In the face of growing anti-Semitism in the West, we should pay attention to a recent vote in the German parliament.
On March 14, the Free Democrats, a mildly economic-libertarian party in the Bundestag, submitted a resolution that called out the anti-Israel bias of United Nations institutions and urged the German government to oppose this ongoing practice. It highlighted the one-sidedness within the U.N. in recent years — for example, that the U.N. General Assembly passed 26 resolutions criticizing specific states in 2018, and 21 times these resolutions were aimed against Israel.
Germany supported 16 of the 21 resolutions, and abstained from the vote abstention four times. Similarly, between 2009 and 2014 the UNESCO passed 47 resolutions accusing countries of violating U.N. principles, 46 of them specifically targeting Israel. Finally, during Germany’s time as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Israel was condemned 55 times, twice as much as the Syrian regime that used chemical weapons against its own people.
The Free Democrats’ resolution pointed out that historical ties oblige Germany not to abet the anti-Semitic or anti-Israel bias of international bodies; that Berlin should commit to opposing biased U.N. resolutions and organize other European states to protect Israel from one-sided and unfair accusations.
This resolution contained nothing that should be controversial for a country which, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel, sees the security of Israel as part of its national interest. Yet the actual vote seemed to indicate that German support for Israel might not be as sincere as one would have thought. Here’s how the vote turned out:
- With the exception of one lonely yes vote, the entire conservative caucus of chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats voted against the resolution.
- The Social Democrats, who form the junior partner in Germany’s coalition government voted unanimously against it.
- The far-left opposition party Die Linke, overwhelmingly rejected the resolution.
- The members of the Green Party abstained from the vote in order to avoid taking sides on this issue.
Both parties of the coalition government as well as the entire left-wing opposition refused to acknowledge that there is any problem regarding Israel’s treatment in the U.N. The ruling government coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats could muster only one vote for the resolution, while 356 parliamentarians voted against it.
It was left to the Free Democrats and the supposedly far-right, neo-Nazi infested “Alternative for Germany,” or AfD, to vote for the resolution. Especially the AfD surprised. With the exception of 3 abstentions, the entire party voted yes, making it the most pro-Israel party in the German parliament.
Critics immediately accused the AfD of trying to hide its true face with this vote, apparently claiming that voting for a pro-Israel resolution makes you an anti-Semite while voting against it does not.
Although the AfD definitely has a problematic fringe, the party leadership is actively working to cut it off and position itself as a pro-Jewish and pro-Israel political movement. The chairman of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, made this abundantly clear in a speech last year, where he unequivocally espoused the right of Israel’s existence, a commitment that would include to “fight and die” at the side of Israel. There might be more than an ounce of hyperbole in that statement, but the message was also aimed at those within the AfD that still hold anti-Semitic views, to let them know that they have no place in the party.
Observers outside of Germany should take note of these developments and take a more nuanced approach when evaluating European right-wing parties like the Alternative for Germany. It is tempting simply to frame them as just another manifestation of traditionally anti-Semitic German nationalism, but such a view would ignore the evolution that is going on within Germany’s strongest opposition party.
There is an anti-Semitic, white supremacist fringe in the AfD, but that fringe is neither endorsed nor tolerated by the party leadership. The AfD could be at a similar place to where the GOP was when it ousted the John Birch Society. It is too soon to tell what the outcome will be, but at the moment the willingness of German politicians to side publicly with Israel is greater among members of a right-wing party than it is in the ranks of Germany’s governing coalition.
Ralph Schoellhammer is a lecturer in Economics and Political Science at Webster University Vienna and you can follow his work on twitter under @Raphfel
