Central Council of Jews: An Agreement Is No Substitute for Decisive Action

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Central Council of Jews: An Agreement Is No Substitute for Decisive Action.

"Formulas to protect Jewish life cannot disguise the antisemitism that continues to be tolerated within the Left." That is how sharply Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, comments on the agreement the Left, Greens, and SPD reached in Berlin ahead of their exploratory talks. His clear demand of the SPD and Greens: "to insist on concrete, including personnel, consequences and to make cooperation dependent on the implementation of those consequences."

What the three parties agreed on in Berlin

The starting point is the clear victory of the Left in the Berlin House of Representatives election. The Greens and SPD made a common understanding on antisemitism – and on so-called clan crime – a precondition for exploratory talks to take place at all. The result is a paper developed over several meetings. It states verbatim: "We protect Jewish life, strengthen coexistence, and stand up for peace and understanding." Israel's right to exist is "non-negotiable." Anyone who violates the agreed principles on antisemitism at the party or parliamentary group level must expect consequences – up to and including expulsion.

According to dpa, the trigger for the clause was several incidents involving the Left that had also raised concerns among the SPD and Greens.

Schuster says that is not enough

The Central Council nevertheless views the paper as insufficient. The core message from its statement on request:

The joint paper cannot replace decisive action

Schuster sharpens his point further: this government formation would "otherwise, regardless of all written agreements, continue to fuel the advancing normalization of antisemitism." On the sanctions clause in the paper, he also says: "The fact that it is necessary at all to agree on sanction mechanisms is a unique occurrence. It shows that the SPD and Greens, too, are aware of how large and pressing the Left's problem in Berlin is."

What this means for the exploratory talks in Berlin

Seen in this light, the SPD and Greens have already shown some movement with the agreement – a sanction mechanism up to party expulsion was not previously on the table, and Schuster himself speaks of a "unique occurrence." But his standard goes further: not only to formulate rules, but to draw "concrete, including personnel, consequences" – and to tie cooperation to them. For the exploratory talks, this means: whether the government formation succeeds depends, in Schuster's reading, also on whether the Left is willing to respond internally at the personnel level to those antisemitic incidents that provided the occasion for the agreement.