“Der Spiegel” and Elif Eralp: It’s better to sweep in front of your own front door

Der Spiegel is not to blame for the fact that Elif Eralp is afraid and the left has a problem within its own ranks. Even if parts of the left are currently trying to put this spin on it. They turn a blind eye to the fact that behind the article about Eralp there is a problem that goes beyond Berlin.

Instead, she should finally take a look around her own party and its leadership. It could start on Saturday when the Berlin state party conference votes on further coalition negotiations with the SPD and the Greens. The party's internal state working group for Palestine Solidarity has already announced that it will protest in front of the building against the possible government.

It is the same working group that expressed solidarity with Ibrahim Ibrahim after the Berlin election. Eralp says about the activist and those around him: She and her husband are afraid of these people. The party should take this cry for help seriously, as it would any other woman who expresses fear of a man. Here it is a man who calls terrorists martyr heroes.

But the problem doesn't just lie with the party. After all, Ibrahim Ibrahim is not a member of the Left Party either; he only attends its election parties and speaks at demos with politicians from the Left. It is actually a strength of the Left that it mobilizes together with extra-parliamentary alliances. This can bring you close to people, their everyday lives and their problems.

But now the left has to be careful not to lose control of this. Parts of the left wing and the party are increasingly glorifying violence. Mackerels dominate many left-wing groups and enjoy the militant core spirit - as you can easily see at every second demo. And the crowd that danced and cheered at an election campaign event in Neukölln while the rapper Dahabflex sang about “Intifada like the PFLP” on stage is at least tasteless.

Other left-wing politicians also feel threatened or abandoned, and the party reacts hesitantly or not at all. In Leipzig, parts of the left mobilized against the politician Juliane Nagel and her party office in Connewitz. Groups within the party such as the AG Palestine Solidarity and the Left Youth also called for a demonstration against Nagel at the time. At that time, the party leadership stood behind Nagel.

It will be particularly bitter if even that doesn't happen. In January, an arson attack was carried out on the property of Brandenburg's anti-Semitism commissioner Andreas Büttner, then a member of the Left. After the attack, it took the party leadership three days to publicly comment on it. Büttner said at the time that this had “deeply hurt” him. However, it later emerged that the suspects came from his private circle. He has now left the party.

The left must take consistent action against the glorification of violence and authoritarian behavior within its own ranks and support those who are afraid of it. And she shouldn't forget why she won the election: because she promised the people of Berlin a better life - with neighborhood canteens, a clean city and affordable rents. How do you want to convince people to vote for the left in the future if it should be said: "Sorry, Hamas sympathizers glorifying terror and the Spiegel people got in the way. Unfortunately, now the CDU has to govern."