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According to the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the AfD is particularly pro-Israel for tactical reasons.
“It's not just cheap.
That is despicable, "said Josef Schuster of the" Süddeutsche Zeitung ".
The AfD's interest in Jews does not go beyond "using us as a fig leaf for our own demagogy".
If "very few Jewish people make themselves available as a group called 'Jews in the AfD', then at least that refutes the old prejudice that all Jews are clever".
He continues to refuse any contact with the party, said Schuster: "When leading politicians of this party demand a 'turn in the politics of remembrance by 180 degrees', insult the Holocaust memorial as a 'memorial of shame' and the Nazi era as 'bird shit' There is no basis for it. ”In his opinion, the AfD is acting“ only destructively and against this democracy ”.
He had "not yet heard" anything constructive from AfD MPs.
At the same time, Schuster rejected the accusation from cultural institutions such as the Goethe Institute, the Deutsches Theater and the Federal Agency for Political Education that criticism of Israel was suppressed in Germany or prematurely devalued as anti-Semitic.
"Fortunately, we live in a democracy," said Schuster.
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Nobody forbids discussing Zionism or the controversial BDS campaign.
But it is right if there is no state funding for it: "The basic right to freedom of expression does not mean that everyone naturally has a right to money from the state."
The President of the Central Council defended the Federal Government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, against criticism.
He is "very happy when statements against Israel hatred" also come from the Federal Government and its agents and "are not left to us alone".