On Tuesday, the Greek Coast Guard stopped a Swedish boat - the Juliano - from departing for Gaza. It wasn't much of a contest.
Israeli expat Dror Feiler told Ynet that the ship "was cleared to set sail this afternoon, but shortly afterwards the Greeks changed their mind.
"We tried sailing anyway, but there are navy ships waiting for us and a ship with media representatives covering the story. I guess who ever is in charge was given orders from high up. We're waiting to see what happens next," he said.
Heh.
Here's a video update on the flotilla of fools.
Let's go tot he videotape.
In the meantime, Israel got surprising support from a member of the German Bundestag.
Philip Missfelder, the foreign policy spokesman of the German political parties the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), said in a statement on Tuesday that the so-called Gaza flotilla activists “endanger peace efforts” and their action is “part of the asymmetrical warfare against Israel.”
In what appears to be the strongest statement yet from an MP in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, on the aim of pro- Palestinian activists to break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas controlled Gaza, Missfelder said this action is “not about humanitarian help, rather a confrontation with Israel.”
Missfelder is the foreign policy spokesman of the largest combined group of MPs (238) in the parliament. He said that the flotilla does not help the peace process but is an obstacle to peace, and that the activists are working against the goals of both the Quartet and Germany herself, in her role as a member of the UN Security Council to advance peace.
“I welcome that the Greek authorities have decisively intervened as some activists set sail without permission,” said Missfelder.
You will recall that I reported last week on the rude surprise that awaited members of Israel's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the Bundestag in Berlin; the presence of member's of the Iranian Majilis. Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Benny Weinthal reports that the encounter has strained Israeli-German relations.
So is Germany so infatuated with Iran? Benny explains. Polenz’s defense on Friday of the Majlis members’ visit should also be accompanied by a healthy dose of skepticism.
Last October, Bundestag deputy Peter Gauweiler, from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party CSU and chairman of the legislature’s Subcommittee on Foreign Cultural and Educational Policies, led a group of German lawmakers who met with Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s parliament, in Iran. That’s the same Larijani who at the 2009 Munich security conference caused an uproar when he said his country has “different perspectives on the Holocaust.”
The group of German legislators, including deputies from the Greens, Social Democrats, CDU and the Left Party, also met during the October 2010 trip to the Islamic Republic with Ali Larijani’s brother Mohammad Javad Larijani, who heads the human rights council in the Iranian judiciary.
Mohammad Larijani in 2008 – during a German Foreign Ministry-sponsored event close to Berlin’s Holocaust memorial – denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s destruction. The Bundestag members last year chose not to publicly criticize the Holocaust denial and the genocidal statements of the Larijani brothers. A month after the Gauweiler delegation visited Iran, Elke Hoff, a lawmaker from Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s Free Democratic Party, met “senior Iranian officials” during a trip to the Islamic Republic.
Hoff subsequently refused to answer press queries at the time about her trip to Iran. She is a member of the Bundestag’s Defense Committee and its Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non- Proliferation. She is also member of the German-Iranian parliamentary group and serves on the board of the German Near and Middle East Association, a pro-Iranian business trade organization. The association’s honorary chairman is former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran to promote German- Iranian trade in 2009.
What perhaps made the recent diplomatic row over Germany hosting Iran’s Majlis into a crisis for the Israeli-German “special relationship” was that MKs, particularly Mofaz, directly experienced a strange fusion of the Bundestag with members of the Majlis. Mofaz, who left Iran at age nine for Israel, is known for a hawkish posture toward Iran’s anti-Israel policies and its nuclear weapons program.
The long-standing relations between the Majlis and the Bundestag have been reported on, largely in the Israeli and the US press, but first-hand experience last week seems to have brought the depth and the intensity of German-Iranian relations to the fore for Israel’s lawmakers.
I guess the Iranians are the most likely party to forgive the Germans for perpetrating the Holocaust. Guilt wears off quickly, doesn't it? Disgusting....
Germany is having trouble deciding which side it's on between Israel and Iran. On Thursday, they invited the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to visit the Bundestag at the same time that the Germans were hosting an official Iranian delegation.
The committee members, including Chairman MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima), were surprised to find that while they were visiting the German parliament's Defense Committee, representatives of the Majilis, Iran's parliament, were speaking before the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee.
"It cannot be that while Germany calls for tough sanctions against the Iranian regime, official representatives of Germany undermine this policy by meeting with Majilis members," the MKs said in a statement. "They are sending the message that sanctions against Iran are passed with a wink."
The Israeli delegation, which included Mofaz, MK Roni Bar-On (Kadima), MK Moshe Mutz Matalon (Israel Beiteinu), MK Zeev Bielski (Kadima) and MK Einat Wilf (Independence), originally wanted to "make a big stink," an FADC spokesman said. However, after consulting with the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, the MKs sent a letter of protest to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as the German foreign minister, the Bundestag's speaker, and the chairman of the Bundestag Defense Committee.
The MKs also expressed their ire in the joint meeting with the Bundestag's committee.
The FADC spokesman said the German lawmakers' response was "not convincing enough," and the committee remembers refused to shelf the letter.
"We, the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, on an official visit to Berlin, firmly protest the visit of Iranian Majilis members in Berlin and express our deep disappointment in their acceptance by German officials, including the German parliament," the letter reads.
The MKs wrote: "The Iranian Majilis is a façade of a parliament that covers a murderous regime that oppresses its people and tortures young students and protesters. They support and export terror, aid Assad's regime in repressing protests against him, deny the Holocaust, all while manufacturing nuclear weapons and missiles in order to commit genocide against the Jews and erase our only state from the map."
"We cannot stand by while German representatives hold a dialogue with a regime that calls for genocide," the MKs explained. "We are very concerned about these dangerous ties between German representatives and their Iranian counterparts, and hope that these ties will end."
"We cannot be silent while the representatives of a murderous regime are accepted in the heart of democratic Europe," the letter concluded.
There really hasn't been much change in the past 70 years, has there? They're just nicer about it.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
