In Germany, voices are being raised to call on the branch of Fridays for Future in the country to cut ties with the international climate movement due to a recent message on the Israel-Hamas conflict deemed biased.
In the popular newspaper Bild this Friday, October 27, the head of the central committee of Jews in Germany Josef Schuster calls for “a real decoupling” of the branch, “a change of name” and “the severance of all contact with the parent organization”. He criticizes the latter for “a gross distortion of history, a demonization of Israel and conspiracy ideologies”.
Western media are accused of “being financed by imperialist governments which support Israel” and of hiding that Hamas and its attacks against this country have their source “in 75 years of repression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”, described as “genocide”. The bloody Hamas attack on October 7, where 1,400 Israelis were killed, mainly civilians, is not mentioned.
Several conservative and left-wing politicians have asked FFF Germany, which has mobilized tens of thousands of young people during climate protests in recent years, to distance itself from the international organization in order to maintain its credibility. The German branch certainly indicated on Thursday on X (formerly Twitter) that it was not sharing any of the content of the post published without its opinion. She declared solidarity both with Israel shortly after the Hamas attack, and with the civilians of Gaza and their suffering following Israel’s massive bombings, and categorically rejected any form of anti-Semitism.
“A movement which is regularly noted for its anti-Semitism”
“The question arises as to whether FFF Germany can really show solidarity with the Jews as a branch of a movement which is regularly noted for its anti-Semitism,” believes, however. the left-wing Berlin daily TAZ.
The newspaper mentions other messages criticizing Israel in the past or a recent controversial photo on X of Greta Thunberg with three activists in support of the Palestinians. One of the activists has a stuffed octopus on her knee, an animal symbol under the Nazis of an alleged global Jewish conspiracy, which Greta Thunberg said she ignored. The photo was removed, then reposted, without the stuffed animal.
According to newspaper research Jüdische AllgemeineFFF international’s Twitter and Instagram accounts are managed by “around ten people”, none of whom have been elected to any position, among whom are “a handful” of people defending virulent anti-Israel positions.