Left in Berlin: Bodo Ramelow criticizes internal party protests against exploratory agreement

The left-wing politician and Bundestag Vice President Bodo Ramelow believes the massive internal party criticism of the Berlin Left's exploratory agreement with the Greens and SPD is wrong. »In Berlin there is a clear mandate from voters for the Left. The fact that left-wing Bundestag members from outside the regional association now think they have to hand out style notes to the explorers irritates me and I think it is absolutely inappropriate," Ramelow told SPIEGEL.

For him, the tripartite exploratory agreement that the Left, the Greens and the SPD reached in Berlin was “a new chapter in German culture that builds trust. Trust that was also lost through votes from my party," said the former Prime Minister of Thuringia. Ramelow continued: "If leftists propagate the one-state solution, then that implies the destruction of Israel and that is unacceptable."

In the election for the Berlin House of Representatives three weeks ago, the Left, with its top candidate Elif Eralp, was clearly the strongest party. On Thursday in Berlin, the Left, the Greens and the SPD agreed to explore a red-green-red alliance. To this end, they agreed in a paper on how they would deal with the recently hotly debated topic of anti-Semitism in the future - and what the consequences of possible future anti-Semitic incidents within the coalition factions would be.

The agreement immediately caused massive criticism on the left. More than 120 left-wing politicians, including 27 members of the Bundestag, sharply criticized the paper and their own negotiators in an open letter.

“The formulations contained therein adopt the narratives of a media smear campaign,” the statement says. The criticism essentially relates to the agreed mechanism that is supposed to take effect in the event of anti-Semitic incidents within the group.

In their agreement, the Left, the Greens and the SPD reaffirmed Israel's right to exist. If an anti-Semitic incident occurs within the coalition factions, it will be examined by the parliamentary managers of the three factions.

At the request of one of the three, the incident could finally be evaluated “technically” by a committee of three experts. These should have “special competence” and come from the “Berlin city community”. "On the basis of this assessment, the affected parliamentary group decides on consequences up to and including exclusion in accordance with its statutes."

The critics of this agreement stated, among other things, in an Instagram post regarding the agreement: The terms in the context of anti-Semitism are "so broad and flexible that they can be used against any criticism of Israeli occupation policy." The SPD and the Greens would have brought “disciplinary and divisive measures from outside into the Left Party.”

The critics accused the left-wing negotiators of having “bowed to pressure from the SPD and the Greens. This is a serious political mistake.