Toilet affair

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The toilet affair around Gregor Gysi (alternatively: toilet gate ) describes a political affair of the party Die Linke , which took place in November 2014 in the rooms of the German Bundestag .

procedure

An event planned for November 9, 2014 (the anniversary of the November pogroms 1938 ) with the anti-Zionist Jewish journalists Max Blumenthal and David Sheen at the Volksbühne in Berlin was canceled by the Volksbühne following a complaint by several members of the Bundestag. The MPs Volker Beck ( Greens ), Petra Pau (left) and the President of the German-Israeli Society Reinhold Robbe ( SPD ) had warned in a letter that the two speakers had already served anti-Semitic resentments in the past and the Nazis' reign of terror through comparisons relativized with the Israeli government. Accordingly, they are “no expert help” in solving the Middle East conflict . The parliamentary group chairman Gregor Gysi subsequently prohibited an alternative event in the rooms of the left parliamentary group of the Bundestag.

On November 10, the journalists Blumenthal, Sheen and Martin Lejeune, accompanied by members of the Left Party, Annette Groth , Inge Höger and Heike Hänsel , sought an open confrontation with Gregor Gysi, during which he was harassed and followed to the toilet. Video recordings of the incident were published on the Internet and caused a sensation nationwide.

Reactions

Inside the Left Party

After the incident became known, an open dispute broke out in the Die Linke party . In the appeal You do not speak for us , well-known representatives of the reform wing accused the MPs involved Höger, Groth and Hansel as well as the party executive member Claudia Haydt of demonizing Israel and relativizing the Holocaust . With Blumenthal and Sheen, on the anniversary of the November pogroms in 1938, two journalists who had already attracted attention through Nazi comparisons were arbitrarily invited.

Sahra Wagenknecht , deputy leader of the parliamentary group and member of the left wing of the party, criticized the call and pointed out that Gysi had already accepted an apology from the MPs. Whoever steps in now is not concerned with the hunt down Gysi, but with a welcome opportunity to settle accounts with three left-wing parliamentary groups.

Höger and Groth assured that they never wanted to organize an event in which there was an appeal to hate Israel or to delegitimize the state. Together with other supporters, they published a statement in which they criticized Pau (Die Linke) and Beck (Greens) for their intervention at the Volksbühne. Sheen and Blumenthal are wrongly accused of anti-Semitism .

The incident had no internal party consequences. The Tagesspiegel suspected that the reason for the fact that the parliamentary group was not excluded from the party, as the left would have lost its status as the largest opposition faction and Gysi would have lost the role of opposition leader.

President of the Bundestag

Bundestag President Norbert Lammert (CDU) initiated proceedings against Blumenthal and Sheen to issue house bans on the grounds that "every attempt to exert pressure on members of the German Bundestag, to physically harass them and thereby endanger the performance of the House's duties", is unacceptable.

Simon Wiesenthal Center

The Simon Wiesenthal Center placed the incident in fourth place among the world's worst anti-Israel / anti-Semitic incidents of 2014, emphasizing that Höger and Groth played a key role in inciting hatred of Israel.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tst: Israel and the Left: Gysi's Uninvited Guests. In: ZEIT ONLINE . November 14, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b c Matthias Meisner : Toilet gate in the Bundestag: Kremlin broadcaster celebrates "Gysi-Jäger" as a hero. In: tagesspiegel.de . November 14, 2014, accessed June 11, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Miriam Hollstein : Leftists want to kick the originator of the toilet scandal out. In: welt.de . November 15, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019.
  4. ↑ You do not speak for us! (No longer available online.) In: Ihrsprechtnichtfueruns.de. November 14, 2014, archived from the original on June 19, 2016 ; Retrieved on June 9, 2016 (A specially created page with well-known politicians of the Die Linke party , who distance themselves from the action.).
  5. ↑ Markus Decker: Israel critics pursue Gregor Gysi: The left's toilet affair has escalated. In: berliner-zeitung.de , November 16, 2014, accessed on February 13, 2019.
  6. ↑ Miriam Hollstein: Gregor Gysi flees from anti-Zionists on the toilet. In: world. de, November 11, 2014, accessed on February 13, 2019.
  7. ↑ André Anchuelo : Left: Diaper-soft things to the toilet gate . Neither the parliamentary group nor the party draw conclusions from the attack against Gysi. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . December 1, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019.
  8. ^ Matthias Meisner: Gregor Gysi persecuted by Israel critics. Wagenknecht: A pretty bad story. In: Der Tagesspiegel . November 12, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019.
  9. ^ Matthias Meisner: Gregor Gysi persecuted by Israel critics. Wagenknecht: A pretty bad story. In: Tagesspiegel. November 12, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019.
  10. ↑ Benjamin Weinthal: German politicians, media outraged over leftists anti-Israel 'toiletgate'. In: Jerusalem Post . November 15, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019.
  11. ↑ 2014: Top Ten Worst Anti-Semitic / Anti-Israel Incidents. In: wiesenthal.com, December 26, 2014, accessed on December 29, 2014 (PDF; 2.1 MB).
  12. ↑ Marcel Leubecher: Left-wing politicians on the list of anti-Semites 2014. In: Die Welt . December 29, 2014, accessed February 13, 2019.