could happen.”

Israel Hayom plays up a statement from German Jewish leader Josef Schuster that Germany’s democracy will “reveal the true face of the AfD,” as well as other concerned statements from Jewish groups. Yet the paper also manages to find some Israelis in Germany who support the party.

“If something terrible happens, I can always pack up and move back to Israel,” says one Israeli, who unsurprisingly declines to give her name. “We didn’t have that option 70-80 years ago.”

Even columnist Eldad Beck in Israel Hayom tries to temper fears about AfD, saying they aren’t neo-Nazis but simple conservatives who don’t like Angela Merkel’s immigration policies and appearing to counsel for Israel to be open to meeting with them. Rather it’s the far-left that people in Israel should be worried about, he says.

“The far-left party, sitting for years in the Bundestag, is the inheritor of the East German Communist regime that was anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel. Its members support boycotting Israel and talking to the biggest haters of the Jewish state. Despite that, official Israel has opened channels of communication and contacts with pro-Israel elements in the party,” he writes. “Is anti-Semitism on the far-left okay, while anti-Semitism by some far-rightists in AfD prevents the opening of communications channels with pro-Israel people in their ranks?”

That willingness to make peace with the far right is not echoed by columnists in Israel’s other papers.

In Haaretz, which focuses more on the challenges facing Merkel given the election results, Ofer Aderet says a pretty good showing today could become an even stronger showing tomorrow.

“The meteoric rise of Alternative for Germany … foreshadows a clear trend that will force German society to do some serious introspection as how so many Germans were able to give their vote to such a party,” he writes. “During the coming weeks, months and years, we can expect to hear in the German parliament the kind of voices that have not been heard there for decades. The sky’s the limit for the party, whose members have signed on calls to stop feeling guilty for the Nazis’ crimes, to honor the memory of German soldiers who served in World War II and to examine the crimes of the ‘Jewish murderers’ of the Russian Revolution.”

In Yedioth, Nadav Eyal also puts the ball in Merkel’s court to thwart the designs of the party, though he also dismisses the idea that they are actually neo-Nazi.

“Merkel’s challenge now is massive and bigger than anything she’s dealt with before,” he writes. “These results points this being her last term and now she is tasked with a historic mission: to thwart the far right while it’s still relatively small and can be dealt with. Germany after World War II cannot allow itself to be swept up in hatred of foreigners, and Merkel understands that well.”

While papers are worrying over Germany’s future in racism and divisiveness, papers also raise similar issues in the US and Israel that are happening now.

A Haaretz headline at the top of its front page reports that the town of “Kokhav Yair can restrict entry of Tira residents to its pool,” pointing to what looks like a case of racism with the ritzy Jewish town able to keep its Arab neighbors away. The actual story, though, reports that the court ruled that the town can restrict membership for any outsiders with preference for the 10 percent of spots reserved for non-residents going to people who had membership last year, of which there were no Arabs.

“The remaining 10 percent are supposed to be available equally to residents of all neighboring towns, whether Jewish ones like Tzur Yitzhak and the West Bank settlement of Tzofim or Arab ones like Tira, since the ruling prohibits the country club from ‘giving preference based on place of residence.’ Nevertheless, it does allow the club to give preference to last year’s members – and for the past seven years, not one Arab has been allowed to buy a membership,” the paper reports.

Yedioth meanwhile wades into the athletes vs President Donald Trump battle raging in the US, with the only Israeli in the NBA, Omri Casspi, weighing in. Casspi may not be American, but his team, the Warriors, is at the center of one of the controversies about being disinvited from the White House and he doesn’t hold back in an interview on what he thinks about the tweeter in chief.

“It was important for me to say, like our coach Steve Kerr, that we are living in crazy times and we can’t accept the behavior of President Trump,” he’s quoted saying. “You can’t accept racism. We need to be united against this.”