Claudia Roth revises Israel statements from an earlier SPIEGEL interview

"That was a total mistake"

Roth apparently regrets the statements now. When moderator Tilo Jung asked whether she understood that Adra felt “thrown under the bus” by Roth’s subsequent comments, Roth said: “Yes, that was a total mistake. The fact that I said that again was totally wrong, was totally stupid." Roth now points out in the podcast that the media pressure was "massive."

In the SPIEGEL interview, Roth also distanced himself from statements made by US filmmaker Ben Russell, who had accused Israel of a "genocide" against the Palestinians. Roth called this a “rock bottom” and “unbearable.” »Despite all the compassion for the suffering of the civilians, this really has nothing to do with the situation in the Gaza Strip. Israel is fighting against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people – who also suffer from Hamas.”

She doesn't want to make excuses or apologize, says Roth. "But there was such incredible pressure from the Central Council, from an incredible number of circles." "I say myself, I was too weak and overwhelmed in this situation, and it was a mistake." "Criticizing the director for talking about apartheid or the Palestinians for talking about genocide was a mistake!"

"Then it's apartheid, yes"

In the meantime, she would definitely talk about “apartheid” in the West Bank, says Roth. "Because if a minister, this terrible minister, even said that Palestinians are no longer allowed to drive on the roads in the West Bank, then it is apartheid, yes."

Another passage from the podcast is currently being discussed controversially. Roth said that "some good friends abroad" had asked her about her attitude towards Israel: "When will you finally free yourself from this guilt of history or when will you deal with it differently?"

The Green Party does not say in the podcast how Roth answers this question about Germany's historical responsibility for the State of Israel.

Sharp criticism from Volker Beck

Roth's party colleague Volker Beck, who is also president of the German-Israeli Society, sharply criticized the statements. "The patterns of their sentences correspond to classic German defenses against guilt," Beck wrote in a statement.

Roth's statement is only one corner away from the guilt cult accusation. Although Roth quotes “Friends,” he makes the idea his own. This means that it is definitely in line with the trend of the anti-Israel movement under the motto “Free Palestine from German Guilt,” says Beck. Roth thus places himself in an intellectual tradition of guilt-defense discourse in which Beck also locates the writer Martin Walser and the right-wing extremist AfD politician Björn Höcke.