A German labor leader in the city of Wiesbaden compared the Jewish state with Nazi Germany’s master race, prompting his resignation on Wednesday.
Following the EU court ruling that Israeli products from Judea and Samaria must be labeled with a punitive demarcation, the trade union leader wrote on Facebook: “A good decision by the ECJ [The European Court of Justice] for more transparency. The Zionist terror state confuses cause and effect: the only thing that discriminates is the occupation of the Palestinian territories in violation of international law and the expulsion of their inhabitants, so that the Jewish ‘master race’ can cultivate farming there!!!”
He added that his post was “not antisemitic, but in violation of international law and must therefore be labeled so that no one possibly buys these products.”
Contemporary definitions of antisemitism, including by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the US State Department, list parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany as a form of antisemitism.
The antisemitic post caused the trade union official to leave both honorary appointments as a member of the executive board of the German Trade Union Confederation in Wiesbaden/Rheingau-Taunus, and as deputy representative of the board of IG BAU (Building and Agricultural Union).
According to German media, the labor union official is viewed as a left-wing German trade unionist. The chairman of the local trade union, Sascha Schmidt, requested the alleged antisemitic labor unionist immediately resign. Schmidt said his “formulation is clearly to be assessed as Israel-related antisemitism. There is no alternative here but a resignation.”
The news outlet hessenschau.de in the state of Hesse, where Wiesbaden is located, first reported on the resignation. German media declined to publicize the name of the trade unionist.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the German Green Party and the neo-Nazi party The Third Way celebrated the labeling ruling. Germany’s main neo-Nazi party – the National Democratic Party – and the Green Party have advocated since 2012 and 2013, respectively, for the EU and Germany to punish Israeli goods with a label.
Another union, the German Education Union (GEW), has reportedly struggled with roping in rising Jew-hatred within its ranks. In 2016, the local branch of the GEW in Oldenburg published in its magazine an article by its member Christoph Glanz urging a boycott of Israel. Glanz supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The Social Democratic Party politician Michaela Barbara Engelmeier referred to Glanz as an “antisemite and racist.” Germany’s parliament classified BDS as antisemitic in May.