The European Forum on Antisemitism has just launched an impressive new website, sure to be an invaluable resource for those of us working on or just arguing about this issue.

Launched in Berlin in March this year, the Forum “is a resource for Jewish community representatives, public opinion leaders, and members of non-governmental organizations dedicated to combating antisemitism. The Forum fosters advocacy, awareness and alertness to reduce the danger of antisemitism, a destabilizing force for democracy.”

Do check the site and do keep returning.

One particular article caught my eye. Z Word readers will remember that last month, Elif Kayi, who covers the European press for us, reported on a pathbreaking pro-Israel speech by Gregor Gysi, head of the leftist party “Die Linke.” On the Forum website, Alan Posener of Welt am Sonntag writes about it too:

In a speech congratulating Israel on its 60^th Anniversary, Gregor Gysi – whose family is of Jewish origin, but who as a member of the East German nomenklatura had never considered himself a Jew - criticized East Germany’s “lack of sensitivity regarding Israel’s security interests” and reminded his party that “solidarity with Israel (is) part of Germany’s raison d’état”. He called the attitude of many on the Left to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “simplistic”, criticized phrases like the “freedom struggle of the Palestinian people” and said that he was “passionately opposed” to the tendency to forget the Israeli victims of Arab terror.

At the same time, Franziska Drohsel, President of the SPD’s youth organization – and under fire for her contacts to left-wing extremists – criticized anti-Zionism as “reactionary” and said that progressives could never align themselves with Islamists against a democratic state like Israel.

Indeed, the Islamo-Fascist threat has helped to concentrate minds. The PLO spoke the language of the European Left. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Co. most definitely do not. It has also helped that Jews within the Left no longer lie low. Within the Social Democratic Party, there is now a Jewish caucus; and, more bizarrely, within the youth organization of the Post-Communist “Linke” hard-core Marxists have organized “BAK Shalom”, which they describe as a “Platform against Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism and Regressive Anti-Capitalism”. Signs and wonders! Since intellectual life in Germany is still dominated by the Left, the re-emergence of a pro-Israeli Left is of far greater importance than the sheer numbers of the people involved might suggest.

Read the rest.