🔶 Intensification of pressure on the Left Party in Berlin over antisemitism

Pressure from German politicians on the Left Party in Berlin to distance itself more clearly from antisemitic positions has increased.

Karin Prien, a Jewish-born minister of education in Germany, says that otherwise Jews cannot feel safe in the capital.

Speaking on Germany’s ARD television channel, this Christian Democratic politician said that with such a Left Party in Berlin, no coalition can be formed.

Lars Klingbeil and Berbble Bas, the co-chairs of the Social Democratic Party, as well as Matthias Klawsndorff, the party’s general secretary, announced that the Left Party should not give even an inch to antisemitism and criminals linked to family gangs within its ranks.

The Greens also asked the party to expel its antisemitic members.

Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, also accused the Left Party of having a deep, structural problem in understanding democracy.

According to him, there is a pattern in which antisemitism is treated as less important in parts of the Left Party and is hidden behind political activism.

The Left Party, which won the Berlin state parliament elections, intends to hold talks to form a government with the Social Democrats and the Greens.

At the party’s election celebration last Sunday, “the boss of a family network” and an activist of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the European Union assesses as a terrorist organization, were present.

In relation to this issue, today, Wednesday, September 23 (1 Mehr), yet again a debate broke out within the Left Party, and the party’s leadership promised that it would not tolerate antisemitism.

But Tom Olige, an adjunct professor of promoting democracy at the “Rhine-Main” University of Applied Sciences, who has been researching antisemitism for years, says that such broadly stated positions are not enough.

Olige explains: “Of course, one can criticize the Israeli government, but one must make sure that the line toward antisemitism is not crossed.

This happens regularly and is met with only a relatively small response.” According to him, setting red lines is fine, but after that, “it must also be monitored that these red lines are observed.”

📌 Read the full text of the report on the website of DW Persian.