No, the Iran Nuclear Deal is Not the Start of 'Peace in Our Time'

...At least Chamberlain did not wax on about “the builders of stability” overcoming “the destroyers of hope.” At least he did not compliment himself for insisting that Hitler adhere to the best in himself. At least he did not assert that such insistence would “shape a safer and a more humane world.” And he had the good grace to admit that his extemporaneous remark about “peace for our time” resulted from a long day and cheering crowds.

Rick Richman..
Commentary Magazine..
03 September '15..

In his speech yesterday on the Iran deal, Secretary of State Kerry mentioned “Israel” or “Israeli” 26 times – protesting a bit too much about his concern for the ally put at existential risk by the Obama administration’s cascade of concessions. Even eerier was the similarity of Kerry’s words to those of Neville Chamberlain in the British parliamentary debate on the Munich agreement in 1938. Here is Kerry’s assertion about Israel, together with his concluding words:

The people of Israel will be safer with this deal, and the same is true for the people throughout the region. … [H]istory may judge [the Iran agreement] a turning point, a moment when the builders of stability seized the initiative from the destroyers of hope, and when we were able to show, as have generations before us, that when we demand the best from ourselves and insist that others adhere to a similar high standard – when we do that, we have immense power to shape a safer and a more humane world. That’s what this is about and that’s what I hope we will do in the days ahead.

In the debate on the Munich agreement, Chamberlain’s claims were actually more modest than Kerry’s. He acknowledged the criticism he had received for saying that the agreement signaled “peace for our time,” and he said he hoped Members of Parliament would not “read into words used in a moment of some emotion, after a long and exhausting day, after I had driven through miles of excited, enthusiastic, cheering people – I hope they will not read into those words more than they were intended to convey.” He said he knew “weakness in armed strength means weakness in diplomacy” and he had a program to accelerate Britain’s re-armament. Then he described the effect of the agreement on Czechoslovakia and his hopes for the future:

It is my hope and my belief, that under the new system of guarantees, the new Czechoslovakia will find a greater security than she has ever enjoyed in the past…. Ever since I assumed my present office my main purpose has been to work for the pacification of Europe, for the removal of those suspicions and those animosities which have so long poisoned the air. … The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous [obstacle]. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity.

Germany? It’s just quicker and more shamelessly raring to go than its neighbors

...Iran, in other words, is shown that it can literally stick to its guns and further its “non-negotiable” genocidal plots against Israel, while the response from Washington is implausible indulgence that triggers an unnerving impetuous competition in Europe and Asia for lucrative Iranian opportunities.

German early bird Sigmar Gabriel
catching worms in Tehran.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
20 July '15..

In business, the early bird really does catch the worm and, mindful of that, European firms are rushing with headlong alacrity to do deals with Iran – even though pro-forma the sanctions against the ayatollah regime hadn’t yet been lifted.

Speediest and most impatient of all are the Germans, who cannot contain their zeal to profit. They dispatched a high-level 60-member delegation topped by Angela Merkel’s second-in-command along with representatives from such industrial giants as Linde, Siemens, Mercedes-Daimler, Volkswagen, et al.

To be sure, while the Germans are keenest to rake in the benefits of dealing with the genocidal enemies of the Jewish state, they have special incentives to appear righteous.

And so Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, advised the Iranians to “improve their relations with Israel,” recognize it, etc. Gabriel solicitously offered Germany’s unsolicited mediation services. To be sure, had he even loudly shouted his moralistic message in Farsi – in the center of Tehran – it’s doubtful the ayatollahs could repress their derisive laughter.

However, this lip service was paid only in an interview to the German paper Bild, making it little more than inconsequential.

Germany, of course, isn’t alone. It’s just quicker and more shamelessly raring to go than its neighbors. Europe’s eagerness for commercial transactions with Iran might well lend the impression to the uninitiated that all sanctions were already dropped, that Iran had fully demonstrated that it was upholding its end of the bargain, that it was fully rehabilitated, that it had quit the terror racket, abandoned its nuclear ambitions and that the ayatollahs enlisted in a pacifist sect.

It’s as if reentering Iran is an irresistible money-making magnet for a whole gamut of voracious concerns – from banks and financial conglomerates to the oil and gas sector and even carmakers and assorted manufacturers.

Planeloads of gung-ho executives are due in Tehran from numerous European firms for “exploratory” talks, while the ink on the Vienna deal has hardly dried. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Italian Economic Development Minister Federica Guidi plan to visit Iran soon too. Also hot on the German heels are the British, Dutch, Swiss, Spanish and others. Simultaneously, on Europe’s east loom the Russians and from Asia come equally enthusiastic Chinese and South Korean overtures toward Tehran.

The entire phenomenon is both mind-boggling and disheartening, to say the least.

Nation-States, German Textbooks and Anti-Israel Liberal Elites

...Israel, however, is a potent challenge to the dogma: It’s a modern, Western, democratic, human-rights-respecting country that nevertheless proudly proclaims itself the nation-state of the Jewish people. And there’s only one way for liberal elites to resolve the cognitive dissonance this causes without sacrificing their cherished dogma: by sacrificing Israel. Or, in other words, by painting as a racist, warmongering, benighted country no different from all the other unenlightened nation-states.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
11 July '15..

Pollster Frank Luntz briefly generated shock waves this week with a survey showing the abysmal view of Israel held by Democratic opinion leaders. Inter alia, 47 percent deemed Israel racist, with only 32 percent disagreeing, and a whopping 76 percent said Israel has too much influence on U.S. foreign policy. But in truth, it shouldn’t be news to anyone by now that anti-Israel sentiment, like its kissing cousin anti-Semitism, is primarily the province of the liberal elites. I’ve written before about a German study showing that educated elites, rather than the far-right fringes, are the wellspring of anti-Semitism in that country; just last month, another study found that the same is true for anti-Israel sentiment. And the reason for this goes beyond the obvious fact that anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism are related.

The background to the new German study is a series of polls showing shocking levels of anti-Israel sentiment among ordinary Germans: For instance, fully 35 percent “equate Israeli policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi policies toward the Jews.” Given the vaunted “special relationship” between Germany and Israel, such findings raise obvious questions about how so many Germans developed such warped views.

So a group of German and Israeli researchers decided to analyze German textbooks to see what exactly German schools are teaching their students. They examined 1,200 history, geography and social studies textbooks from five German states, and concluded that these books portray Israel almost exclusively as a militarist, warmongering society.

Israel’s robust democracy, respect for human rights and other achievements are absent in these books. The illustrations consist of “tendentious and one-sided photographic presentations” of Israeli soldiers threatening or inflicting violence on Palestinians.

“Occupation and settlements” are depicted as the main obstacles to peace; the fact that both Israelis and Palestinians have claims to the land goes unmentioned, and Palestinian terror gets a free pass – or as the report puts it, most of the authors “find it difficult to unequivocally call Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians acts of terror.”

In short, it’s not surprising that so many Germans have such negative views of Israel, because that’s precisely what they are taught in school. True, the textbooks don’t actually compare Israel to the Nazis, but the comparison doesn’t require a big leap of logic for graduates of these schools; after all, to a German, the paradigmatic example of a militarist, warmongering society is Nazi Germany. So once you tell students that Israel, too, is a militarist, warmongering society, the Nazi analogy comes naturally.

But who writes the textbooks that give these pupils such a warped view of Israel? Hint: It’s not the neo-Nazi skinheads. It’s the liberal elites.

Actually, European Anti-Semitism Starts from the Top

...In short, modern anti-Semitism can’t be fought without addressing a problem that too many members of Europe’s educated elites refuse to see: The propagators of today’s anti-Semitism come primarily from their own Israel-obsessed ranks, not from the far-right fringes. And one can’t help wondering whether Jews were left off Germany’s blue-ribbon panel precisely because they might have the temerity to point this out.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
11 February '15..

The Obama administration’s inexplicable denial that last month’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris could possibly be anti-Semitic overshadowed yesterday’s other interesting tidbit from the anti-Semitism front: German Jewish organizations are furious because a blue-ribbon panel set up by the German government to advise it on fighting anti-Semitism doesn’t include a single Jew. It’s hard to imagine that a panel on, say, prejudice against Muslims or blacks would exclude representatives of the targeted community. But the more serious concern is that a panel without Jews will ignore one of the main manifestations of modern anti-Semitism, as exemplified by another German decision just last week: a judicial ruling that there’s nothing anti-Semitic about torching a synagogue to protest Israeli actions in Gaza.

The case involved two German-Palestinian adults who threw Molotov cocktails at the Wuppertal synagogue in July, causing 800 euros worth of damage. The court decided the attack wasn’t anti-Semitic and therefore let them off with suspended jail sentences and community service. And why wasn’t it anti-Semitic? Because, said the court, the perpetrators were simply trying to bring “attention to the Gaza conflict” then raging between Hamas and Israel. And of course there’s nothing anti-Semitic about attacking Jews in one country to “bring attention” to acts by other Jews in another country; they’re all Jews, aren’t they? Doubtless the court would be equally understanding if Israelis torched a German church to “bring attention to” this abhorrent ruling.

Nor is the ruling an aberration; it’s quite representative of elite German thought. Last year, Prof. Monika Schwarz-Friesel of the Technical University of Berlin published a study that analyzed 10 years’ worth of hate mail sent to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli embassy in Berlin. To her surprise, only 3 percent came from right-wing extremists, while over 60 percent came from educated members of “the social mainstream.” And these letters weren’t mere “Israel criticism”; they contained classic anti-Semitic statements like “It is possible that the murder of innocent children suits your long tradition” or “For the last 2,000 years, you’ve been stealing land and committing genocide.”

Once Again in Germany, Nothing New Under the Sun

...Reading about incidents like the violent attack in Hamburg it is difficult not to wonder whether many Germans still have an unhealthy relationship with Jewish matters. Europeans in general, and Germans in particular, have been all too quick to rush to condemn the Jewish state. Perhaps there really is no better way for distracting from past guilt than framing your victims for a similar crime.

Former left-wing conscience of
Germany, with Nazi past.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
24 June '14..

Amidst the stream of hate directed against Israel it is easy to become desensitized to the daily incidents of bigotry, particularly the many that emanate from Europe. But when an elderly Jewish man and his daughter are attacked and hospitalized while attending a pro-Israel vigil in Hamburg one can’t help but feel a shiver. The rally in question was being held in solidarity with the three Israeli teenagers that have been kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. But apparently even that was too much for some to tolerate and before long an aggressive counter-demonstration had gathered. What was it that they were seeking to counter exactly–the rescue of the boys?

One of the organizers of the vigil—who I will avoid naming here as he has previously had to receive police protection—recounted how the demonstrators knocked the 83-year-old man to the ground before then beginning to kick his daughter who was attempting to protect her father. A press release from the Hamburg for Israel network tells how the victim of the assault had to receive surgery for a head wound and is still recovering in Hospital. Reportedly the attackers came from the somewhat appropriately named anti-globalization group ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens), but what does any of that have to do with three Jewish boys kidnapped by Hamas?

Perhaps some of those on the demonstration would say that they oppose the IDF’s “heavy handed” efforts to rescue the boys, for some days now such agenda-driven complaints have been coming from the international NGO scene (the German ones among them included). Yet when Syria and Iraq are engulfed in one of the most brutal civil wars imaginable, when Egypt is locking away journalists and executing opponents of the military government en masse, it is simply grotesque that Europeans would point an accusatory finger at Israel, the one place where a stable liberal democracy is being held together, no thanks to the NGOs that seek to undermine it relentlessly.

In the case of Germany it seems memories must fade fast—or perhaps not. Given the prevalence of anti-Israel feeling in Germany one can’t help but wonder if this is part of some perverse attempt to turn the tables back on the Jews. After all in a survey from 2011 47 percent of Germans said that Israel is carrying out a war of extermination against the Palestinians. Can they actually believe this, or is it just convenient for some Germans to believe such things?

Europe, Germany and Krake Zuckerberg

...Yet the very fact that Germans now feel disembarrassed enough to broadcast their anti-Israelism as boldly as the rest of Europe, allows them to bask in smug ostensible righteousness. They thereby catapult themselves – in their own eyes obviously – onto the moral high-ground. They had dutifully performed the perfunctory breast-beating, learned to recite standard liberal banalities and, having invested all that effort, now feel spotless and irreproachable. Indeed they aren’t only vindicated, they are morally superior.

Krake Zuckerberg (Octopus Zuckerberg):
its distinctive face makes sure that we
don’t lose sight of Zuckerberg’s Jewishness.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
07 March '14..

Most German publications no longer even pretend any wariness about coming off as anti-Jewish. Gone are the days when Germans had to at least appear a tad more cautious than their fellow Europeans. The latter reverted quickly enough to their old Jew-baiting habits but the Germans have willy-nilly caught up.

A cogent example is being consistently provided by Munich’ s left-liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which also happens to be Germany’s largest broadsheet daily. It recently featured a cartoon lampooning Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after his outfit had acquired WhatsApp. The idea was to show Zuckerberg as a voracious octopus that swallows up everything around it. The caption at the bottom left-hand corner of the cartoon clearly read “Krake Zuckerberg” (German for Octopus Zuckerberg.) Up to this point, it’s tolerable criticism.

But the octopus, as drawn by cartoonist Burkhard Mohr, was also given quite a distinctive face. Its function, presumably, was to make sure we don’t lose sight of the fact that young Zuckerberg – innovative enough to have given the world a social network which millions of Germans also use – is a Jew. To that end, Mohr portrayed him with a preposterous hook-nose and thick fish-lips – as per the freakish stereotype sinisterly ascribed to Jews by their tormentors.

The most glaring example was Julius Streicher’s Nazi-era Der Stürmer which surpassed all competitors in caricaturing Jews as hook-nosed spiteful grotesques. However, while Der Stürmer was the worst, it wasn’t alone. In fact, it’s still seemingly unobjectionable all over the globe to gratuitously picture Jews in Der Stürmer style.

The Arab world, beloved by ardent liberals, has long specialized in this genre of demonizing and degrading misrepresentations of Jews.

Even in sterling democracies, like Britain and the US, we routinely see much of the same. It’s as if this is the stock depiction of the Jew and nothing else will drive home the identity of the targeted individual and/or group. A Jew can be as dashingly handsome as the late Moshe Dayan was, but still be portrayed as a repulsive Der Stürmer Jew – lest there be any misapprehension.

And so, a baby-face like Zuckerberg, who looks nothing like Mohr’s hideous ogre, must be given the mandatory hook nose so no one misses the message.

Herein lies the crux of the problem.

Statesmen, Fantasies and the Refusal to Make “Tough Decisions” for Peace

...Israel is once again offering as much as it can without ceasing to survive as Israel. But then this is the crux of the matter. It really looks as if it may just be the case that no offer that leaves the Jewish state in existence will be acceptable to Palestinians.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
24 February '14..

On the eve of the German government’s arrival in Israel, Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has called on Israel to make the “difficult but necessary decisions” for the peace process to succeed. There is of course nothing particularly remarkable or unprecedented about Germany’s foreign minister having made these statements. Such phrases just so easily roll off of the tongues of statesmen trying to find something constructive sounding to say about a process that has proven to be anything but. However, these unthinking assertions are problematic, because they display an utter refusal to take account of the reality of the peace process as it actually exists.

Such vague talk of “difficult decisions” is easy, but precisely what tough decisions is it that Israel could make that these diplomats can honestly say would make an iota of difference to the current Palestinian attitude? This talk simply neglects to account for the present, and indeed longstanding, attitude of the Palestinian leadership. Last week Palestinian Authority head Abbas told Kerry formerly that he rejects Kerry’s current peace framework, while also having said that if no framework is agreed upon by the end of April, then the Palestinian side will exit negotiations. It should further be recalled that the only reason that the Palestinians are even at the negotiating table is because of the Obama administration’s bribery. In return for Abbas going through the motions of peace talks the U.S. government released large amounts of funding to the PA, held up on account of the Palestinians’ unilateral activities at the UN, while Israel was pressured into releasing several rounds of convicted terrorists for the pleasure of the Palestinians’ company at the negotiating table.

Then there is the matter of Abbas’s ever-changing and fluid list of demands, red lines, and negotiating positions, with the goal posts continuously on the move. Yet, as much as it is possible to pin down precisely what the Palestinian position is, it appears to be completely at odds with what any reasonable person would expect a final agreement to look like. The Palestinians have refused to even consider recognizing the Jewish state, demanded the release of all Palestinian prisoners in a final deal, and Abbas has additionally said he will not give up the claims of the descendants of Palestinian refugees to move to the Jewish state rather than the Palestinian one. And such positions also have to be considered alongside the PA’s continuous use of its media network and school system to stirrup incitement against Jews and the very existence of Israel.

When it comes to Israel and human rights Germany plays a double game

...So why did Israel decide to rejoin this tragi-comic fraud? Mostly because of pressure from Germany, which apparently committed to rectify the UNHRC’s discriminatory policy toward Israel. But how can Germany reasonably claim to act against the fraudulent and cynical politicization of human rights by the UN and by NGOs, when German political parties contribute to that very farce by funding NGOs that defame Israel and advocate the dismembering of the Jewish state in the name of human rights?

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
I24 News..
01 November '13..

At Germany's behest, Israel renewed this week its cooperation with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after boycotting the controversial body for nearly two years. Its boycott was motivated by the UNHRC’s threefold discriminatory policy toward Israel: singling it out for special discussion in every human rights conference; baring its election to the council by virtue of Israel not belonging to any regional grouping; and subjecting it to more condemnations than any other country.

Israel was guaranteed that this unfair treatment will end if it renews its cooperation with the UNHRC.

The UNHRC Charter has a special article (Article 7) which stipulates that any conference on human rights must hold a separate discussion on Israel. This stipulation applies only to Israel, and no other country in the world is subject to such treatment – not even actual and horrendous human rights abusers such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, China or Sudan. This “Israel-only” clause was adopted by the UNHRC in 2007. At the time it was criticized by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who publicly voiced disbelief at such bizarre treatment of a democracy given the range and scope of human rights violations throughout the world.

The second discriminatory policy has to do with the fact that Israel is the only country that does not belong to any regional group at the UNHRC, thus making it ineligible to be elected to UN bodies. Israel does not belong to the “Asia-Pacific Group,” because this group includes the Middle East and because Arab countries refuse to accept Israel. At the UN in New York, Israel finally became a permanent member of the West European and Others Group (which includes Turkey) in 2004, but in Geneva, it is still excluded. This exclusion makes Israel the only country that is ineligible to the UNHRC. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said, this exclusion is inconsistent with the basic principle of equality among UN members.

The third discrimination has to do with the disproportionate condemnation of Israel by the UNHRC. In its March 2013 session, for instance, the UNHRC adopted six resolutions against Israel, and only four for the rest of the world combined (the four other resolutions condemned Syria, Iran, Myanmar and Sri Lanka). There were no resolutions about the gross and systematic violations of human rights in countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, or Zimbabwe. This disproportionate and discriminatory policy characterized the UNHRC way before Israel decided to pull out. But the fact that the UNHRC fails to condemn actual human rights offenders should come as no surprise, since many of these offenders are among the 47 elected members of the committee. Indeed, in two weeks, the UNHRC will welcome among its newly elected members China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

Jerusalem 1936 - The Sukka and the Swastika

Yehuda Avner..
JPost..
First published 07 October 09..

Succot, 1936. The newly appointed German consul-general to Jerusalem, Herr Walter Doehl, stood at his office window hung with an extravagantly tasseled swastika banner, and gazed with curiosity at the sight of clusters of bearded Jews, all draped in prayer shawls and resplendent in the styles and furs of late-medieval Poland, entering and exiting a ramshackle foliage-thatched booth on the other side of the Street of the Prophets where his legation was situated, each clutching what seemed to him to be a lemon and a palm frond.

"It's one of their festivals - Tabernacles," explained the man by his side, in an almost unintelligible guttural German. "They're coming from their synagogues for schnapps. And they wave those things around when they pray for rain."

The man was Ludwig Buchalter, chief of the Nazi Party in the German Colony - a pastoral, red-tiled roofed Jerusalem neighborhood, built by the messianic Templers and studded with monumental stone buildings, statuesque pine trees and picturesque alleyways. Though he had never set foot in Germany in his life, Buchalter looked every bit a Bavarian burgher. The skull of his moon-shaped face was shaved, and beneath his bulbous nose drooped a Hindenburg mustache. He was wearing a short, leather-buttoned, olive-green jacket with rounded lapels, to which a swastika badge was pinned.

That day, he was also sporting a Nazi armband. In making this first call on the new German consul-general he wanted to show off his impeccable National Socialist credentials with their subliminal message that he, Herr Buchalter, was largely responsible for Herr Doehl's appointment to Jerusalem. For months he had been exhorting the Foreign Ministry in Berlin to get rid of the incumbent, a Dr. Heinrich Wolff, because "he is married to a woman of Semitic origin."

No wonder he was so thrilled at finally being able converse with a fellow Nazi in authority concerning the party's goings-on in the German Colony. And how proud he was to be standing there in that opulent room, with its brass chandelier that hung low from the domed, lofty ceiling, bringing out the shine in the waxed black-and-white tiled floor, and the brilliant hues of the ceremonial Nazi flag draped on the desk next to the silver-framed portrait of a smiling Adolf Hitler shaking hands with an adoring Walter Doehl.

(Updated) Depicting Israel as a Bloodthirsty Monster Evidently O.K. for the Süddeutsche Zeitung

Sarit Catz..
CAMERA Middle East issues..
04 July '13..

Alongside a favorable review of two books that are highly critical of Israel, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) ran a cartoon on July 2 depicting Israel as a voracious Moloch, the deity to whom ancient Canaanites sacrificed children. The caption reads, “Germany is serving. For decades, Israel has been provided with weapons, in part for free. Israel's enemies see the country as a voracious Moloch. Peter Beinart laments that it has come to this.” (Beinart is referenced because his book, The Crisis of Zionism, is one of those reviewed.)

The horned monster pictured conjures up visions associated with both the age-old blood libel against Jews and last century's grotesquely anti-Semitic cartoons, like those from Germany's own Der Stürmer, that dehumanized Jews and helped pave the way for the Holocaust.Associating this grotesque image with the Jewish state, home to the majority of Jews in the world, clearly links this long-standing Jew-hatred with its newest incarnation, Israel-hatred.

Unlike other anti-Semitic cartoons, in this case the artist bears no responsibility as the drawing was originally created for a gourmet magazine, having nothing in particular to do with Jews or Israel. The artist, Ernst Kahl, is quoted in the German Jewish newspaper, Judische Allgemeine, as saying he is “appalled” that his drawing was used in this context. Indeed it is the context that creates the issue.

SZ editors have printed two statements on the subject. The first cites the controversy and explains that “only the enemies of Israel see Israel in a way that is similar to the monster pictured. In addition, the State of Israel is not to be equated with Judaism.” The assertion that only the enemies of Israel see it this way is absurd, as the bigoted message denigrating Israel is unambiguous and could obviously fuel misunderstanding and animosity in unsuspecting readers. Further, denying the link between Israel and Judaism is ridiculous.

The SZ statement goes on to acknowledge that it would have been better to select another picture, if only to allow people to focus on the anti-Israel article itself.

Germany revisits its not so distant past

...So just who is it that the Germans are really hurting here? The duplicity of the labeling campaign targeting Judea and Samaria is all the more apparent when one considers that no such campaigns are being contemplated for Chinese products made in Tibet, Russian items manufactured in Chechnya or Spanish goods from Catalonia. Only when it comes to the Jewish state do the liberals of Europe insist on drawing a line in the sand. This is not only hypocrisy, it is hatred, pure and simple.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
10 June '13..

In a throwback to its darkest past, the German government recently decided to back an initiative which singles out Jewish-owned businesses and targets them for detrimental treatment. Joining 13 other European Union members, Berlin has reportedly agreed to support efforts aimed at applying special labels of origin to products manufactured by Jewish owned factories in Judea and Samaria.

The goal, of course, is to harm the livelihood of Jewish businessmen and entrepreneurs as a way of undermining the settlement enterprise. Needless to say, goods made by Palestinian-run plants in the territories will not similarly be branded.

This is an absolute outrage, one that is both morally obscene and historically indefensible, and the government of Angela Merkel should be ashamed of itself for going along with such a discriminatory practice. Whatever one may think of the peace process and the two-state solution, it should be obvious that treating merchandise differently simply because the person who owns the factory where it was made is a follower of Moses rather than Muhammad is an act of pure bigotry.

And in light of its own sordid record during the 20th century, Germany and its leaders have a special responsibility to be exceptionally sensitive to such issues, particularly when they relate to Jews. After all, it was 80 years ago, in April 1933, that the Nazis launched a nationwide assault on Jewish owned businesses throughout Germany, painting yellow-and-black Stars of David on storefronts and discouraging people from patronizing them.

This was carried out under the slogan, "Kauft nicht bei Juden!" (Don't buy from Jews!). Hence, for any German government to stand up and declare: "Don't buy from Jews," even if the proposal is limited to the Jews of Judea and Samaria, is downright chilling and should send a shiver down everyone's spine.

Reviving the hate-based double standard “Kauf nicht bei Juden!”

Fresnozionism.org..
05 June '13..

Benjamin Weinthal writes (subscription):

The left-liberal German Green party finally forced the hand of the conservative Merkel administration to explicitly declare—what before had been an open secret—its support for product labels covering export goods from the occupied territories in the West Bank and Golan Heights.

Germany’s Green Party unleashed a firestorm of criticism in May over its parliamentary initiative to label Israeli exports to Europe and the Federal Republic. Critics in Germany and the United Kingdom argued that the Green Party push was an eerie reminder of the Hitler movement’s “Kauf nicht bei Juden!” [Do not buy from Jews!] boycott action and a modernized form of the yellow star.

Dr. Emily Haber, a state secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, conveyed the new position of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government in a letter to the Green Party: “The label ‘Made in Israel’ is, according to the opinion of the federal government, only allowed for products from within the borders of Israeli state territory before 1967.”

The measure is an unashamedly provocative anti-Israel move by the largely pro-Israel Merkel administration. It will blur the lines between an all-encompassing boycott of Israeli merchandise and demarcation of settlement products. In short, the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement will push the punitive label action down the slippery slope of blocking access to all Israeli goods.

Apparently, a decision about how to label products made beyond the Green Line hasn’t been made yet. Probably the yellow star is not in the running, but it should be. It is impossible any longer to hide the ugly hate-based double standard applied to the world’s only Jewish state by the international Left, of which Greens are representative:

In 1983, the Green Party put out a “Green Calendar” with the headline “Israel, the gang of murderers” and called for a “boycott of goods from Israel.” In an article last month in the German daily Die Welt entitled ‘The long tradition of Green Anti-Zionism,” the Green Party’s history of blaming Israel for the Middle East’s problems was highlighted. A year after the notorious “Green Calendar” was published, Green party politicians launched a fact-finding mission in the Middle East with visits to Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and the occupied West Bank. The delegation prepared a final document ahead of the trip declaring Israel “totally responsible for the emerging blood bath in the Middle East, when Israel does not decisively change its policies.”

A mere seven years later, a leading Green deputy, Hans-Christian Ströbele, who still serves in the Bundestag, justified the later Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s rocket attacks on the Jewish state during the First Gulf War in 1991 as a “logical, almost compelling consequence of Israel’s politics.”

Another telling example of the Greens’ disparate treatment toward Israel is that they have shown no comprehensive and systematic effort to push Germany’s government to similarly label products from Turkish occupied North Cyprus. In fact, the E.U. has showed no appetite for product labeling from territorial conflicts spanning the globe: Gibraltar, the Falklands, Western Sahara, Tibet, Kashmir, the Russian-held regions of Georgia, Armenian-held regions of Azerbaijan, North Cyprus, and Kosovo. Israeli products remain the notable exception subject to EU consumer protection.

The EU continues to hide its official Jew-hatred behind logically indefensible statements that the presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria is illegal, but its double standard betrays its true motivation.

Link: http://fresnozionism.org/2013/06/hate-based-double-standard-revives-kauf-nicht-bei-juden/

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Hezbollah and Terrorism - France’s Outrageous Double Standard

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
23 May '13..

For anyone who still thinks Europe’s widespread anti-Israel sentiment is purely a reaction to Israel’s policies, completely untainted by anti-Semitism, consider the unblushing announcement made by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius today: France, he said, is now ready to consider listing Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization, because “the fact that it has fought extremely hard against the Syrian population” has caused Paris to reverse its longstanding opposition to the move.

Naturally, I’m delighted that France has finally seen the light about Hezbollah. But France had no problem with the organization during all the years it was conducting cross-border attacks on the Israeli population. Lest anyone forget, these attacks continued even after Israel’s UN-certified withdrawal from every last inch of Lebanese territory in 2000; it was one such cross-border raid that sparked the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006. In other words, France has just declared that cross-border incursions to kill Jews in Israel are perfectly fine, but cross-border incursions to kill Muslims in Syria are beyond the pale. If that isn’t an anti-Semitic double standard, I don’t know what is.

Indeed, until now, France has consistently billed Hezbollah as a legitimate political force that contributes to stability in the Levant. That was always nonsensical: Starting a war with your southern neighbor that devastates large swathes of your own country, as Hezbollah did in 2006, is not exactly stabilizing behavior. But apparently, in France’s view, fighting Israel does contribute to Middle East stability: It’s only because Hezbollah is now fighting Syrians instead that Paris suddenly sees the organization as a destabilizing force.

A Different Shana Tova from Berlin’s Jewish Museum

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
18 September '12..

Last Saturday evening, the Jewish Museum in Berlin hosted a “debate” on a question that you could translate from German either as “Is Zionism part of Judaism?,” or, perhaps more sensibly, “Is Zionism part of Jewish identity/Jewishness?”

The answer of the museum’s guest of honor is well-known: the American academic Judith Butler – who, just a few days earlier, had received the Adorno Prize in Frankfurt in recognition of her work on gender, sexuality, critical theory and moral philosophy – has most recently published a book entitled “Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism.”

Butler is also a well-known supporter of the BDS-movement that targets Israel with campaigns calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions with the ultimate goal to delegitimize the Jewish state and pave the way for Israel’s dissolution in a bi-national “Isratine.”

As I have pointed out previously, Butler’s support for the BDS movement means in practice that her political statements can be found on a website frequently criticized for antisemitic content and that she would refuse to lecture at Tel Aviv University, but be perfectly happy to visit Birzeit University, which has a well-earned reputation for fostering extremism and glorifying terrorism. Indeed, in the acknowledgements for her recent book, Butler mentions Birzeit University as one of the places where she “learned from students and faculty.” Hopefully, these students didn’t include those that attended a festive event on the university campus to honour the terrorists released last year in exchange for Gilad Shalit.

While Butler thus helps to make the case that BDS really stands for “Bigoted Double Standards,” there is no question that “anti-Zionists” everywhere appreciate her academic celebrity status as the “reigning queen” of Queer Studies – which was only reinforced by the Adorno Prize – as a great asset.

There is also no question that the Jewish Museum in Berlin was fully aware of the problematic political implications of Butler’s views. Yet, the organizers of the event apparently preferred a “debate” that excluded questions to which Butler obviously has no good answers.

According to a report in the Jerusalem Post – which noted straightforwardly that this seems to have been “the first anti-Israel event held in the Jewish museum since its opening in 2001” – the organizers allowed only “written audience questions” and made clear that any questions on Butler’s widely criticized views about Hamas and Hezbollah would be ignored.

The politics of hypocrisy and Judith Butler

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
30 August '12..



German prize award committees seem to have a weak spot for outspoken Jewish critics of Israel: writer and activist Uri Avnery has accumulated multiple German awards over the years, and the staunchly pro-Palestinian attorney and activist Felicia Langer was awarded Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit, First class, in 2009. Now it is the turn of Judith Butler, an American philosopher and professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley, who will receive the prestigious Theodor Adorno Prize on September 11 in Frankfurt.

To be sure, the Adorno Prize is awarded to “acknowledge outstanding performances in the fields of philosophy, music, theatre and film” – which is to say that it is Butler’s academic work, and not her political activism that are being honored with the prize. However, it is obviously Butler’s academic fame and her status as the “reigning queen” of Queer Studies that make her activism very valuable to her political allies in the BDS-movement that targets Israel. Critics who argue that it is therefore disingenuous to pretend that Butler’s contribution to philosophy can be honored irrespective of her political activism obviously have a point.

There are indeed several problematic political implications of honoring Butler with the Adorno Prize. First and foremost, it has to be noted that, while we cannot know how Adorno would feel about Israel now, we do know that he was very concerned about the antisemitic and anti-Zionist tendencies that became acceptable and even fashionable on the left in the 1960s. At the beginning of the Six-Day-War in 1967, Adorno expressed great alarm about the danger Israel faced and explicitly stated that he hoped that Israel would prove militarily superior to the Arabs. Shortly before his death in 1969, he worried that the open hostility to Israel displayed by the student movement might indicate fascist tendencies. [See: Stephan Grigat, Befreite Gesellschaft und Israel: Zum Verhältnis von Kritischer Theorie und Israel; a shorter version is: Kritische Theorie und Israel: Adorno, Horkheimer und Marcuse über den Zionismus]

After Munich massacre Germany cooperated with Palestinian terrorists

Ofer Aderet..
Haaretz..
26 August '12..

After the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Germany cooperated with Black September, the Palestinian terrorist group that orchestrated the deadly attack, the German weekly Der Spiegel revealed Sunday. Following the tragedy in September 1972, Germany tried to establish a relationship with the group’s leaders, hoping that this would dissuade them from carrying out any more attacks in the country, the paper reported.

In this context, the German ambassador to Lebanon, Walter Novak, met with Yusuf Najjar, also known as Abu Yusuf, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s intelligence arm, which ran Black September. Just a week after the meeting, in April 1973, Najjar and two other PLO operatives were killed by Israel in a reprisal raid in Beirut called Operation Spring of Youth.

At the meeting, attended by other members of Black September, Novak suggested the parties sign a contract that would be “the basis for a new understanding” between Germany and the terrorist organization. To further advance this understanding, a meeting between Abu Yusuf and German foreign minister Walter Scheel was planned in Cairo, but it never took place.

There is method in the Iranian madness

Fresnozionism.org..
26 August '12..




Why does Iran issue ugly threats against Israel on an almost daily basis, saying that Israel will be annihilated, that it is a cancerous tumor that must be cut out, and so forth? After all, if they want to avoid an Israeli attack, shouldn’t they be a little less open about their intentions?

Maybe this News item will help us understand:

[Der Spiegel's] investigative report said that a few months after the Munich Massacre, then Foreign Minister Walter Scheel held a secret meeting with representatives of the terrorist organization in order to create what was termed a “new basis of trust.”

The German government, according to classified documents obtained by Der Spiegel, did not demand that the terrorists completely stop terrorist activities, but only asked that they avoid attacking in Germany. In return, said the report, the terrorists sought to upgrade the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) political status.

German authorities also avoided prosecuting those involved in the terror attack on the Israeli athletes, the report said. Three of the terrorists who were captured alive were released after two months, after terrorists from “Black September” hijacked a Lufthansa plane.

It is typical for terrorists to try to split the nations opposed to them by promising immunity against further atrocities to one or another country. The Iranian regime employs terrorism as a major part of its foreign policy, so why shouldn’t it take the same approach to diplomacy as Black September?

Missing: The two-ton key that rested on top of the entrance to Al Aida

The Mystery of the Missing Palestinian ‘Refugee’ Monument

David Bedein..
frontpagemag.com..
04 July '12..

For the past four years, adjacent to the UNRWA headquarters, the Al Aida refugee facility in Bethlehem hosted a two-ton key rested on top of the entrance to Al Aida, which is shaped in the likeness of a mammoth keyhole.

That mammoth key and keyhole were erected at the entrance to the UNRWA Al Aida refugee facility during a celebration on May 15, 2008, to mark 60 years since the creation of Israel and the displacement of Arabs who consider themselves to be refugees entitled to the “right of return” to Arab villages which no longer exist inside Israel.

This week, however, when a news crew visited the Al Aida refugee facility in Bethlehem, the journalists discovered that the massive two-ton key was missing.

Rather than contact the UNRWA lost and found department, the reporters asked UNRWA residents about the whereabouts of the missing key. They had no idea.

The reporters asked UNRWA officials, who also said that they did not know.

Had there been sudden misgivings about the key to the right of return, the subject that forms the basis of UNRWA education?

Hardly.

Arens - Nakba, a self-inflicted catastrophe

So why is it that the Arabs do not accept that it was the war that they began, the catastrophe that they intended to inflict on the Jewish community in Palestine, which is the cause of their suffering?

Moshe Arens..
Opinion/Haaretz..
22 May '12..

Many catastrophes occur in this cruel world. Some are caused by nature, and over them humans have no control. Some are man-made - catastrophes caused by wars of aggression and wars of oppression by one people against another. Such was World War II, an attempt by Germany to conquer the world, oppress the non-Germanic peoples and exterminate the Jews. It took more than five years to roll back the conquering German armies, at great sacrifice to the Allied armies that defeated Germany. On May 8, V-E Day, the world celebrates the victory in Europe, the day on which Germany surrendered unconditionally in 1945. It was a victory of light over darkness.

The German people suffered during that war. More than 5 million German soldiers were killed during the fighting, and more than 2 million German civilians died during the war. In addition, millions were left homeless and millions became refugees as eastern Germany was turned over to Poland and the Sudeten region was returned to Czechoslovakia after the war. German cities were destroyed by aerial bombardments. Thirty-nine square kilometers of Dresden's city center were destroyed. Greatly damaged were the cities of Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin, in addition to many other German cities, in an aerial campaign to disrupt the German war effort and force Germany to surrender.

Yet the German people do not commemorate V-E Day as their day of catastrophe, as the German Nakba. No demonstrations are held in Germany on that day. The German people know that they brought the catastrophe upon themselves. They know there is no reason to shift the blame for their catastrophe onto others; they have only themselves to blame.

Kuntzel - "Against those who want to destroy me, I must be strong."

What is the connection between Shoah-remembrance and Iran? An Interview with Holocaust survivor Fanny Englard

Matthias Küntzel..
05 April '12..


The likelihood that negotiations will persuade Iran to change its nuclear programme is slim and the probability of an Israeli military strike against Iran correspondingly high. What are the implications of this for Germany, which has both strong economic ties with Tehran and a special relationship with Israel?

As the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, referring explicitly to the Iranian nuclear programme, told the Israeli Parliament in March 2008, “Israel’s security is part of my country’s reason of state (…) Germany and Israel are and will remain, assuredly for ever, bound together in a particular way through the memory of the Shoah.”

But what does Shoah-remembrance have to do with the Iranian crisis? I discussed this question with my friend, Fanny Englard, who was born in Cologne in 1925 and, as a Holocaust survivor, belongs to the leadership of the Israeli organization, Perpetuation of Memory of the Holocaust.

On 6 December 1941, 16-year old Fanny Englard was deported from Hamburg to Riga and on 8 March 1945 liberated by the Red Army. Her father died in the Warsaw Ghetto, her mother and 10-year old brother, along with her grandmother, aunts and cousins, were gassed in Belzec and her brothers Leo and Isi, 15 and 13 respectively, were shot near Minsk.

“In 1947 I came to Israel and got married, in order to establish a new family as a replacement for the murdered one, which had fallen victim to Jew-hatred”, she told me in her apartment near Tel Aviv. “We did not survive and bring a new family into the world in order to sacrifice them once again to Jew-hatred. Jew-hatred compels us to engage in the struggle for a secure future for the new family.”

Q. In Germany, the attack on the Iranian nuclear installations advocated by some in the Israeli government would be considered an act of war.

It’s not a war, it’s a struggle for life. There’s a difference between waging a war and fighting to survive. What we are facing here is the Jew-hatred of Hitler’s Islamist heirs. Israeli actions against those who want to destroy us are not acts of war waged in order to kill others, but part of a struggle for life.

Q. Nonetheless, the Israeli military action in 2009 aimed at preventing the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel was strongly criticized.

Those who criticize our struggle for life are attacking us. When we are attacked and act in self-defence, we are not committing war crimes. We have sworn “never again” and Israel is responsible for our vow; it is shaped by our vow.