Anti-Israel party in Germany discusses shooting rich people, forced labor
The head of Left Party, Bernd Riexinger, responded that, "We don't shoot them, we use them for useful work."
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALLeader of The Left (Die Linke) party Bernd Riexinger delivers a speech after the first exit polls for the Thuringia state election in Berlin, Germany, October 27, 2019(photo credit: CHRISTIAN MANG / REUTERS)
NEW YORK CITY – The German Left Party, which opposed last year’s anti-BDS Bundestag resolution, held a conference last week in the city of Kassel in which calls to shoot wealthy Germans and impose forced labor on them were discussed.A Left Party attendee named Sandra L. explained what needed to be done post-revolution after “we have shot the one percent of the richest.”Party leader Bernd Riexinger responded that, “We don’t shoot them, we use them for useful work.” Forced labor was one of the extermination methods used by the Nazis and their collaborators to murder Jews during the Holocaust.Columnist Harald Martenstein wrote in the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel on Saturday that “Almost at the same time as the shooting debate, eight left-wing politicians filed a criminal complaint against [Chancellor] Angela Merkel for “aiding and abetting the murder” of the Iranian terrorist general [Qassem] Soleimani and that Germany had supported the murder. At least Israel haters don’t have to be afraid of the Left.”Riexinger chalked up his comment about forced labor to “irony.”The Left Party has played a role in boosting trade with Iran’s regime. The Jerusalem Post reported lasted year that the former trade union leader and Left Party MP Klaus Ernst took part in a September conference to circumvent US sanctions targeting Iran’s regime. The Anti-Defamation League said that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the top state-sponsor of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.Last year, the Left Party opposed a Bundestag resolution declaring the BDS campaign targeting Israel as being antisemitic. The party also rejected banning the terrorist entity Hezbollah in Germany.Critics view the German Left Party, along with the British Labour Party on former prime ministerial candidate Jeremy Corbyn’s watch, as the two largest anti-Israel parties in Western Europe.The Post reported last month that Christine Buchholz, a Left Party Bundestag deputy, is on the advisory board of the pro-BDS German-Palestinian Society. Buchholz has defended Hezbollah and Hamas terrorism against Israel as a justified form of “resistance.”German Jews and NGOs urged all Bundestag MPs on the board of the German-Palestinian Society (GPS) to resign.
Green Party MP Omid Nouripour “should of course resign,” the organization Munich Citizens against Antisemitism told the Post.Free Democratic Party politician Olaf in der Beek said he will resign from the pro-Palestinian group if it does not reject the BDS campaign. The GPS doubled down on its support of BDS in a letter to FDP politicians.GPS joined the international BDS campaign against the Jewish state in 2015 and campaigned against the anti-BDS resolution initiated by in der Beek’s party.
