Because of anti-Semitism – Central Council of Jews complains to ZDF – Politics Inland

by time news

The President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster (67), expressed concern in a letter (available from BILD) to ZDF director Thomas Bellut (66) about the station’s handling of anti-Semitism.

Schuster criticizes the fact that ZDF employs a journalist who “excelled by spreading anti-Semitic and anti-Israel resentment”. “People who spread anti-Semitism are not allowed to have a place on public broadcasting,” said Schuster. The President of the Central Council also wrote that he was interested in “how you intend to proceed in this case” and “how you generally deal with comparable cases at ZDF”.

Specifically, it is about Yasmin Ayhan, who works as a writer for a ZDF sitcom. Several media outlets (including BILD) had revealed that Ayhan regularly spreads anti-Semitic content online, only took part in radical Israel-hating demos and gave speeches in the summer.

However, the public broadcaster has not taken any action so far, as Ayhan had declared that she had “been fighting publicly against anti-Semitism for years”. In the reply to Schuster, ZDF director Bellut also certifies that the author has “clearly distanced himself from anti-Semitic positions”.

Bellut does not respond to Ayhan’s participation in anti-Israeli demonstrations in May 2021, but explains: “Anyone who clearly and publicly questions the right to exist of the State of Israel or expresses themselves anti-Semitic – and does not credibly revise this cannot be for ZDF or for ZDF productions work ”.

Debate about WDR presenter El-Hassan

In another letter to WDR director Tom Buhrow (63), Schuster warns against dropping the allegations against journalist Nemi El-Hassan (28). She is criticized for her participation in the anti-Semitic Al-Quds March in 2014 and for her current “likes” for hating Israel online. For example, El-Hassan only “liked” Instagram content in the fall of 2021, celebrating the breakout of Palestinian terrorists from prison, even though some of the terrorists had murdered Israeli citizens.

Photo: Tilman Schenk / dpa

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Should moderate for the WDR: Nemi El-HassanPhoto: Tilman Schenk / dpa

The WDR had declared that El-Hassan would not be moderating the science program “Quarks” for the time being. Working behind the camera as an author still seems to be possible for WDR.

Schuster points out that the defense of El-Hassan by Israel’s ex-ambassador Avi Primor (86) and historian Moshe Zimmermann (77) “cannot be seen as representative of the Jewish community in Germany”.

The two had protected El-Hassan from accusations of anti-Semitism and, according to “FAZ”, declared that the content she “liked” was not an expression of anti-Semitism, as it was written by the Jewish group “Jewish Voice for Peace”. were put on the net. The suspension of El-Hassan therefore follows “the desire to discriminate against a woman with a Palestinian background”.

In his letter to Buhrow, Schuster clearly contradicts this. The association “Jewish Voice for Peace”, according to the Central Council President, “actively supported events of the BDS boycott movement”, whose “argumentation patterns and methods” were “clearly declared as anti-Semitic” by the German Bundestag. The positions of Primor and Zimmermann are “a minority opinion that is not shared by the vast majority of Jews”.

In the coming week, the WDR Broadcasting Council will again discuss the El-Hassan case, a polarized discussion is expected.

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