Linke (The Left) party expelled with immediate effect Palestinian-German member and activist Ramsis Kilani for his vocal opposition to “Israel’s” ongoing genocide in Gaza. In doing so, it followed in the footsteps of the only other mainstream leftist party in the country, the Greens, in exhibiting the infamous Palestine exception to progressive politics.
Kilani, a self-described Marxist, called his expulsion “a sad commentary on a leftist, internationalist party”, left-wing daily junge Welt (jw) reported. The decision made by the Landesschiedskommission, the party’s state-level arbitration body was damaging “to all of us who fight for universal human rights”, the activist wrote on Instagram.
Katina Schubert, one of two members from the party’s right-wing who had brought forward the motion to expel Kilani denied that his Palestine solidarity activism had anything to do with the decision, saying that it was based on his “relativisation of Hamas terror, selective criticism of violence against women as a weapon of war and denial of “Israel’s” right to exist”, the jw report went on to say.
From their statement, it sounds less like genocide isn’t a red line for them, and more like they just straight up support genocide.
Yeah no wonder conservatives are winning victories all across the democratic world. It seems the left wing has suffered a collective lobotomy. We live in a world where the left is fragmented in purpose, condoning the unacceptable, and ineffective in climate action. It would be cool if the left was, you know, actually the left, instead of trying to be more like the cool right wing because they think that’s what would win them more votes. Have some dignity, guys. Nobody is going to vote for the second, third or fourth best party at being right wing.
I mean, whether people want to admit it or not, the mixing of some pretty uncomfortable anti-zionist language with the legitimate criticism of human rights atrocities in Gaza, as well as the extreme purity testing which accompanies it, is seriously harming the peace movement.
Anti-Zionism is anti-fascism, it should be a baseline on the left. That’s not “purity testing”
Not so simple. France has a radical leftwing party (The France Unbowed) that has been denouncing the genocide in Gaza for months. They got 70 deputies in the last snap elections, far from giving them any mandate to govern the country… Their activism is indeed a way to get votes from French people of Maghreb origins. Still, people label them as antisemitic because they won’t accept the self-defense narrative that is being pushed by Israel.
I get that, i really do, but sometimes you just gotta take the loss for being unpopular if the cause is right. Israel is less popular today than it was yesterday. Sometimes you can’t help that your core principles are not valued by the majority at the moment, for whatever reason. If events change the minds of people, there’s a steady alternative to go to. To debase one’s principles to appeal to the right wing voters will only make their constituency not vote. People who are right wing won’t vote left because they are more anti immigration or more pro Israel. But people who vote left won’t probably vote at all if the alternatives are right wing or right wing light. They just won’t see themselves represented at all. Then you get low voter turnout.
Things ARE complicated! I surely didn’t offer any way out of the issue!
The entire problem here is that there is a huge rhetorical gap between thinking the Netanyahu government is evil and needs to be held accountable for Gaza atrocities, and the idea that Israel needs to be violently dismantled and the people fed to dogs (yes i have literally seen people on here say “fed to dogs”).
Conversations which start with anti-zionism are unhelpful, but this seems to have become a weird purity test on the left which is creating huge cracks in what would otherwise be a unified voice regarding Gaza.
It’s easy for France to condemn Israel because they do not carry such a certain heavy historical baggage unlike Germany.
It’s very obvious why Germany won’t do the same as France.
Yes and no. On the one hand, France actively helped the Nazis hunt French Jews during the occupation. Moreover, Germany should understand that you don’t get the absolution for one genocide by enabeling another.
It’s very obvious why Germany won’t do the same as France.
It sure is, but probably not for the reason you’re thinking
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The headline is correct. You appear to support genocide as well.
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Okay lets change it up.
Do you support the existence of Nazi Germany
Do you support the existence of Apartheid South Africa
Do you support the existence of Israel
These mean the same to any person who understand what genocide means.
I don’t support the Nazis but as a German I am happy that america, france and USSR supported A Democratic German state (but not a fascist one), so that I don’t have to live under occupation and oppression.
You act like its not possible to differentiate between different opinions within a nation state.
Same goes for south Africa and Israel. I don’t support their facist leaders/political majorities because they are facist but I support the general idea of the people living there having a democratically controlled system and not being occupied.
Its not the race or DNA that makes you fascist lul, the fascists are the problem, not the people in general.
An
Notice this lying fuck refused to give a straight answer
(but not a fascist one)
I have some bad news about the party that great numbers of early West German government figures belonged to
Okay so why do you support the existence of a fascist ethnostate if you pretend to support democracy.
Everything you described to be wrong has a name and it is called Israel.
go back to Reddit with your bullshit debating over genocide dude
You would have "both sides"ed the Holocaust
Name doesn’t check out :(
You would have said there are “progressive forces on both sides” of the Holocaust.
There were communists in Nazi Germany fighting Tue Nazis so yes, there where progressive forces in Germany but not in the Nazi party.
There are progressive forces in Israel and Palestine, but not withing nethanyaus party or the hamas
So yes, you would have "both sides"ed the Holocaust. In fact, you do.
How is it not progressive when a Hamas fighter blows up an IDF tank? Is there something qualitatively different about the way Hamas fights the occupiers and some other, more progressive group, would be fighting the IDF? And if the difference is not in how they fight but how they govern, why should it matter at all how they govern when Gaza has been completely disintegrated and there is no operating governmental structure anyway so even if Hamas were cartoonish Islamist terrorists like ISIS they wouldn’t even have the ability to control anyone. If there’s a Palestinian organization that’s worth criticizing because they’re misusing their power, it’s not Hamas, it’s Fatah.
There is nothing wrong in siding with the resistance against a brutal coloniser.
No, thats why i stand with all palestinians for peace. but there is something wrong with uncritically siding with religious fundamentalists with world domination fantasys, as they will not bring peace but only reign of terror of another coleur.
No one here is saying you should uncritically side with Israel
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Nah, you say I should uncritically support hamas.
No I fucking don’t, you lying piece of shit.
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The conversation was over the moment you lied about me, you fascist fuck.
“It wasn’t his stance on Palestine, it was his stance on Palestine.” Wow, brilliant.
Also pretty funny to talk about someone’s “selective criticism” while supporting Israel’s genocide.
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the only other mainstream leftist party in the country, the Greens
That particular mainstream “left” party is so left they should rename themselves “Browns”
