German–Iranian dissidents urge MP to resign from antisemitic BDS NGO

Three prominent German-Iranians who have gone to great lengths to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel urged Green Party MP Omid Nouripour on Monday to resign from a BDS group due its antisemitism and racism. Nouripour is on the advisory board of the German-Palestinian Society (DPG), a hardcore BDS group.

“Mr. Nouripour should immediately resign from the DPG for two reasons. First, because of the moral obligation toward Jews and for political reasons because the Bundestag defined BDS in 2019 as antisemitic,” Nasrin Amirsedghi, a publicist who fled the Islamic Republic of Iran due to persecution, told The Jerusalem Post.

She added that “if he does not do this, he is violating the basic democratic order of the Bundestag and thus legitimizing the Iranian regime’s antisemitic stance, which Hezbollah supports.”

The US and German designated Hezbollah a terrorist entity. The group supports BDS, along with with its chief proxy, the Iranian regime.

In 2015, Nouripour co-authored a pro-BDS Green Party initiative that mirrored a neo-Nazi party resolution to sanction Jewish products from the disputed West Bank territory.

Saba Farzan, a publicist and executive director at Foreign Policy Circle, a strategy think tank in Berlin, told the Post: “As a member of the German Bundestag, Mr. Nouripour must immediately resign from his post in the DPG.

He also has to do this against the background of his Iranian identity. There is only one dictatorship in this world that has an antisemitic state doctrine, namely the Islamic Republic.”

“This Islamic Republic is financially and politically closely linked to the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as well as Islamic Jihad. Mr. Nouripour has two responsibilities to implement here: Those who are politically committed as German-Iranians have a historical responsibility and an up-to-date approach to tackle raging antisemitism. You don’t do that by continuing to be a member of a questionable organization that legitimizes antisemitism. It would be nice and valuable for a change to watch some political civil courage from Mr. Nouripour,” she concluded.

Dr. Kazem Mousavi, the spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in exile, told the Post that “a member of the democratic Bundestag must not promote and support the worst racist campaign of our time, BDS… The anti-Israeli DGP, which poses a security threat to Germany, not only harms German politics, but supports, first of all, the Holocaust-denying regime in Iran.”

Mousavi, who has campaigned for years for a ban of the pro-Hezbollah and pro-Iranian regime rally al-Quds Day in Berlin, added that “the policy of the DGP, which practically supports BDS, is in line with the Iranian annihilation doctrine, which systematically pursues the deforestation, isolation and extinction of the Jewish state. The mullah regime also bans Israeli products in Iran by law.

“For Nouripour, it should not be unknown that the regime was actually the original initiator of the racist BDS campaign, Mousavi added. “In 2000, the current Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, chaired the Asian preparatory meeting in Tehran for the so-called UN World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which was marked by antisemitic incidents. The goal was to promote the boycott of Israeli products worldwide.

“In this sense, there are also well-known Iranian and non-Iranian regime lobbyists who, under the guise of supporting the Palestinians, are directly or indirectly involved in anti-Israel BDS institutions in the West and in Germany.

“As an Iranian dissident, I urge Nouripour to distance himself immediately from the DGP,” Mousavi continued. “He is also – whether he likes it or not – keenly opposed by the Iranian regime opponents because of his longstanding efforts to promote Germany’s ‘good’ friendship with Iran’s clerical fascism and his apparent position with which he argues against US sanctions and regime change in Iran.”

Nouripour did not immediately respond to numerous Post queries about his alleged BDS activity and role within the DPG. In an interview last week with the Franfurter Rundschau paper, Nouripur said: “We must be louder than the racists when fighting right-wing extremism. All of Germany’s right-wing extremist parties support BDS.”