Environmental group led by Greta Thunberg boots out pro-BDS German party
Anti-Nazi and anti-fascist groups also evicted the same pro-PFLP, Marxist party.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALGreenpeace, Fridays for Future and other environmental organisations protest against the commissioning of the North Rhine Westphalian stone coal-fired power plant Datteln 4 in Datteln, Germany, January 24, 2020(photo credit: REUTERS/WOLFGANG RATTAY)
The German city of Bochum's branch of the student ecology movement Fridays for Future – formed by the Swedish teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg and an organization devoted to fighting Nazism – kicked the pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Marxist-Leninist Party in Germany out of their alliances due to the party's misconduct, including allegedly tearing down a placard against antisemitism.The ouster of the party, which defends the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), took place in late January and early February.Fridays for Future (FFF), which was started by Thunberg in 2018, claimed that the Marxist-Leninist activists tore down a placard stating “against every form of antisemitism" at a demonstration in Germany, according to a report in the Berlin daily DerTagesspiegel.The students said the party members were disrupting their protests for the environment. The Marxist-Leninist party “misuses [Fridays for Future] for their purposes agbergnd without consideration and respect for the organizers,” wrote the young students in a statement.The paper reported that supporters of the party attempted to intimidate a 14-year-old student in the city of Dortmund at an FFF event.Fridays for Future is run by students who strike for the environment. The paper reported inappropriate behavior from the Marxist-Leninist party in at least 35 German cities where students protested to protect the climate.A spokesman for the Marxist-Leninists, Peter Weispfenning, denied that party members ripped down the sign protesting antisemitism. He said the motivation to discredit his party is driven by “pure anti-communism.” The anti-Nazi alliance "Essen stellt sich quer" – the city of Essen turns across – opposed the Marxist-Leninist activists and members for improper behavior at their events. A Jerusalem Post press query to Weispfenning went unanswered.According to German media reports, a number of left-wing and anti-fascist groups have also pulled the plug on their work with the party for similar reasons outlined by FFF and the anti-Nazi alliance organization in Essen.The Marxist-Leninist party glorifies the former Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, the former Chinese communist leader responsible for the murder of an estimated 45 million people within a four-year period during his so-called "Great Leap Forward" – a brutal social and economic campaign.
The party has campaigned with supporters of the PFLP. The US government and the EU classify the group as a foreign terrorist organization. The Marxist-Leninists want the PFLP de-listed from terror lists.A 2017 Jerusalem Post exposé led to the Deutsche Bank and the Postbank to close their accounts with the Marxist-Leninist Party. The party sued the Deutsche Bank and suffered a stinging legal defeat.The Marxist-Leninists believed that the banks shut down their accounts due to the Post's media coverage of the party's finances in connection with BDS activity and alleged Palestinian terror finance."These [closures] apparently originate from ultra-right defenders of the imperialistic policies of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu as well as reactionary US government authorities and investments funds," the party said in a statement at the time, adding that the closures were "implemented by Deutsche Bank.”One of the PFLP's key members, the Palestinian hijacker and terrorist Leila Khaled, delivered pro-BDS speeches across Europe in 2016 targeting Israel.According to Der Tagesspiegel, the Marixist-Leninist party praised the PFLP for "50 years of steadfastness against Zionist state terror.”In 2014, two PFLP members murdered four men during morning prayers in a Jerusalem synagogue and fatally wounded a police officer.The Marxist-Leninist Party spread a text over the Internet covering the January remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, in which the party accused the Jewish state of creating a “Holocaust industry” and “perfidious instrumentalization” of the Shoah.
