"Krone" commentary

Alexander Van der Bellen and anti-Semitism

Kommentiert die aktuelle politische Lage: der stv. „Krone“-Chefredakteur Rainer Nowak(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Reinhard Holl)

It was a dignified speech by Alexander Van der Bellen in front of descendants of Austrian Holocaust survivors. The Federal President described the terrorist attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians, women and children on October 7 as a "cruel pogrom". He expressed his horror at the massive increase in the number of anti-Semitic attacks and incidents worldwide after that day, including in Austria. According to Van der Bellen, anti-Semitism had never completely "gone away".

That may be true, Mr. President. But there is another sentence missing, which you unfortunately omitted - for the purpose of suppression (?): A new anti-Semitism has emerged. Every study, every survey and every child knows that anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel are blatantly higher among immigrants and asylum seekers of Arab origin.

That is the big problem here and now. Added to this is a new, slightly absurd elite anti-Semitism: at universities and in some left-wing salons, Israel is the aggressor. In a mixture of anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and colonialism hangovers, factual criticism of Israel's settlement policy is being turned into fantasies of annihilation against the Jewish state. Or to put it harshly: Simple minds might think that anti-Semites only tended towards FPÖ man Norbert Hofer in the 2016 presidential election. But a few new ones will have voted for Van der Bellen. The world is not (or no longer) black and white. Who should know that better than the Federal President.