Why is the German journalist Maxim Biller unafraid to call out German anti-Semitism, often masquerading as criticism of Israel, for what it is? Because, he says, he “can board a plane any time, pick up an Israeli passport at Ben-Gurion airport, and begin the crazily stressful rat-race of everyday life in Israel.” He elaborates:
What was stated 30 years ago only on the [German] left—that Israel was an aggressive, over-powerful, quasi-fascist state equipped with yesterday’s German ideology of blood and the soil—is today pseudo-liberal mainstream thinking, and the further the [ruling Christian Democratic party] slips to the left under Angela Merkel, the sooner members of that party will also be able to enjoy the delights of Israel-bashing that liberate their instincts so well. We can see what the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the central organ (with its huge circulation) of the narcissist German reactionary left, has been saying on this subject for years, publishing anti-Semitic caricatures of Israel as a knife-wielding monster and Mark Zuckerberg as an all-powerful [monster], the unrhymed graffiti of Günter Grass in which that double-tongued veteran of the Waffen-SS accuses Israel of being a threat to world peace, guest columns by writers overtly or covertly sympathetic to Hamas, and above all dozens of comments in its own editorial opinion pieces, holding Israel to blame for everything.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/186725/german-anti-semitism-biller