German Jews urge Green Party MP to resign from ‘antisemitic’ BDS group

Last year, the Bild paper in Germany said Green Party member Claudia Roth made “antisemitism socially respectable” by enthusiastically meeting with the head of Iran’s quasi-Parliament Ali Larijani.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
An anti-Israeli protest inspired by BDS (photo credit: REUTERS)
An anti-Israeli protest inspired by BDS
(photo credit: REUTERS)
German Jews and NGOs have come out swinging against an allegedly anti-Israel German Green Party MP who is on the advisory board of the pro-BDS German-Palestinian Society (GPS) and sympathizes with Iran’s regime.
Green Party MP Omid Nouripour “of course, should resign,” the organization Munich Citizens against Antisemitism told The Jerusalem Post last week
According to the human-rights group, GPS and the role of Nouripour means “they support BDS smear campaigns against Israel, and this is nothing more than left-wing antisemitism, and this means a boycott of Israeli business, science, and art.”
“Who propagates not buying goods from Israel behaves no differently than the National Socialists at the time,” [meaning]: “Do not buy from Jews!” the group said.
“BDS has nothing to do with democracy, freedom of expression or dialogue,” said the Munich-based organization.
Distinguished German-Jewish attorney Nathan Gelbart, who has won legal cases against antisemites, told the Post: “Anyone who knows Nouripour will immediately recognize his wrong appointment in the horror cabinet of the advisory board of GPS. The question is whether and when he recognizes it. BDS stands for hatred of Jews and democratic values.”
Dr. Elio Adler, chairman of the German-Jewish NGO Values Initiative, told the Post the German Bundestag classified BDS as antisemitic in 2019.
“Too blatant is the antisemitism contained in the BDS campaign,” he said, asking why members of the Bundestag are on the advisory board of a BDS entity.
Margaret Traub, chairwoman of the Jewish community in Bonn, told the Post NGOs like the German-Palestinian Society are a “shame for Germany. The virus of antisemitism unfortunately never disappears but mutates. Anti-Zionism is the new socially acceptable variant of antisemitism.”
Lala Süsskind, former chairwoman of Berlin’s Jewish community and currently head of the Jewish Education Institute for Democracy and against Antisemitism, told the Post: “I want to know where my enemies are sitting and expressing themselves unbalanced. The German-Palestinian Society and its allies must stay under our constant observation! And we have to act together and step up against their arguments. “

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Dr. Elvira Grözinger, deputy director of the German branch of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told the Post Nouripour’s leaning toward Iran’s radical clerical regime shows that “this society [DPG] is influenced by Iran, which clearly shows its direction as opposed to the Jewish state.”
“It is a scandal that German MPs, despite the German federal pledge to Israel’s security and history, are targeting the Jewish state, pursue its annihilation and promote its boycotts,” she said. “Antisemites of this kind must not have a place in a democratic parliament.”
Another German-Palestinian Society advisory board member, Christine Buchholz, a Left Party Bundestag deputy, has defended Hezbollah (Iran’s chief terrorist proxy in the Middle East) and Hamas terrorism against Israel as a justified form of “resistance.”
Nouripour, who co-drafted a pro-BDS initiative in the Bundestag in 2013 to sanction Jewish products from the West Bank, declined to answer numerous Post media queries.
Friederike Bieber, a spokeswoman for the Green Party, told the Post its media query was forwarded to the Green Party faction in the Bundestag. The Green Party faction, including its leaders, Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, has been plagued by allegations that it is contributing to rising antisemitism in Germany.
Last year, Germany’s the Bild newspaper said Green Party member Claudia Roth made “antisemitism socially respectable” by enthusiastically meeting with Iran’s quasi-Parliament head Ali Larijani.
Larijani has denied the Holocaust in Germany and supports the destruction of the Jewish state. The German-Palestinian Society told the Post it will “ignore” Post press queries. GPS member Peter Himstedt said the Post’s coverage of the Middle East and Germany is “demotivating.”
The Post’s exposure last week of the MPs on the advisory board of GPS has led one MP, Free Democratic Party politician Olaf in der Beek, to announce that he will resign from the pro-Palestinian group if it does not reject the BDS campaign.
GPS joined the international BDS campaign against the Jewish state in 2015 and has refused to drop its support it.