Last week, two anti-Israel activists chased the chairman of the German Left party down a corridor of the Reichstag building and into a bathroom, where the harried parliamentarian locked himself in a stall until his pursuers left. The incident brought to a head a growing conflict between those in Germany’s largest opposition party who are willing to condemn anti-Semitism and those who support the destruction of Israel. Benjamin Weinthal explains:
On the one hand, key leaders such as [party chairman Gregor] Gysi, [Petra] Pau, MP Stefan Liebich, Klaus Lederer, head of the Berlin Left party, and Matthias Höhn recognize Israel’s existence and are willing, albeit sporadically, to confront left-wing anti-Semitism within their ranks. That may not seem like progress to an objective, detached spectator. It is, however, worth recalling that the Left party is the successor to the Stalinist East German state’s Socialist Unity party, which from 1949 to its demise in 1990 had flatly rejected Israel’s right to exist.
The second camp of Left-party MPs, on the other hand, is, from Israel’s perspective, a catalogue of horrors. Höger and Annette Groth were on the Turkish Mavi Marmara vessel, which sought to break Israel’s legal blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. Christine Buchholz supports Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel as a legitimate form of “resistance.” Party vice president Sahra Wagenknecht, Heike Hänsel, Sevim Dagdeln, and Buchholz refused to participate in a standing ovation for former president Shimon Peres on Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Bundestag, because of his role in Israel’s wars of self-defense. . . . According to critics, the war over the soul of the party will be determined only if the Left can decontaminate itself from anti-Semitism.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Making-sense-of-Germanys-anti-Semitic-Toiletgate-scandal-381977