Anyone hoping Die Linke (Left Party) will pursue a more left-wing policy in Berlin than the Christian Democrats (CDU) need not wait for the election to be proven wrong.

When a right-wing media frenzy was unleashed against the party’s Neukölln district branch at the weekend after rapper Dahabflex performed a song opposing the genocide in Gaza at an election rally, lead candidate Elif Eralp and Berlin Left Party state chair Kerstin Wolter did not come to the defence of their own party, but joined in the baying. They are doing everything they can to assure the ruling class of their reliability.

The Left Party Neukölln district branch had organised an election campaign rally on Herrfurthplatz on Saturday evening under the slogan “Angry at Capitalism,” which drew around a thousand people. Alongside appearances by candidates for the Berlin State Assembly and district council (BVV), musicians also performed, among them the rapper Dahabflex.

Towards the end of the event, Dahabflex performed his song “Stop the Genocide.” The lyrics include the lines “Yallah, yallah, intifada” and “Death to the IDF.” Another part of the song states, “We are not antisemites. Millions of people displaced. That is why we demand peace,” but this did not stop politicians and the media from whipping up a furious storm of outrage.

One of Berlin’s main dailies, Tagesspiegel, wrote of “open Jew-hatred,” while the tabloid Bild termed it “a call to violence against Israel.” CDU lead candidate Stefan Evers declared antisemitism within Berlin’s Left Party was “no longer an aberration, but part of its political system.” Green Party politician Werner Graf likewise accused the Left Party of “incitement to violence,” while Stefan Krach, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) lead candidate, accused Die Linke of having “given a platform to hatred of Israel.”

Three years after the start of the genocide in Gaza, such manufactured invective is nothing new. It erupts whenever anyone dares to question the war policy of the imperialist powers—even if it amounts to no more than two lines of criticism of a genocide.

A genuinely left-wing party would stand up to this right-wing campaign and refute the mendacious accusations of “antisemitism” and “violence.” The Left Party does the opposite: instead of standing behind its own election rally, it falls into line with the right-wing campaign being waged by establishment politicians and the media.

Left Party lead candidate in the election, Elif Eralp, condemned the rapper’s performance “in the strongest possible terms,” declaring, “Calls for violence and the killing of people are absolutely unacceptable.” She said she expected the Neukölln district branch “to establish how such a transgression could occur, and that there be consequences.” State chair Kerstin Wolter likewise said she was “hopping mad about the lyrics” and demanded consequences.

Hermann Nehls, spokesman for the Left Party Neukölln district executive, defended Dahabflex’s performance. The rapper had been invited because he took “a clear stand against war and genocide, and for peace and against antisemitism,” he told the Berliner Zeitung. The song was “not part of the original programme” and had been “performed spontaneously.” “To insinuate, on the basis of song lyrics, that we are calling for violence is a transparent election campaign manoeuvre,” Nehls said. He nonetheless promised an “internal review of the evening.”

Dahabflex himself rejected the accusations, writing that he was lost for words. The event was being torn out of context and reduced to two lines, he said, and he denied ever having called for the killing of civilians.

The episode is characteristic of the Left Party. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom Elif Eralp has named as her role model, also took care during his election campaign to set himself apart through occasionally sharp criticism of the Israeli government. That did not stop him from travelling to the White House after his election to meet Trump, with whom he got on famously. His pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York was dropped as quickly as it had been made.

The Left Party is not even waiting for the election to make its right-wing politics clear. It has supported the genocide from the outset and has continued that policy in the current election campaign. As early as October 2023, it unanimously backed a resolution in the Bundestag (federal parliament) expressing solidarity with Israel. In 2025, it cheered Trump’s murderous colonial plan for Gaza. That same year, it voted in the Bundesrat (upper house of parliament) for war credits worth €1 trillion.

What it now brands and condemns as “incitement to violence”, slogans referring to the intifada—a Palestinian mass uprising against the illegal Israeli occupation—makes clear which kind of violence it rejects. It has no problem with German imperialism’s multi-billion-euro rearmament programme. It has no problem with the violence of the Israeli army, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and destroyed the livelihoods of 2 million people. But it draws the line when Palestinian workers and young people fight back against this.

The Left Party could not demonstrate its class character more clearly. It does not stand in opposition to the policies of the ruling class; it supports German imperialism on all essential questions. Its occasionally left-sounding phrases about “affordable housing” serve only to mislead inexperienced voters who are becoming radicalised. Once it enters government, it drops its social and pacifist phrases.

In this, the Neukölln district branch plays the role of a left-wing fig leaf. It puts up posters “against genocide” and gives its opponents a platform. In doing so, it tries to foster the illusion that there is a “left-wing” within Die Linke that could gain the upper hand given enough pressure within the party.

In fact, it is campaigning for a party and a lead candidate that have repeatedly proven their reliability to the ruling class. Having joined Bild and the CDU in attacking her own district branch, one can imagine what Eralp would be capable of were she to move into Berlin City Hall as mayor.

Right-wing politics is in the Left Party’s DNA. It is the successor to the Stalinist party of state in the former East Germany, which suppressed the working class there and ultimately reintroduced capitalism. Since then, it has played a central role in stabilising capitalism.

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) is standing in the Berlin state election to oppose the right-wing politics of Die Linke and all other capitalist parties. We are building a movement in the working class whose aim is not to save capitalism with a few reforms, but to overthrow it in order to build a socialist society.

We call on all who support this perspective: support our election campaign and join the SGP!