German party branch equates Israel with Third Reich

[shira]

BERLIN – The Left Party branch in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, has posted a flyer with a swastika morphing into a Star of David on its website and called for a boycott of Israeli products.

“The Left Party in Duisburg is a hotbed of anti-Semitism,” Ruhrbarone wrote.

The flyer states, “Confront the moral blackmail of the so-called Holocaust,” and terms Israel a “rogue state” and “warmonger.” After Ruhrbarone reported about the flyer, the party branch removed it from its website.

A Ruhrbarone writer filed a complaint with Duisburg police asserting that the flyer violated Germany’s anti-hate laws. It may have been on the website for many years. “The content and style of the flyer that is posted is clearly anti-Semitic, disgusting,” Petra Pau, a Left Party MP and vice president of the party in Bundestag, wrote on Thursday in response to an email query from The Jerusalem Post. Pau traveled to Israel in 2008 to speak at an international conference of the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism.

more...
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=218593

[aquart]

1. What a surprise.

The Germans never did anything wrong. It was all those dirty Jews.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[reorg]

3. calling for a boycott of Israel soon illegal?

"As of March 2011, the Israeli Knesset was considering a law that would punish boycotters, including those who boycott Israeli settlements. According to its preamble, the aim of the bill is to "protect the State of Israel in general and its citizens from particular academic, economic, and other boycotts targeting the state, its citizens and its corporations because of their connections to the State". The bill provides for:

- Fines of up to 30,000 NIS on Israeli citizens who call for or take part in boycotts of Israel.
- Sanctions against foreign companies and foreign nationals who promote or participate in boycotts.
- Sanctions against foreign states that pass pro-boycott legislation, which could include freezing any assets held in Israeli banks; banning them from trading in Israeli stocks, land, or real estate; and using their frozen assets to compensate Israelis affected by boycotts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel


As to the OP - the JP left a few things out. First, the local branch of the Left Party in Duisburg distanced themselves from the flyer, deleted it as soon as they were made aware of it's existence, asked their provider for the IP of the uploader (it was uploaded on January 11, 2011) and pressed criminal charges against this person.

http://www.ruhrbarone.de/linkspartei-duisburg-staatsanwaltschaft-ermittelt-wegen-volksverhetzung/
http://www.ruhrbarone.de/die-linke-duisburg-antisemitische-hetze-zum-download/
Google docs version of the flyer (in German)

Second, yes, the flyer was available at their site, but only via a short blog entry on their "left youth" page. This blog entry is only two paragraphs long, it contains criticisms of the Iraq war and two links: one to Antiimperialista.org and another to this flyer. Second, although there are strong criticisms of Israel's policies in the flyer, its content is not anti-semitic. Only at the end of the text there are among several other links two of which appear to be authored by anti-semites indeed - one with some ramblings about and quotes from the talmud and another one pointing to a lengthy article questioning the holocaust. From the layout of the latter, it appears that it is from the same source as the flyer which was available at the Left Party site. I think there are two explanations how it got there: 1. the person who posted it liked the aggressive language but didn't bother to follow the links, 2. someone managed to place it there in order to spread right-wing propaganda among Duisburg's young leftists.

The Left Party in Duisburg, an industrial city where the Left is traditionally strong, is in a local coalition with the Greens and the Social Democrats. There is not the slightest indication that anybody in the Left Party is denying the holocaust or anti-semitic. If there were, rest assured that such a person would be immediately thrown out of the party.

The "blogger" who made the world aware of this frightening scandal is a former mainstream journalist who apparently has opened shop as an independent publisher on the web. It is obvious from some other articles at this site that he viscerally hates the Left Party, of course. Probably daily in panic the communists may come and get him.