Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is an international organization of scholars dedicated to support Israel and peace in the Middle East. SPME is also engaged in the fight against anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel. SPME/USA newsletter includes some 55.000 subscribers, among them scholars, students, graduate students and activists. SPME is active worldwide, e.g. with chapters in Austria and Germany.

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On November 1, 2010, 38 Nobel laureates signed a petition against any kind of Israel boycott.

Against this background an interview of Prof. Wolfgang Benz, head of the Berlin Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA), is of particular interest. On that very same November 1, 2010, Islamist and anti-Semitic German page „Muslim-Markt“ published an interview with Benz. Since 1990 Benz (born in 1941) has been head of the ZfA, he is an international renowned scholar on right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, National Socialism, and the Holocaust. The Berlin Center (ZfA) is a state-funded institute and Benz is a person of public interest. Taking this into account, Islamist Muslim-Markt is eager to get publicity for their Homepage.

Giving an interview, one has a look at the journal on stake. If Benz didn’t know already who Muslim-Markt is (which would be strange for a scholar in his position) he would have taken a close look on their homepage. No one would ever give an interview to a journal, newspaper or homepage without knowing who they are.

What can we find on www.muslim-markt.de ? The talk about „pseudo state Israel “, „Zionists out of Jerusalem “, „Zionists are racists,“ and they plaid for boycotting Israel. To back up their Israel boycott they have a symbol, showing a crossed out Star of David.

Muslim-Markt is a pro-Iranian page, they published a Christmas address of the Holocaust denier, anti-Semite and dictator Ahmadinejad from December 2008. The page calls up for rallying against Israel in November/December 2010 in Vienna, defaming Israel as „apartheid state “. They publish pictures of rallies with slogans like “children killer Israel ”, shown in the German city of Hamburg on January 2, 2009.

In the interview with Muslim-Markt Benz does not mention any of these anti-Semitic statements, pictures or slogans. Rather he is portraying himself as a victim of „hatred“ as well as of „character assassination.” What might imprisoned and tortured anti-Mullah Iranians think about the fact that Benz supports with his interview Muslim-Markt, the German-Turkish-Islamist page, loyal to Iran?

Benz mentions „hatred,“ obviously aiming at scholars, publicists, authors, and journalists who criticized his analogy of „criticism of Islam“ with „anti-Semitism. This analogy was made by Benz at a conference of his institute (ZfA) in December 2008 and in articles since then. Benz therefore is also framing criticism of his loyalty to Karl Bosl, his Ph.D. advisor at the University of Munich in 1968, as hatred. Bosl, though, was not ‘just’ member of the Nazi party (NSDAP), he was also on the payroll of the Schutzstaffel (SS) in a big project during Nazi Germany and the Second World War. Furthermore, Bosl was active in the 1960s in nationalistic and anti-Semitic circles such as the Witikobund.

Muslim-Markt is well known among scholars and in research for its Islamism and anti-Semitism. German mainstream daily Die Welt reported in 2009 about the ties of Neo-Nazi and right-wing extremists with Islamists of Muslim-Markt: both share hatred of the Jewish state of Israel.

A head of a research center on anti-Semitism in Germany must be aware of all this. Benz gave an interview to Muslim-Markt without criticizing this Islamist page. Rather, Muslim-Markt now uses this interview as advertisement for its page.

Therefore Professor Benz of Technical University Berlin makes anti-Semitism respectable.

For a scholar in such a position as Benz holds, such behavior is all the more problematic.

SPME Austria and SPME Germany are consternated about a head of a Research Center on Antisemitism (ZfA) supporting anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews in Israel („Zionists out of Jerusalem“) by giving such an interview to „Muslim-Markt.“