by VICTOR GROSSMAN
The debate within the Left party, and outside it too, was hot and heavy. It took a dramatic turn on June 28th when its Bundestag members, in caucus, modified their controversial position of June 7th.
Ever since its formation in 2007 this party has been under savage attack from all four other major parties. But nasty charges of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel policies rose recently to a crescendo. A few minor, controversial incidents, one of them undoubtedly the work of an Internet provocateur, were employed in an attempt to again disparage and disqualify the party. Indeed, there have long been sharp disagreements within the party on these questions, partly along lines matching a more general controversy between its left wing and its “reformer” wing which hopes to join coalition governments with Social Democrats and Greens and does not want to be ostracized. This latter group won a victory on June 7th. After a raucous, day-long attack in the Bundestag by the other parties, with only a very brief chance to respond, the Left caucus, reacting to the pressure, approved a resolution condemning any calls for a one-state solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict, rejecting all participation in the boycott of Israeli products currently promoted in various countries (with one variant boycotting only products made in the West Bank settlements but wrongly labeled “Made in Israel”), and disapproving the flotilla currently moving to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The resolution also obligated party delegates in the Bundestag and their staff to conform to these decisions.
This created a storm of controversy. Two Bundestag members had taken part in last year’s flotilla, one local leader had approved the boycott, and another group had rejected total condemnation of it, though stating that such a campaign was wrong in Germany because of the Nazi calls in the 1930s to boycott Jewish shops. Some were angered most by the demand for conformity, which was seen as a gag rule and therefore contrary to party practice.
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