contested terrain

Bombs good, Mossad baaad!

According to this report from Spiegel Online, a little mini-controversy has erupted between Renate Künast, chairwoman of the parliamentary fraction of the German Greens and former minister of Consumer Protection, Food, and Agriculture under the Red-Green government, and the Stop the Bomb campaign, which advocates the termination of all German and Austrian business relationships with Iran as a means of pressuring the Iranian government to abandon its nuclear program and which is supported by such luminaries as Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.

According to campaign activist “Thomas H.”, who was attempting to collect signatures in front of an entrance to the Bundestag, Künast, who also heads the party’s electoral list going into the 2009 federal elections, refused to give her signature, saying “Your organization isn’t Kosher” and then, while stepping into her limousine, “you are in fact an organization of the Mossad!”

Künast vigorously denies the allegation, which was reported by the Jerusalem Post.

According to the Spiegel Online article, the question of whether or not to support the campaign is hotly contested within the party itself. According to Green Party parliamentarian Omid Nouripour, who opposes the campaign, “the alliance does not exclude the option of a military first strike. That has nothing to do with Green politics, and for that reason we can’t lend our signatures.”

So let me get this straight: a political party which was directly responsible for leading the first German war since WWII has suddenly rediscovered its pacifism?

Postscript: The SPON article also contains this delightful blast from the past from Green “left” fig leaf Hans-Christian Ströbele: “The Iraqi missle attacks [on Israel, during the 1990 Persian Gulf War -- translator's note] are the logical, almost compelling consequence of Israel’s policies.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.