European Jewish Congress urges German MPs to stop their ‘hate crimes’
German MPs are part of a group calling for Israel's destruction
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALKantor addresses the ‘An End to Antisemitism’ conference in Vienna in 2018(photo credit: Courtesy)
The foreign policy spokesman of the German Green Party, Omid Nouripour, along with two other left-wing MPs in the Bundestag is under heavy fire from the 2.5 million member European Jewish Congress for his role on the advisory board of an allegedly antisemitic pro-BDS group. “A public official from a nation which maintains good relations with the State of Israel has no business belonging to an organization which aspires to end the Jewish State. They can choose between the two positions, but should not be able to maintain both. As the German Government have demonstrated, by adopting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism and no public official should be openly engaged in hate crimes without repercussions,” The European Jewish Congress told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.The Brussels-based European Jewish Congress is the representative umbrella organization of national Jewish communities, including Germany’s 100,000-member Central Council of Jews, a new setback to Nouripour who told the Post on Twitter that he is not pro-BDS.The European Jewish Congress is a body of democratically elected national Jewish community organizations in over 40 European countries that brings together 2.5 million Jews across Europe.The presidents of two of Germany’s largest local communities in Frankfurt; Salomon Korn, and Munich; Charlotte Knobloch, have told the Post that Nouripour should resign from the advisory board of the German-Palestinian Society (DPG) because it supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting Israel.The head of Munich’s Jewish community, the Holocaust survivor, Knobloch, said in May that “all true democrats ought to follow [Olaf] in der Beek’s example and leave the DPG advisory board.” Nouripour has rejected appeals from Korn and Knobloch and scores of other German Jews to pull the plug on his pro-BDS activity by serving on the advisory board of the DPG.The Free Democratic Party MP in der Beek resigned from the DPG advisory board in May due to the group pro-BDS antisemitism. Last year the German Bundestag declared BDS to be an antisemitic movement.The Post reported this month that vice president of the DPG, Ursula Mindermann, presented an exhibit urging the obliteration of the Jewish state.In response to the Post’s coverage of the DPG, the DPD organization sent out a news letter stating under the title “Defamation” that “The DPG and especially members of the DPG advisory board are once again insulted and defamed as antisemitic in ‘The Jerusalem Post’ by a writer who should not be taken seriously. We have decided not to respond to these slanders because we are completely concerned with, and dedicated to, the political situation in Palestine and don’t need a distraction.“The Post queries sent to Nouripour and leaders of the Green Party – Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock – went unanswered
The additional members under pressure to resign from the DPG advisory board are Social Democratic MP Aydan Ozogus and Left Party MP Christine Buchholz.When asked repeatedly on twitter if Nouripour should resign from the DPG, the former Green Party MP Volker Beck, who was also head of the German-Israel parliamentary group in the Bundestag, issued his first criticism of Nouripour’s alleged anti-Israel politics on Twitter. He wrote that “I often disagree with their foreign policy opinion” in connection with, for example, “Israel and Iran.” German-Iranian dissidents have criticized Nouripour and the second Green Party MP, Claudia Roth, who Beck referenced in his tweet, for their appeasement of the clerical regime in Iran. Post queries to the Social Democratic Party and the Left Party seeking a comment about Ozogus and Buchholz’s role on the advisory board of the DPG were not returned.
