German MP from Scholz’s party in row over anti-Zionist post

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left party faced controversy today after one of its lawmakers, a vice president of parliament, shared an online post denounced as anti-Israeli.

Aydan Ozoguz shared a post from the US-based anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace that showed an image of a building on fire with the message “This is Zionism.”

The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, says 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.”