The Left faction in the German Bundestag is preparing to tighten its policy on Israel. A report in the Saturday edition of Welt says the next faction meeting will discuss a position paper drafted by vice‑faction leader Nicole Gohlke and MP Lea Reisner, who serves as the faction’s spokesperson for international relations.
The four‑page paper, which is on the agenda for next week, is titled “No economic and scientific cooperation with Israel’s occupation policy in the West Bank”. It calls for a broadening of the faction’s stance with contentious demands. Among them is a request to limit academic collaboration with Israeli universities and research institutions located on occupied Palestinian land. The document also demands that those institutions be excluded from international research programmes, EU funding, and bilateral science agreements.
Additional, previously unknown provisions appear in the action list. For example, it proposes an import ban on goods coming from Israeli settlements, and a removal from the European internal market of any goods and raw materials linked to unlawful economic activities carried out by Israeli companies in occupied Palestinian territories.
The German‑Israeli Society (DIG), which works to promote bilateral relations between Germany and Israel, has already criticized the proposal. DIG president Volker Beck told Welt that the authors are not concerned with international law or a fair resolution of the conflict that also benefits Palestinians, but instead are pursuing a rhetorically sharper strategy aimed at delegitimising the State of Israel.
Beck also compared the situation to Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara, accusing the Left of treating that case with indifference toward international law. “We hear nothing from the Left about sanctions against Morocco” he said. “The only plausible reason for this double standard-where Israel, but not Morocco, is the target of this fireworks of sanction demands-is antisemitism”.