Time: Tuesday, 3 September, 6-8 p.m.
Venue:  Lecture theatre H0106, Straße des 17. Juni 135, TU Berlin main building, ground floor

Admission only with registration by e-mail to: seminar@mideastfreedomforum.org

Ahead of the state elections in Brandenburg on 22 September and directly after the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia on 1 September, political scientists Gideon Botsch and Nikolai Schreiter will talk about the far-right AfD's image of Jews and Israel. Based on empirical research, they will show that the AfD is an extreme right-wing party that spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, cooperates with other extreme right-wing groups and, when Israel becomes an issue at all, occasionally adopts instrumentally pro-Israeli positions in order to agitate against migrant and religious minorities in this country. Theoretically, superficially pro-Jewish or pro-Israeli positions are explained by projection mechanisms, cultural transmission in the extreme right and anti-Semitic diversions communication, among other things. The presentations will focus on the regional conditions in Berlin and Brandenburg and provide an outlook on possible counter-strategies on a democratic basis. Afterwards there will be an opportunity for discussion.

Speakers:

Gideon Botsch, Dr phil., Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Potsdam, Head of the Emil Julius Gumbel Research Centre on Anti-Semitism and Right-Wing Extremism at the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies Potsdam.
Nikolai Schreiter (M.A.), research assistant at the Chair of Political Science with a focus on Comparative Government at the University of Passau in the Bavarian ForGeRex project ‘Antisemitic conspiracy myths and crisis discourses as pivotal points of right-wing extremist mobilisation’.

An event organised by the Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin e.V. and the Young Forum of the DIG Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. in cooperation with the student council of the Master's programme in Interdisciplinary Antisemitism Research and ‘Students against Antisemitism’ (list with two seats in the TU Berlin student parliament).

The event management reserves the right to exercise its domiciliary rights if necessary and to deny access to or exclude from the event persons who belong to right-wing extremist parties or organisations, are associated with the right-wing extremist scene or have already made anti-Semitic, racist, right-wing extremist or other inhumane statements in the past. The same applies to persons and statements that delegitimise the existence of the state of Israel and glorify terror.