An initiative of Jewish citizens which recently went public with a position paper on the 2017 federal election also feels that it has been wrongly claimed for Petry’s party. “We are not suited to being the fig leaf of the AfD!” said the founder of the WerteInitiative, Elio Adler, in a statement on Friday.
A post had recently appeared on the AfD’s Facebook page which, with direct reference to the paper, criticised the Zentralrat der Juden (Central Council of Jews in Germany) while at the same time claiming: “As the AfD, we stand alongside the Jewish community in Germany.”
Among other things, the WerteInitiative’s position paper calls for more resolute action by the constitutional state in the spirit of a “free and democratic Leitkultur” and for greater vigilance towards anti-Semitism, not least where it comes from political Islam.
Elio Adler, however, sees these demands as diametrically opposed to the intentions of the AfD: “We wish,” his statement reads, “to see Germany as part of a vital European Union, we stand up for circumcision and shechita, we regard everyone who is committed to the free and democratic Leitkultur as part of society (irrespective of citizenship and religion), and we make an offer of integration based on values instead of a policy of exclusion based on fear.”
Adler also criticises the fact that the AfD is already pressing into the public arena with statements, even though the WerteInitiative intends to ask all the major parties for their comments on the position paper only at the end of April, once further signatures of support have been collected.”
