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<\/a><\/p>\nGerman politician Andreas B\u00fcttner is sworn in during the state parliament session following his election as Brandenburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner, with members of his Left party in the background, June 20 2024. (Soeren Stache\/picture alliance via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
After 11 years in Die Linke (The Left), Andreas B\u00fcttner has quit its ranks over the position taken by members in Lower Saxony, in former West Germany. But it\u2019s also personal: B\u00fcttner said he\u2019s had enough of what he has described as harassment from within his party.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no longer possible. And I can\u2019t go on \u2026 without betraying my own convictions,\u201d B\u00fcttner wrote in a statement to party leaders. The letter was shared with the dpa, the German press association.<\/p>\n
Die Linke is the successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of former East Germany, and has a platform that is critical of capitalism and of NATO. Die Linke notched a better-than-expected finish in last year\u2019s national elections, drawing 9% of the vote despite internal tensions over Israel and Germany\u2019s handling of antisemitism.<\/p>\n
According to news reports about B\u00fcttner\u2019s resignation, Brandenburg\u2019s party leaders expressed \u201cgreat regret and respect,\u201d and promised to continue fighting antisemitism with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a question of party affiliation,\u201d wrote Stefan Wollenberg, the party\u2019s managing director in Brandenburg.<\/p>\n
The trigger for B\u00fcttner\u2019s move was a resolution condemning current forms of Zionism, put forward by the party\u2019s youth delegation in Lower Saxony. They insisted that the resolution \u2014 passed at their convention in Hanover last weekend \u2014 was not against Zionism per se, only against \u201cexisting political manifestations of Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n
But B\u00fcttner, who has long stood up for Israel in defiance to his party, and has openly criticized antisemitism from all corners, said the message was unmistakable.<\/p>\n
Resolutions that condemn Israel as a \u201cgenocidal state\u201d and an \u201capartheid state\u201d are \u201cno longer acceptable to me,\u201d he wrote in his resignation. He criticized the Lower Saxony party for coming perilously close to questioning Israel\u2019s right to exist.<\/p>\n
The fight against antisemitism should transcend party lines, he added. \u201cAll the more shocking for me is what I have had to experience within my own party for years,\u201d he wrote, as cited in the Tagesspiegel newspaper.<\/p>\n
B\u00fcttner, a former police officer who was elected in 2024 to his position as Brandenburg\u2019s first commissioner for combating antisemitism, has had his differences with his party for some time over its views on Israel. Departing from his party\u2019s official stance, B\u00fcttner supports the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance\u2019s definition of antisemitism, known as IHRA, which labels some criticism of Israel as eliminationist and thus antisemitic.<\/p>\n
In 2025, members of his party tried and failed to have him expelled over his solidarity with Israel.<\/p>\n
B\u00fcttner also has been targeted by unknown perpetrators, who in 2024 vandalized his car with swastikas and other Nazi symbols, and in January set fire to a building on his property, leaving a Hamas symbol as their calling card.<\/p>\n
The new resolution, which condemns Hamas as well as Israel, characterizes terrorism as a result of \u201coccupation, disenfranchisement, and a lack of prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n
It rejects \u201cthe Zionism that actually exists today\u201d and recognizes \u201cethnonationalism and political Zionism as a major obstacle to a peaceful future for all people in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
It says that both Israel and Hamas \u201charbor fantasies of annihilation\u201d against one another.<\/p>\n
The resolution refers to \u201ctwo years of genocide\u201d in Gaza, calls for an \u201cend to apartheid in Israel and the occupied territories\u201d and criticizes the alleged instrumentalization of antisemitism \u201cto delegitimize criticism of actually existing political Zionism.\u201d It presents a list of demands on Israel, but none on the Palestinian leadership or Hamas.<\/p>\n
Die Linke has a long history of anti-Israel activism: In 2010, prominent party members took part in the ill-fated Gaza Freedom Flotilla, aboard the Mavi Marmara, which the Israeli military intercepted in an operation that killed 10 activists. The German politicians were among those arrested and deported home.<\/p>\n