German MP from Scholz’s party apologizes for sharing post accusing Israel of genocide
Aydan Ozoguz says post, which also included unverified claims about recent Israeli airstrike in Gaza, ‘hurt the feelings of fellow citizens who stand up for peaceful coexistence’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left party faced controversy Friday after one of its lawmakers, a vice president of parliament, shared a post denouncing “Zionism,” and accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Aydan Ozoguz shared a thread of posts from US-based Jewish Voice for Peace — an anti-Israel organization whose chapters have frequently defended terrorism — that showed an image of a building on fire — apparently from the scene of a recent airstrike in Gaza — with the message “This is Zionism.”
The posts also included a series of claims about the strike, which Israel says targeted a Hamas terror group command and control center, and was likely inflamed by a secondary explosion of ammunition at the site.
Further posts appended to it accused Israel of a year-long genocide in Gaza, making no reference to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, that started the war. Israel has long denied all accusations of genocide.
The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, said the post “indirectly questions Israel’s right to exist” and accused Ozoguz of “pouring oil on the fire.”
The Social Democratic Party lawmaker, one of five vice presidents of the German Bundestag, later deleted her message and apologized.
“I realized that the shared post hurt the feelings of fellow citizens who stand up for peaceful coexistence,” she wrote. “That was not my intention and I deeply regret that.”
Volker Beck, chairman of the German-Israeli Society, said Ozoguz had “crossed a red line.”
The parliamentary head of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei, said it was “outraged and disappointed.”
“We do not want to be represented by such a vice president,” Frei said. “She does not speak for us.”
The chamber’s president, Baerbel Bas, also from the Social Democrats, said “it is not acceptable to spread messages with clearly anti-Zionist content.”
Germany under Scholz has provided Israel with weapons for its war against Hamas and allies, and has frequently called on the terror group to release the 101 hostages it continues to hold, and for an end to the war.
On Saturday, at a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a prominent supporter of Hamas, Scholz rejected the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
