On December 7, Germany’s left-wing Die Linke (The Left) party expelled with immediate effect Palestinian-German member and activist Ramsis Kilani for his vocal opposition to "Israel’s" ongoing genocide in Gaza. In doing so, it followed in the footsteps of the only other mainstream leftist party in the country, the Greens, in exhibiting the infamous Palestine exception to progressive politics.

Kilani, a self-described Marxist, called his expulsion "a sad commentary on a leftist, internationalist party", left-wing daily junge Welt (jw) reported. The decision made by the Landesschiedskommission, the party’s state-level arbitration body was damaging "to all of us who fight for universal human rights", the activist wrote on Instagram.

Katina Schubert, one of two members from the party’s right-wing who had brought forward the motion to expel Kilani denied that his Palestine solidarity activism had anything to do with the decision, saying that it was based on his "relativisation of Hamas terror, selective criticism of violence against women as a weapon of war and denial of "Israel’s" right to exist", the jw report went on to say.

Germany’s hegemonic Palestine/'Israel' discourse

Anyone of a critical disposition who has been following Germany’s Islamophobic and misogynist Palestine/"Israel" discourse since October 7 of last year will undoubtedly recognise the tell-tale signs of default propaganda copy-pasted straight from habitually factitious Israeli officialdom in Schubert’s statement.

They include the racist double-standard of the west’s hegemonic terrorism discourse, white feminism that is knee-deep in denial about "Israel’s" systematic use of sexual violence against Palestinian women as a weapon of war, as well as the discursive normalisation of euro-western settler colonialism on lands stolen from an Indigenous people.

Kilani has vehemently refuted the accusations levelled against him. "They argue that I question Israel’s right to exist and the two-state solution without proving how they arrive at these assumptions […] My positions are artificially approximated to antisemitism", he told independent news portal etos.media.

His case lays bare the deep ideological divisions within the party with regards to "Israel’s" right to exist and the Palestinians’ right to resist.

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"It is not this [Israeli] state that has a right to exist, but all people who live on the territory – historic Palestine – controlled by it. As long as that is not the case, resistance against war, oppression and occupation is justified", reads a statement by Sozialismus von Unten (SVU), an antifascist, pro-Palestine organisation of which Kilani is a member, in reaction to Schubert’s defamatory claims.

A political left in tatters

Die Linke’s cabal against Kilani is not only emblematic of the established German left’s virulent anti-Palestinian racism, but yet another instance of self-destructive behaviour within a party that has steadily manoeuvred itself into political irrelevance over the years through incessant in-fighting and all too transparent pandering to right-wing voters. Many of whom can smell the stench of left-wing desperation from miles away and understandably cast their ballot for the real deal, the far-right AfD.

"How can it be that a leftist party cannot even position itself against genocide anymore? How can it be that a leftist party lets itself be driven by right-wing forces?" Kilani asked the crowd at a small solidarity protest in his honour in Berlin following the party’s decision to expel him.

Kilani’s expulsion comes at a time when a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Germany after the recent collapse of the ruling Social Democratic-led coalition government. Snap elections set for February of next year could see the fragmented Linke, once a reliable fixture of post-reunification German party politics, fail to return to the Bundestag.

Even more so after the exit of its most prominent member to found her own party early this year: The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has already poached key Linke party members and voter blocs to win double-digit percentages right off the bat in three East German state elections in September.

Generational trauma and revictimization

In post-October 7 Germany, with its rampant authoritarianism and unprecedented crackdowns on Palestine solidarity, Die Linke’s opportunistic betrayal of the people of Gaza in times of genocide as a nominally left-wing party which claims to base its raison d’être on "the struggles for human rights and emancipation, against fascism and racism, imperialism and militarism" is nothing short of political suicide.

Not to mention the sheer cruelty of inflicting needless pain on Kilani whose own life is emblematic of the Palestinian experience of transgenerational trauma and extraordinary resilience in the face of constant revictimization: In the summer of 2014, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killed seven members of his family, including his father, stepmother and half siblings.

A criminal case filed in Germany by the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza on behalf of the bereaved son was ultimately dismissed in 2021 by the Federal Public Prosecutor.

Speaking to me on the phone after his expulsion, Kilani said he intends to challenge the Linke’s decision. Whatever happens, he remains adamant that there will be no admission of guilt from him.

"I will continue to stand against the genocide of the Palestinians and for equal rights for all people, as well as for an end to oppression, occupation and in the Middle East" he promised in the interview with etos.media.

If Die Linke wishes to stay true to its name, it should finally start doing the same. Reinstating Kilani’s party membership would go a long way in proving that genocide actually is a red line for the traditional German left.