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On the Situation in Austrian Universities

 
Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Europe and Israel, Israel, World Jewry
Publication: Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism

Historical Background: The Change in Austria’s Self-Perception

Austria’s postwar history is characterized by its self-perception as the first victim of the National Socialists. The fact that the majority of Austrian society had supported the Nazis or at least obeyed the Nazi regime was assiduously ignored. This self-perception lasted until the late 1980s, when it was critically reviewed and altered under the impact of the Waldheim affair (discussed below). The latter, however, showed that not only the Social Democrats (SPÖ) but also the Conservatives (ÖVP) had a problematic relationship with the past.

The narrative of Austria as victim influenced many areas of Austrian politics. One result was that the rehabilitation of former Nazis started very soon after the end of the war.

Already in 1947, the Austrian government under its Conservative chancellor Leopold Figl established a law distinguishing between a higher or lower extent of collaboration with the Nazis. In 1948, less implicated ex-Nazis were rehabilitated and recovered their full rights as citizens. Already for the 1949 elections, both parties, the Social Democrats and the Conservatives, courted the votes of ex-Nazis.

Only in 2005 did the Association of Social Democratic Academics (Bund Sozialdemokratischer Akademiker, BSA) issue a study by Wolfgang Neugebauer and Peter Schwarz (both from the Documentation Centre for Austrian Resistance)  on the role of the BSA in reintegrating former Nazis into society.1

Kreisky and the Middle East

Bruno Kreisky was a Jewish Social Democrat who served as Austrian chancellor from 1970 to 1983. He has been criticized for his ambivalence toward his Jewish identity and the effects this had on his approach to the Middle East. As Manfred Gerstenfeld notes, “Kreisky provides an example of a Jewish initiator of anti-Israel actions. He played a crucial role in making Yasser Arafat acceptable to the Socialist International.”2

Kreisky came from an assimilated Jewish family that originated in Bohemia. Although his autobiography3 tells little about his Jewish roots, he mentions a cousin, Victor Much, whom he met in his youth and was an adherent of Vladimir Jabotinsky and his Revisionist Zionist movement. Kreisky says Much failed to persuade him of these views.4

The political scientist and expert on anti-Semitism, Anton Pelinka, pointed out, “For the National Socialists, Kreisky was a Jew. To save his life he had to go into Swedish exile. Vis-à-vis his environment, Kreisky had accepted his Jewish identity-but not in the sense of drawing religious or political implications. Kreisky was a Jew because others saw him as a Jew.”5 He was committed to his Social Democratic ideas rather than to his Jewish identity.

When speaking about the Palestinians, Kreisky compared their situation to that of occupied Austria after 1938. His memoirs refer to an incident in Sweden in 1941: he identified himself to a Swedish policeman as Austrian even though the policeman insisted that Austria did not exist anymore. Kreisky relates that he mentioned this story once in a discussion with Golda Meir when she opposed using the term Palestinians at a meeting of the Socialist International.6

As president of the Austrian Social Democratic Party since 1967, Kreisky had major influence in the Socialist International. When Willy Brandt was elected president of the Socialist International in 1976, Kreisky became one of its vice-presidents.

After World War II, the Socialist International took a pro-Israeli stance. It admired Israeli socialism with its kibbutzim and moshavim, viewing this as the only path to a prosperous Jewish homeland.7 After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, however, these perceptions changed.

At its thirteenth congress in Geneva in 1976, the Socialist International passed a resolution supporting the “right of all peoples to self-determination and a life in peace with secure and recognized borders.” It did not mention the Palestinians or the PLO in particular.8

In a Jerusalem Post interview in 1978, Kreisky called Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin a “political grocer,” a “Polish lawyer from Warsaw,” and also sharply attacked Israel as being culpable for the Middle East conflict.9 In 1979, Kreisky and Brandt invited Arafat to Vienna, and the latter became the first European capital to receive him as a future prime minister.

In March 1980, Austria formally recognized the PLO. The Conservative opposition charged Kreisky with “condoning terrorism and deviating from the diplomatic tradition of recognizing only states.”10 As Harry Delfiner noted,

Kreisky apparently never seriously examined whether in helping Arafat he was also helping to advance a new form of warfare that would eventually threaten many of the very values in which he and his fellow socialists believed. When confronted with the facts of Arafat’s engagement in terrorism, he would downplay or deny it altogether, while concentrating his attention on what he saw as advancing the wronged people and on the need to bring peace to the Middle East.11

Kreisky continued his involvement with Middle Eastern politics after he left the government in 1983.

The Waldheim Affair

In 1986 Kurt Waldheim, having previously been secretary-general of the United Nations, was the Conservative candidate for the Austrian presidency. During the period of his candidacy it became known that he had kept silent about serving as an officer of the German army in the Balkans during the war.

The populist newspaper Kronenzeitung and the conservative Kurier received a flood of anti-Semitic letters blaming the Jews for impugning Waldheim’s  integrity.12 There was also, however, a positive effect as for the first time Austria critically scrutinized its Nazi past and questioned its presumed role as victim.13

Franz Vranitzky

Franz Vranitzky was Austrian chancellor from 1986 to 1997. He stated officially that Austria’s self-perception as Nazi Germany’s initial victim was mistaken.

In a speech to the Austrian parliament commemorating the Shoah on 6 May 2005, Stuart E. Eizenstat observed:

Chancellor Franz Vranitzky made dramatic statements at the 50th anniversary of the Anschluss in 1988 and again in the Austrian Parliament, this Parliament, in 1991, that “many”-and I am quoting him-“Austrians welcomed the so-called Anschluss, supported the National Socialist Regime,” and “participated in the machinery of suppression and persecution of the Third Reich, some of them at the forefront,” and thus, in his words, bore “moral co-responsibility.” In 1994, Federal President the late Dr. Thomas Klestil bowed his head to the victims and declared to the Israeli Knesset that Austria “mustn’t be spared from encountering the historical truth, the whole truth” and that, in his words, “too often one has spoken only about how Austria has been the first nation to lose its liberty and independence to National Socialism and way too seldom we have also spoken about the fact that some of the worst henchmen…had been in fact Austrian.” 14

In 1993, Vranitzky received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in recognition of his efforts to improve Austrian-Israeli relations and his forthright statements on Austria’s role during the Nazi period. Speaking to the Knesset, he referred to Austria’s “collective responsibility” rather than “collective guilt”; the former entailed a possibility of critically examining Austria’s past.

Misconceptions and Anti-Israelism among Austrian Intellectuals 

John Bunzl and the Narrative of “Zionist Colonization”

The Jewish scholar John Bunzl teaches political science at the University of Vienna and is an associate of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. Bunzl views the founding of the state of Israel as an act of “Zionist colonization.” According to him, the core of the conflict is this colonization and the resistance of the native population, the Palestinians. He also describes Muslim anti-Semitism as a relatively recent trend, consistently ignoring that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood already established Islamism as a mass movement in the late 1920s.15

In its 2002-2003 report on Austria,16 Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism mentions an open letter by Bunzl in response to an analysis of the extreme left-Wing Anti-Imperialist Camp (Antiimperialistische Koordination-AIK) issued by the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DOEW).17 This letter was posted on the AIK’s website.18 In it Bunzl accuses the DOEW of superficial analysis and unjustified accusation of leftist organizations as being anti-Semitic.

Bunzl asserts in the letter that the DOEW defines the “resistance of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and leftists as being an extension of the German anti-Semitism that led to the annihilation of the Jews, implying that Israel’s violence against the Palestinians has to be defined as a continuation of the antifascist Resistance.” According to Bunzl, the DOEW thereby joins leftists who enjoy the psychological effect of making charges of anti-Semitism against other leftists who criticize Israel. Bunzl also accuses the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the IKG (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, the umbrella body of the Austrian Jewish community) of making dubious analyses of statements by those critical of Israel.

Bunzl, who repeatedly calls himself a Middle East expert, recently made inconsistent statements. In December 2005, in a letter to the editor of the Austrian newspaper The Standard, he belittled Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s threat to destroy Israel.19 Yet in a February 2006 article in the Israeli daily Haaretz, he refers to such threats and also to Holocaust denial as “infamous statements by Iranian President Ahmadinejad and similar utterances by other Arab or Muslim spokespeople.” He also notes the contradiction between Muslim Holocaust denial “and demanding that the price for the Holocaust should be paid by those who committed it.”20

The Extreme Left’s Influence on Austrian Academia

In March 2002, several Austrian professors supported with their signatures a Congress against War and Embargo in Iraq that was to be held on 28-29 March 2003 at the Technical University in Vienna. The conference was organized by a group called Students and Faculty against the War and was announced on the AIK’s website,21 which also posted the supporters’ signatures.22 When contacted individually, it turned out that several of the professors who signed had not been informed of the AIK’s backing of the conference. However, others clearly did know.

Dr. Yvonne Schmidt, assistant lecturer at the Institute for International Law and International Relations of Karl Franzens University in Graz, was one of the signatories. In December 2005, the Vienna-based Society of Austro-Arab Relations (SAAR) organized a panel discussion at Karl Franzens University called “Palestine: Autonomous State or Israel’s Colony?” The invited speakers were Schmidt and the German journalist Dr. Ludwig Watzal, a frequent contributor to the AIK’s website.23 The panel was to be moderated by Fritz Edlinger, general secretary of the SAAR and editor of the German edition of Israel Shamir’s anti-Semitic book, Blumen aus Galiläa (Flowers of Galilee).24  

This discussion was originally scheduled for November 2005. However, massive protests by the public, faculty, and a local organization called MayDay Graz, consisting mainly of students and young intellectuals, led the rector of the university to withdraw his authorization to hold this event at Karl Franzens University. The protests were directed mainly at Edlinger’s participation, and were also backed by the historian Prof. Dr. Helmut Konrad, former rector of the university and specialist in contemporary history.

Eventually, though, the event was rescheduled and, thanks to Schmidt’s involvement in organizing it, was held on 16 December 2005 at the Institute for International Law and International Relations, which coorganized it. Watzal did not take part for health reasons, and Schmidt was the main speaker. According to Edlinger’s report,25 she dealt with aspects of Israel’s “politics of occupation.” Most likely as a result of the protests, the organizers also invited Konrad to give a statement at the opening of the event.

In an interview in the February 2006 issue of the periodical law@graz, Schmidt attributes full responsibility for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Israel as the oppressive power, and the United States.26

Yvonne Schmidt is also Associated Expert of the Centre for Islam in Europe (C.I.E.) at Gent University, Belgium, which propagates the boycott of Israeli academics.27 The second revised edition of her thesis (Vienna, 2001): “Foundations of Civil and Political Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories “was published in 2006 as an E-book on the university website.28 In this book she claims that political Zionism is responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict due to its “reducing the political status and the chances to self-determination of the native Arab inhabitants”. 29

On the occasion of the Lebanon War 2006, Schmidt initiated an open letter to a “call for investigation and possible prosecution of war crimes” by the International Criminal Court. The letter was published by C.I.E.30

During the summer terms in 2006 and 2007, Schmidt gave lectures on “Völkerrechtliche Fragen im Kontext der gegenwärtigen Krise im Nahen und Mittleren Osten”(Questions of International Law in the Context of the Present Crisis in the Near and Middle East). A Near & Middle East database on her website31 is continuously updated and contains, among others, articles that justify the Iranian nuclear politics as well as the official  explanation of the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the General Assembly resolution on “Holocaust Denial” (26 January 2007).32

● The AIK’s attempts to gain influence in Austrian universities. On 1 January 2006, in the aftermath of the event in Graz, the AIK posted on its website an open letter of protest addressed to Prof. Konrad from a local pro-Palestinian organization (Verein Palästina-Steiermark). The letter accuses Konrad of insufficiently favoring pro-Palestinian events at the university. It states: “We are missing the presence of Arab history and especially Palestinian history at the Institute for Contemporary History in Graz.”33 The implication is that these subjects are intentionally excluded.

AIK activists have also repeatedly tried to occupy lecture rooms at the University of Vienna so as to advance their views.34 The AIK is also trying to increase its influence on the Council of Austrian Students (Österreichische Hochschülerschaft).35

The Society of Austro-Arab Relations (SAAR) and Fritz Edlinger. As demonstrated by the example at Karl Franzens University, the SAAR is trying to gain influence in Austrian academia. Bunzl describes the SAAR as an exclusively humanitarian organization,36 its Bulletins37 contain much anti-Israeli bias. As noted, the organization’s general secretary is Fritz Edlinger, who meanwhile has officially regretted being the editor of Blumen aus Galiläa. Yet his interview on 18 September 2005 to Muslim-Markt, a website for  German-speaking Muslims, is still available on the SAAR’s website.38

In this interview, Edlinger consistently downplays Shamir’s attacks on Zionism, Israel, and the Jews. He calls the criticism of the book a “hysterical campaign” by Zionist writers. He is probably referring to the Austrian journalist Karl Pfeifer, winner of the Samuel Bloch Award for his struggle against anti-Semitism in 2003. Edlinger also mentions the Austrian online review Die Juedische (http://www.juedische.at/), disrespectfully calling it “Zionistische Internetpostille” (“the Zionist internet-leaflet”).

Edlinger also denies being anti-Semitic, referring to his political past. Yet, in 1982, he already attacked the IKG, asking “if it was acceptable for them to receive financial support from official institutions from a country [Austria] whose chancellor [Kreisky] is vilified as an enemy of Israel.”39

● Andrea Komlosy. Professor of history at the University of Vienna, Komlosy is a former Maoist40 and also supported with her signature the 2003 Congress against War and Embargo in Iraq.

In a recent statement, the AIK supported Ahmadinejad’s suggestion to set up a Jewish state in Austrian and German territory. As the AIK put it: “the countries that are responsible for the Holocaust should see to the establishment of a Jewish state in their own territory instead of supporting the rape of territory of the Palestinian people.”41 They also refer to Komlosy, who propounded similar ideas in 2002 in an article in the conservative newspaper Presse.42

According to Komlosy in this article, the recognition of Israel entailed transferring responsibility for the Holocaust to a part of the world that played no role in it. She also criticizes Israel for being based on the Jewish religion. Komlosy states that the fact that every Jew in the world is a potential citizen of Israel causes structural problems of space. These lead to Israeli expansion and create conflicts with the Arabs who live in territories that Israel claims.

Also in the same article, Komlosy describes Israel as the bridgehead for the victors in World War II. The only solution, she maintains, is to create a Jewish state in an “exclusive settlement area” in Germany. She claims that Israel is falsely likened to David whereas the Palestinians are demonized as Goliath. Palestinian attacks, she suggests, are wrongly defined as terrorism and are actually “acts of defense against an unjustified occupation.”

The historian Wolfgang Neugebauer, former head of the DOEW, refers to Komlosy’s harsh condemnation of Zionism and the Jewish state in the latter’s Presse article.43

● Hans Köchler. Professor of philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, existential philosophy, cultural hermeneutics, human rights, philosophy of law, international relations, and political philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Köchler heads the Institute for Philosophy there. He, too, was a supporter of the Congress against War and Embargo in Iraq and also a speaker at the gathering. In April 2000, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Köchler as an international observer at the Lockerbie trial.44

Köchler often supports AIK activities. He is president of a Vienna-based NGO, the International Progress Organization (IPO), which claims to promote tolerance toward all nationalities and cultures but displays a strong anti-Israeli bias in its publications and in statements by Köchler himself.45

In his publications, Köchler repeatedly defines Israel as the “occupying power in Palestine.”46 One of his more recent documents is a “Statement on Behalf of the Network of Non-Governmental Organizations on the Question of Palestine,” issued on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November 2005.47

Köchler is not only associated with the extreme Left but also with the extreme Right. On 25 November 1995, he gave a lecture at a Symposium on Europe and the Third World of the Freiheitliche Akademie, an institution of the far-Right Freedom Party.48 Köchler appears in a document the IPO issued on 1 February 2000 as a defender of the coalition the Conservatives formed with the Freedom Party to resist the sanctions against Austria. In this document he opposes “demonizing the Freedom Party, Austria’s second biggest party.”49

In February 1988, the International Herald Tribune reported that in the preceding year Köchler had nominated Waldheim as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.50

As Karl Pfeifer notes, Köchler also has contacts with the far-Right LaRouche movement.51 In 1998, Köchler appeared as a supporter of a press release published by the German branch of the LaRouche movement, Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität (Civil Rights Movement Solidarity), in their magazine Neue Solidarität. This German branch of the movement is managed by LaRouche’s wife, Helga Zepp LaRouche. The press release claims that President Clinton should appoint LaRouche, an American extremist, as his economic adviser.52

In January 2003, Köchler presented a paper at a seminar sponsored by the Executive Intelligence Review (a LaRouche publication) on “International Rule of Law and the United Nations.” He stated: “I agree with Mr. LaRouche in that the main motivation for the United States to undertake the invasion of Iraq was to effectively ruin the political order of that country [and] facilitate the implementation of an essentially non-Arab and non-Muslim agenda for the greater Middle East.”53

 

The Extreme Right’s Influence on Austrian Academia

At present, leftist anti-Semitism is manifest in the anti-imperialist and antiglobalization movement. However, traditional anti-Semitism that usually is associated with right-wing groups and neo-Nazis remains an active force. As demonstrated by the case of Köchler, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the extreme Right and Left. There are interconnections, and the boundaries are often blurred.

The DOEW cites the Palästinensische Gemeinde Österreich (Palestinian Community of Austria) as a right-wing organization. Their former vice-president and current honorary president, the physician Dr. Georg Nicola, participated in 2003 in a panel discussion together with Gerhard Zeihsel-former deputy of the Freedom Party in Vienna and president of the Holocaust-revisionist Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft in Österreich (Sudeten German Compatriots)54-and the attorney Eva Maria Barki. The discussion was titled “From Benes to Sharon: Sudeten Germans and Palestinians-Oppressed and Driven Out.” (Von Benes zu Sharon. Sudetendeutsche und Palästinenser – Entrechtet und vertrieben).55 The Stephen Roth Institute, in its report on Austria for 2003-2004, noted:

An advertisement for the event printed in Der Eckartbote, read, inter alia:

Both ethnic groups were deported, both are deprived of their right to a home country…. The brutal and bloody strategy employed by the Israeli army borders on ethnic cleansing and genocide. Some say that the Israeli military works like the local SS aid divisions in Eastern Europe.56

The same report mentions several right-wing organizations of students and intellectuals.

In February 2006, the British anti-Semitic historian David Irving was sentenced in Austria for Holocaust denial. Heribert Schiedel noted that the far-Right Freiheitliche Akademikerverband (Liberal Academics Association), an organization of academics affiliated to the Freedom Party, were the first to invite Irving to Austria in 1989. Last fall the Olympia Fraternity, an organization of far-Right academics and students that includes a considerable number of leading Freedom Party members, had invited Irving before he was arrested.57

On 6 April 2003, Olympia’s website published a press release condemning the American and British intervention in Iraq and announcing a new organization called Fraternities against Imperialism. The press release also claims a correlation between “Anglo-American” warfare and Arab reactions such as suicide bombings and guerrilla tactics.58

On 25 May 2005, Olympia held a panel discussion called “Pulverfaß Nahost!: Explodiert Europa mit?” (Powder-Keg Middle East: Does Europe Explode as Well?). One of the speakers was Richard Melisch, a Beirut businessman and frequent contributor to Aula, the organ of the Freiheitliche Akademikerverband and the nationalist student organizations, about whom the Stephen Roth Institute reports:

In March 2002 Zur Zeit [the Freedom Party’s weekly paper] commissioned an article by Richard Melisch on the Middle East conflict which according to Melisch has already been won by the Arabs. In the future, he sees no place for Jews (“a people that claims special rights based on their self-proclaimed chosenness”) in the region and foresees “a new exodus, this time in the other direction [which] should not pose a problem since most Israelis have more than one passport anyway.”59

In 2002, the Austrian Organization against Racism (ZARA) reported on a local organization of the Freedom Party that distributed a pamphlet by Melisch called “Middle East Crisis Area” (“Krisengebiet Nahost”). In it he spoke, on the one hand, of “globally organised Zionism that cannot be understood in territorial terms with connections to (Jewish) high finance in New York”. 60 On the other hand, he referred to the Arab peoples as “always [having been] our friends.” Melisch also called “Arab liberation organisations” a “legitimate resistance movement against the Zionist occupiers.”

Aula dedicated its entire September 2004 issue to the question of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It asserted that the two are not the same, in effect sanctioning the replacement of Jews by Israel and Ariel Sharon as targets for vilification.61

Univ. Doz. Dr. Friedrich Romig teaches at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. He contributes to Aula and is considered a link between Catholic and extreme-Right circles. In a recent article posted at the illfamed Zundelsite, he quotes Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry and says that not only a new branch of industry has arisen but also a new “Holocaust religion” that, he claims, replaces Christianity. “The relationship between the United States and Israel leads, therefore, to NATO becoming a ‘Greater Israel Alliance’ that can establish this Holocaust religion worldwide.”62

According to Romig and others, the boycott of Austria after the 1999 elections was due to “the same clique involved in the anti-Waldheim conspiracy, namely, an international conspiracy of Jews [that] had revived its activities against Austria.”63

The right-wing website Wiener Nachrichten Online, which is affiliated with the Freedom Party, published an interview with Noam Chomsky64 and a review of the German translation of his book No Chance for Peace,65 which is full of anti-Israeli and anti-American demagoguery. This is another example of the convergence of right- and left-wing anti-Israelism.

Prospects

In the winter term for 2005, Univ. Doz. Dr. Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, director of the DOEW, held a seminar at the University of Vienna’s Institute for Political Science titled “Anti-Semitism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Austria after 1945.” One lecture given on 23 November 2005 was titled “Feindbild Israel” (Concept of the Enemy: Israel) and dealt with the history of Zionism and Israel, the Shoah and world politics, the history of Islamism as a means of understanding the Middle East conflict, and the difficult borderline between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Dr. Bailer-Galanda noted a general positive feedback from the students.66

There is an active group of students, the Council of Political Science Students at the University of Vienna, that works against anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli bias. Together with the Café Critique, a Vienna-based group of political scientists that advocates for Israel among other endeavors, they organize events on the Middle East with speakers such as Matthias Küntzel, a German political scientist; Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, a German human rights activist focusing on the situation in Iraq; and Ulrich Sahm, a German journalist covering the Middle East. MayDay Graz has been mentioned previously.

In conclusion: Although anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism are not mainstream at Austrian universities, it is necessary to remain alert.

*     *     *

Notes

1. Wolfgang Neugebauer and Peter Schwarz, Der Wille zum aufrechten Gang: Offenlegung der Rolle des BSA bei der gesellschaftlichen Reintegration ehemaliger Nationalsozialisten (Wien: Czernin Verlag, 2005).  [German]

2. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Jews against Israel,” Nativ Online, Vol. 8 (October  2005), http://www.acpr.org.il/english-nativ/08-issue/gerstenfeld-8.htm%20%5b2[2 April 2006].

3. Bruno Kreisky, Zwischen den Zeiten: Erinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1986). [German]

4. Ibid, 64.

5. Anton Pelinka, “Nicht die Judenfrage, der Antisemitismus ist das Problem,” in Max Halhuber, 5 Fragen an 3 Generationen: Der Antisemitismus und wir heute (Wien: Czernin Verlag), 54. [German]

6. Kreisky, Zwischen den Zeiten, 360-61.

7. Julius Braunthal, Geschichte der Internationale, Vol. 3 (Hannover: J. H. W. Dietz Nachf. GmbH, 1971), 414. [German]

8. Socialist Affairs, Vol. 1 (1977), quoted in John Bunzl, Between Vienna and Jerusalem: Reflections and Polemics on Austria, Israel and Palestine (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), 56.

9. Robert Wistrich, “The Strange Case of Bruno Kreisky,” Encounter, Vol. 52, No. 5 (May 1979), 78.

10. Bunzl, Between Vienna and Jerusalem, 58.

11. Harry Delfiner, “The Socialist International and the Rise of Yasir Arafat,” Midstream, November/December 2002, quoted in Gerstenfeld, “Jews against Israel.”

12. Franz Rauscher, “Die Waldheim Affaire: Eine Reminiszenz,” Der Standard, 5 February 2006. [German]

13. Sonja Niederacher, “Postwar Austria and the Jewish Refugees: The Role of the Exile Studies in Coming to Terms with the Past,” www.demokratiezentrum.org/pdfs/niederacher_exile.pdf, 4 [2 April 2006].

14. Speech of Stuart W. Eizenstat to the Austrian parliament on the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day, 6 May 2005, www.parlinkom.gv.at/portal/page?_pageid=908,873974&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL [2 April 2006].

15. Matthias Küntzel, Djihad und Judenhass (Freiburg: Ca ira, 2002) [German].

16. Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, Anti-Semitism Report Austria 2002/03, www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2002-3/austria.htm  [2 April 2006].

17. Heribert Schiedel (Aktion gegen Antisemitismus), “Die Antiimperialistische Koordination (AIK): Antisemitismus im linken Gewand,” www.doew.at/aktuell/aktion/aik.html [2 April 2006]. [German]

18. John Bunzl, “Das DÖW auf dem Leim der ‘antideutschen Linken’?”, www.antiimperialista.org/index.php/?option=com_content&task=view&id=518&Itemid=0 [2 April 2006]. [German]

19. John Bunzl, “Taktische Rhetorik,” letter to the editor, Der Standard, 12 December 2005 [German]. A summary  of Bunzl’s letter together with a response by Ruth Contreras, published in Der Standard on 19 December 2005, may be found at Scholars for Peace in the Middle East-Faculty Forum, 25 December 2005, www.spme.net/cgi-bin/facultyforum.cgi?ID=2101.

20. John Bunzl, “Islam’s Holocaust Denial Trap,” Haaretz, 10 February 2006, www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681383.html [20 February 2006].  www.lebanonwire.com/0602MN/06021003HZ.asp [30 May 2007]

21. “Irak-Kongress: Stoppt Krieg und Embargo!” Campo Imperialista, www.antiimperialista.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=959&Itemid=0 [29 May 2006]. [German]

22. “Kongress gegen Krieg und Embargo in Wien Proponent/Innen,” Campo Antiimperialista, www.antiimperialista.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=494&Itemid=0 [29 May 2006]. [in German]

23. John Rosenthal, “Germany’s Terror Apologist,” TCS Daily, 23 February 2006, www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022306F [2 April 2006].

24. Israel Shamir:: “Blumen aus Galiläa. Schriften gegen die Zerstörung des Heiligen Landes” (ProMedia Verlag, Wien 2005, ISBN 3-85371-231-2., English Edition: Flowers of Galilee , Dandelion Books 2004, ISBN 1-893302-78-4.  In its report on Austria 2005 the Steven Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism quotes this book under the section “Propaganda.”

25. “Stellungnahme von Fritz Edlinger zu den Vorkommnissen im Zusammenhang mit einer Palästinaveranstaltung in Graz,” www.saar.at/pdf/Brief201205.pdf [2 April 2006]. [German]

26.  “Schriftliches Interview von Dr. Yvonne Schmidt für die Februar 2006 Ausgabe der Zeitung,” law@graz, www.uni-graz.at/yvonne.schmidt/WABL%20-%20Interview%20mit%20Dr.%20Schmidt%20-%20kurz-25.1.2006.doc [2 April  2006]. [German]

27. Appeal  to British  Academics by PACBI; Boycott the Israeli Academy Now! published on the Website of C.I.E., www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/Palestina/palestina381.htm

28. Yvonne Schmidt: “Foundations of Civil and Political Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories”, www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/yschmidt/index.htm

29.  Ibid. Chapter H; Summary and final conclusions, www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/yschmidt/17schmidt.htm

30. Destruction of Lebanon July 2006 – Call for Investigation and Possible Prosecution of WAR CRIMES by the International Criminal Court, www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/Palestina/palestina255.htm

31. Yvonne Schmidt: Near & Middle East (Naher & Mittlerer Osten) Database, www.uni-graz.at/yvonne.schmidt/NAHOST.html

32. Explanation of the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the General Assembly resolution on ” Holocaust Denial” (26 January  2007) www.un.int/iran/statements/generalassembly/session60/session60/9.htm

33. Open letter to Prof. Konrad: “Offener Brief an Prof. Konrad vom Verein Palästina (Steiermark),” 1 January 2006,
www.antiimperialista.org/index.php/?option=com_content&task=view&id=4054&Itemid=82 [30 May  2007]. [German]

34. Personal communication from Stephan Grigat (Basisgruppe Politikwissenschaften, University of Vienna, and Café Critique), April 2004.

35. Personal communication from Heribert Schiedel (Aktion gegen Antisemitismus), 1 March 2006.

36, Bunzl, Between Vienna and Jerusalem, 47-48.

37. Society for Austro-Arab relations, www.saar.at/bulletinf.html  [30 May  2007]

38. “Muslim-Markt interviewt Fritz Edlinger, Generalsekretär der Gesellschaft für Österreichisch-Arabische Beziehungen,” 18 September 2005, www.saar.at/muslimmarkt_interviewt.htm [30 May 2007]. [German]

39. Margit Reiter, Unter Antisemitismusverdacht: Studienverlag (Wien, München: Bozen, 2001), 302. [German]

40.  Karl Pfeifer: Antiimperialistischen Koordination: Über einige Proponenten eines Kongresses “gegen Krieg und Embargo” in Wien, first published in Hagalil, 30.März 2003, www.klick-nach-rechts.de/austria/aik-2.htm [German]

41. Campo Antiimperialista, “Krokodilstränen der Politisch korrekten Elite,”  www.antiimperialista.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3886&Itemid=82  [2 April 2006]. [German]

42. Andrea Komlosy, “Mit allen Mitteln,” originally published in Die Presse (Spectrum), 27 July 2002,
www.diepresse.at/Artikel.aspx?channel=sp&ressort=S100&id=300399&archiv=false [2 April 2006]. [German] www.muslim-markt.de/Palaestina-Spezial/geschichtechronik/pseudostaat_israel.htm [30 May 2007]

43. Wolfgang Neugebauer, “Israelkritik als neuer Antisemitismus?” first published in Schalom: Zeitschrift der Österreichisch-Israelischen Gesellschaft, Nr. 3/4, Oktober 2003, 28-30; Die Jüdische, 6 April 2005, www.doew.at/aktuell/aktion/wn.html [30 May 2007]. [German]

44. Statement by Dr. Hans Köchler on the agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and the Libyan Jamahiriya on the remaining issues relating to the fulfilment of all Security Council resolutions resulting from the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, 23 August 2003, www.i-p-o.org/koechler-lockerbie-statement-aug2003.htm [28 March 2006].

45. Aaron Beitman, “International Progress Organization: Analysis,” NGO Monitor, 30 March 2006, www.ngo-monitor.org/archives/infofile/ipo_300306.html [30 May 2006].

46. Final Resolution of international conference on “Israel as Occupying Power,” International Progress Organization, Vienna, 2-3 May 1984, www.i-p-o.org/iop.htm [28 March  2006]; memorandum of the IPO addressed to the President of the General Assembly and to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the humanitarian emergency and threat to peace resulting from the Security Council’s sanctions policy vis-à-vis Iraq,  www.embargos.de/irak/statement/memo_iraq_un_ipo_en.htm  [28 March 2006].

47. Hans Köchler, “Statement on Behalf of the Network of Non-Governmental Organizations on the Question of Palestine,” Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, 29 November 2005, www.i-p-o.org/Koechler-IPO-Palestine-UN-29Nov2005.pdf [28 March 2006].

48. Hans Köchler, lecture, “123. Eine Weltordnung im Sinne der Herrschaft der Westlichen Werte?,” Symposion “Europa und die Dritte Welt,” Freiheitliche Akademie, Baden bei Wien, Austria (25 November 1995), www.hanskoechler.com/koechler-lectures.htm [31 May 2006] [German]

49. IPO, “Austria-European Union,”  www.i-p-o.org/austria-eu.htm [31 May 2006].

50. “Waldheim Amid Furor Remains Candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize,” International Herald Tribune, 11 February 1988, www.i-p-o.org/herald-tribune-88.jpg   [2 April 2006].

51. Karl Pfeifer, Antiimperialistischen Koordination: Über einige Proponenten eines Kongresses “gegen Krieg und Embargo” in Wien”

52. “Kurznachrichten: Bürgerrechtsbewegung International,” Neue Solidarität, 44/98, www.solidaritaet.com/neuesol/1998/44/bueso.htm [1 July 2006]. [German]

53. Hans Köchler: International Rule of Law and the United Nations, www.hanskoechler.com/koechler-IRLUN-Berlin-Jan05.htm  [23 July 2006].

54. Markus Ströhlein: Das Verhältnis deutscher “Vertriebener” zu Shoah und Israel (hagalil.com 27-01-2004). www.hagalil.com/archiv/2004/01/vertriebene.htm  [German]

55. Heribert Schiedel, “Die Antiimperialistische Koordination: Antisemitismus im linken Gewand,” www.doew.at/frames.php?/aktuell/aktion/aik.html. [German]

56. Stephen Roth Institute, Anti-Semitism Worldwide, Country Reports 2003-2004 Austria, www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2003-4/austria.htm [31 May, 2006].

57. Heribert Schiedel, “Zum Ausgang des Wiener Irving-Prozesses,” www.no-racism.net/article/1584/, 7 March 2006  [31 May 2006]. [German]

58. “Presseerklärung der Burschenschaftlichen Gemeinschaft in DB und DBÖ (BG) zum Irak-Krieg,” www.olympia.burschenschaft.at/BG_IRAK.html [31 May 2006]. [German]

59. Stephen Roth Institute, Anti-Semitism Worldwide, Country Reports 2002-2003 Austria, www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2002-3/austria.htm [31 May 2006].

60. “Case Report on Racist Incidents and Structures in Austria: Focus: Civil Courage,” ZARA Racism Report 2002, 17 [www.zara.or.at/materialien/rassismus-report/racism-report-2002.pdf  [2 April 2006].

61. Karl Pfeifer, “Aula: ‘Antizionismus ist nicht Antisemitismus,'” Hagalil, 24 September 2004, www.hagalil.com/archiv/2004/09/aula.htm [7 June 2006]. [German]

62. Friedrich Romig, “Der Holocaust, die neue Weltreligion,” 16 April 2006, www.zundelsite.org/zundel_persecuted/april16-06.html [7 June 2006]. [German]

63. Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, Anti-Semitism Worldwide Country Reports 1999-2000 Austria www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw99-2000/austria.htm [7 June 2006].

64. Wiener Nachrichten Online, “Es gibt keinen Krieg gegen den Terror” (interview with Noam Chomsky), www.wienernachrichten.com/newpages/com41e.html   [1 April 2006]. [German]

65. Noam Chomsky, Keine Chance für Frieden: Warum mit Israel und den USA kein Palästinenserstaat zu machen ist (Hamburg: Europa Verlag, 2005). [German]

66. Personal communication, 2 February 2006.

*     *     *

Dr. Ruth Contreras is a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East from 2002 to the present. She is also the European coordinator for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and coordinator of the Austrian Chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East . Formerly head of the Department of Entomology at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, she is now pursuing Jewish studies at the University of Vienna.