Austria's Chancellor (literally) flies the Israeli flag

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian ("Basti") Kurz is embattled on several fronts: himself facing an investigation for lying to a formal Parliamentary investigation, his Finance Minister is under fire over an embarrassing refusal to release documents the courts had ordered him to provide as part of larger corruption investigations, Basti getting diplomatic criticism and mocking profiles in the German press for his odd posturing within the EU.

He recently took the odd step of flying the Israeli flag over the Chancellor's office alongside the Austrian flag as a sign of unilateral support for Benjamin Netanyahu's government in its current actions against Palestinians.

Austria is a member of the European Union and is closely aligned with Western countries generally. But it is officially a neutral country that is not a member of any military alliances, not even NATO.

In this context, the Vienna Standard's Florian Niederndorfer interviewed political scientist Heinz Gärtner about this diplomatic gesture on Basti's part. (Politologe über Israels Flagge auf dem Kanzleramt: "Man entwürdigt die palästinensischen Opfer" 16.05.2021):

STANDARD: Darf ein neutrales Land wie Österreich auf seinem wichtigsten Regierungsgebäude die Flagge eines anderen Landes hissen, das sich im Krieg befindet?

Gärtner: Ich halte das in einer Kriegssituation für völlig unangebracht. Eine Sache ist es, die Raketenangriffe der Hamas zu verurteilen, man kann sich deshalb aber nicht völlig hinter die Politik Israels stellen. Das bedeutet zu negieren, dass der Anlass ja die Evakuierung von arabischen Wohnungen in Ostjerusalem war. Dies hat die Palästinenser beunruhigt, was die Hamas dann ausgenutzt hat. Wenn man als Österreich dann Israels Fahne aufhängt, akzeptiert man auch die Kriegshandlungen Israels. Man würdigt damit zwar zu Recht die israelischen Opfer, entwürdigt aber die palästinensischen Opfer. Indirekt akzeptiert man damit schlussendlich auch den Angriff auf das Medienzentrum in Gaza am Samstag, auch wenn man die Fahne vorher schon aufgezogen hat. 

STANDARD: Should a neutral country like Austria hoist the flag of another country at war on its most important government building?

Gärtner: I think that is totally inappropriate in a war situation. One thing is to condemn Hamas' rocket attacks, but we cannot fully support Israel's policy. This means denying that the cause [that set off the current set of conflicts] was the evacuation of Arab homes in East Jerusalem. This has alarmed the Palestinians, which Hamas then exploited. If you then fly Israel's flag as Austria, you also accept Israel's acts of war. It is right to pay tribute to the Israeli victims, but it degrades the Palestinian victims. Indirectly, this also accepts the attack on the media center in Gaza on Saturday, even if the flag had already been lowered beforehand. [my translation and emphasis]

In Austria and other EU countries, the far-right parties and groups can use an Israel-Palestine flareup to promote both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic narratives by condemning both sides as barbaric and worthy only of contempt and hatred.

That's not the exact game Basti is playing with this. As head of the conservative, Christian Democratic People Party (ÖVP), he acknowledges an Austria responsibility in the heritage of the Holocaust. But he has also played hard for the xenophobic and Islamophobic vote. His favorite political posture is as the Savior of Austria against all types of foreigners: refugees, Muslims, Turks, the EU. And one way that the right uses Islamophobia is to say, look, Muslims hate Jews and we hate Muslims, so we can't be anti-Semitic. When Austrian politicians talk about protecting Austria from "imported" anti-Semitism, that is code for "keep Muslims immigrants out."

Part of the complication of the current conflict for the United States is that it is negotiating with Iran in Vienna to rejoin the Iranian nuclear arms control agreement (JCPOA). Iran has a Presidential election on June 18, and the more reasons Iranians perceive to be hostile to the US, the more problems it could raise for the US keeping the JCPOA alive.

Gärtner notes in his interview that although Austria isn't formally involved in the US-Iran negotiations, hosting the talks in Vienna was a good thing illustrating how Austria can play a wider constructive role as a neutral country. He says that flying the Israeli flag "surely weakened" Vienna's position as the potential host of such negotiations in the future. "It is clear that the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who wanted to demonstrate Iran's support for the negotiations in Vienna, cannot go to the Austrian Foreign Ministry when the Israeli flag is flying up," he notes.