Open letter: Ramelow accuses German-Israeli Society chief Beck of bias
In the dispute over a red-green-red alliance in Berlin, Bundestag Vice President Ramelow criticises the German-Israeli Society. Its president Beck had sharply attacked the Greens and the SPD.
Symbolic image · Photo: Gunnar Klack / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Bundestag Vice President Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) has accused Volker Beck (Greens), president of the German-Israeli Society (DIG), of taking a one-sided stance against the Left Party in the dispute over Berlin's new state government. In an open letter reported by the RND newspaper network, Ramelow, himself a DIG member, writes that he notes "with great astonishment" the "extremely harsh tones from the German-Israeli Society" about the Left Party's election success.
"Anyone who is an anti-fascist should always also stand credibly against antisemitism," Ramelow wrote. Many Left Party members saw themselves as friends of Israel, and solidarity with Israel and with the Palestinians were not mutually exclusive, he said. The red-green-red camp won a clear majority in the Berlin state election and has a mandate to make Berlin "affordable and better". The Left Party has co-governed Berlin for 17 of the past 25 years.
Beck had previously said: "It is completely incomprehensible that the Greens and the SPD are lending themselves to a coalition with this Berlin Left Party." Antisemitism there was not a fringe phenomenon, he said. Ramelow countered that the DIG was fiercely attacking a possible government in Berlin while in Saxony-Anhalt a party rated confirmed right-wing extremist by the domestic intelligence service was taking over "almost unnoticed".