No one blinked - Netanyahu canceled meeting with German FM Gabriel
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel went ahead with this meetings with extreme anti-Israel groups B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence (and another one to boot) and Prime Minister Netanyahu followed through on his threat to cancel his meeting with Gabriel.
Netanyahu's office said the prime minister wouldn't meet with foreign
dignitaries who meet "groups that slander IDF soldiers as war
criminals," referring to Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group
critical of Israeli military actions in the West Bank.
The German minister, Sigmar Gabriel, was set to meet with members of
the organization during his visit to Israel and said Netanyahu's
cancellation was "relatively surprising" since such meetings were
"rather standard" for foreign diplomats.
Gabriel said he didn't want to be turned into "a plaything for
Israeli domestic politics," using unusually frank language in light of
the sensitive nature of Israel-Germany ties.
Israel and Germany have had a long, close and complicated
relationship. Israel was established in 1948 in the wake of the
Holocaust, when Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews. The countries only
established diplomatic relations in 1965.
Today, Germany is a key Israeli trade partner and ally in Europe, and
assumes responsibility for the crimes committed during the Holocaust.
Both Gabriel and former president Joachim Gauck took part in Holocaust
memorial events in Israel on Monday.
When he met with Rivlin, Gabriel
called the Holocaust "the most criminal action we did in the history of
humankind."
But tensions occasionally flare up over Israeli policies toward the
Palestinians, as well as settlement construction in the occupied West
Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Germany, along with most of the
international community, considers Israeli settlements illegal.
...
Netanyahu's office said that foreign dignitaries are welcome to meet
with civil society representatives, but that the prime minister "will
not meet with those who lend legitimacy to organizations that call for
the criminalization of Israeli soldiers."
But Germany more than any other country appears to be obsessed with financing the establishment of a 'Palestinian state,' and many ordinary Germans appear to be determined to
finish the job that Adolph Hitler started. This is from a 2013 review of Tuvia Tenenboim's
I Sleep in Hitler's Room.
Then, Tuvia and Isi schlepped their sacks full of
laughs and chutzpah and important ideas from one German city to another.
He had not intended to write about Jews at all. He had been
commissioned to write about Germany Today. “But the subject of Jews and
Israel kept coming up. It turned out to be a German obsession. Everyone
wanted to talk about it, fight about it.”
According
to Tuvia, the Turks and Muslims in Germany hate Jews. But so do the
Germans. “At least the Muslims are open about it. The Germans deny and
deny and then fly into a rage.” The German peace-loving, progressive
left - including “the feminists who believe in women’s liberation,” -
is colluding with Muslims who veil their women, keep them in the
kitchen, and refuse them prayer access in the mosque.
“The Germans can’t look at themselves in the mirror.”
I (and others) have written about the nature of
European Jew-hatred for many years now, especially about why Europeans
are ostensibly embracing the violent and hostile “Semites” among them
after having murdered six million of their assimilated or non-violent
“Semites.” European Jew-hatred still expresses itself by taking the
“Palestinian” side against the evil, Nazi Israeli Jews. They can feel
guilt-free, superior—even justified in having murdered so many Jews.
“They
don’t know the names of their own political leaders, but they hang
photos of Mahmud Abbas in their offices and march for Palestine. They do
not care about what Putin did in Chechnya. They care only about
Palestine.”
Tuvia took this message across
Germany. The young people of Germany wanted to hear him speak and
crowded the auditoriums. And they bought his book in record numbers. He
told them: “Hitler understood the Germans. He said: You hate them (the
Jews). Okay. Let’s kill them. Let’s act on what we believe.”
I'd bet that Gabriel thinks the same way. If the shoe fits....
Labels: Adolph Hitler, B'Tselem, Binyamin Netanyahu, Breaking the Silence, German anti-Semitism, Nazis
Who will blink first - Netanyahu or German Foreign Minister?
Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to meet today with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel. Last night, Netanyahu issued an ultimatum saying he would cancel the meeting if Gabriel did not cancel meetings he has scheduled with
European-financed anti-Israel NGO's. At first, it was reported that Netanyahu was referring to '
Peace Now,' but it now appears that it's even worse: Gabriel proposes to meet with
B'Tselem and '
Breaking the Silence,' both of which are guilty of
libeling Israel on the international stage.
Netanyahu was
quite blunt.
“It’s time to make clear to Germany that we too have red lines,” the official told Arutz Sheva.
“If it was a low-level meeting, it might have looked different. But
when the Foreign Minister comes here and goes to meet with organizations
that are working against the government's policy and against the Prime
Minister's policy, this is unacceptable."
“The Prime Minister would never come to a country like Britain or
Germany, where there are organizations that are working against the
government's policy, and meet with the heads of those organizations. How
would that country react if he did? There is significance to such a
meeting held by a foreign minister,” the source continued.
Gabriel apparently
plans to go ahead with his meetings with the anti-Israel organizations.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel responded
to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultimatum on Tuesday,
saying that it would be "regrettable" if the latter decides to cancel
their meeting because the Gabriel's meeting with representatives of
left-wing Israeli organizations.
Speaking to German TV
network ZDF, Gabriel defined his planned meetings with representatives
of B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence and "totally normal."
Gabriel said that he
had only learned of Netanyahu's threat from the media and noted it
would be "inconceivable" for the German minister to cancel a meeting
with the Israeli leader if the latter met with figures critical of the
German government. He nevertheless said that "it wouldn't be a
catastrophe" if their meeting is cancelled, and that it wouldn't change
his ties with Israel.
"You never get the full picture of any state in the world if you just meet with figures in government ministries," he said.
Netanyahu has
plenty of support within the government.
Netanyahu’s ultimatum to Gabriel was backed on Monday by Deputy
Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), who said she "backs the Prime
Minister's decision to set a red line regarding anti-Israel
organizations such as B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence. This is an
important struggle against those who defame Israel in the world."
MK Yoav Kisch (Likud), who heads the Knesset House Committee,
expressed support for Netanyahu’s move as well, saying, "The German
Foreign Minister and any other leader who wants to meet those who spread
poison against Israel must understand: Legitimizing hatred of Israel is
out of the question."
But of course the opposition thinks Netanyahu should meet with Gabriel anyway.
In my not so humble opinion, Gabriel ought to be declared persona non grata if he goes ahead with the meetings with Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem. The European - and particularly German (read
I Sleep in Hitler's Room) - obsession with finishing the job that Hitler started (God Forbid) needs to be met head on. Especially on the day after Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Labels: B'Tselem, Binyamin Netanyahu, Breaking the Silence, European anti-Semitism, German anti-Semitism, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Peace Now, Tzipi Hotovely
Political correctness on American college campuses is manifest anti-Semitism, but can it be fought?
Nearly thirty years ago, I had a business trip to San Francisco that required me to spend the Sabbath in the Bay Area. I only knew one Orthodox Jew in the area: Someone from the class behind me in both high school and college (Columbia) was at the time the rabbi in Berkeley. He arranged for me to stay with one of his congregants - he was in the process of leaving the community to move on to 'bigger' things. I won't mention his name because I'm still friends with many of his relatives, but that Sabbath was a real eye-opener. My friend had become what we would today term 'anti-Israel' and a 'Jewish anti-Semite.'
I was floored.
What I'm about to describe was probably inevitable. The fight for 'safe spaces,' BDS and political correctness on American college campuses has morphed into blatant anti-Semitism. The role that prominent Leftist Jews has played in making this happen will not shield them from the monster they created. See Germany (which will be insulted if you say so, but remains anti-Semitic more than 70 years after Hitler's death) and Stalinist Russia. Different campuses are at different stages, but most American college campuses appear to be heading inexorably toward anti-Semitic group think.
This report that I saw on Facebook comes from a current student at my alma mater, Bir Zeit on the Hudson.
Rochman is describing a university course calling for the 'elimination' of Israel taught by what we would call an 'as a Jew' (someone who uses the accident of his birth to permit him to blatantly incite to anti-Semitism) using terms not much different from the terms that Hitler used to describe the elimination of Jews 70 years ago. As I have mentioned several times in the past couple of months, the role of Germany in financing the
continued prominence of the 'Palestinians' in world affairs reflects the continued anti-Semitism in Germany (I am now reading an earlier book by Tuvia Tenenboim about anti-Semitism in Germany today - that book's publication was nearly blocked!).
Let's start with what should be obvious: Being 'anti-Israel' or subjecting Israel to double standards in 2016 is no different than being anti-Semitic in the 1940's. Saying you're 'only against Israel' but 'not against Jews' is putting a politically correct cover on an ancient hatred.
At Berkeley, the cradle of the false distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, things have
only gotten worse. This article discusses a 'for credit' course on the Berkeley college campus.
According to Tammi Rossman-Benjamin,
co-founder of the AMCHA Initiative — which combats, monitors and
documents antisemitism at institutions of higher education in America —
the course in question, titled “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis,” is a “classic example of antisemitic anti-Zionism.”
“Based upon the syllabus, the class
treats Israel as a settler colonial state and Zionism and Israel as
illegitimate,” Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner,
adding that “a goal of the class appears to be talking about ways to
decolonize Palestine, which essentially means to eliminate the Jewish
state.”
“This is clear eliminationist
anti-Zionism, which is not just criticism of Israel, but opposition
to the existence of the Jewish state with efforts to eliminate that
state,” she said.
Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish UC
Berkeley student who serves as a CAMERA Fellow and is the co-vice
president of the campus group Bears for Israel, told The Algemeiner that she became “very upset” after seeing posters advertising the class.
“It’s one thing to have a political
group like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on campus, but
teaching material that is so biased and factually inaccurate in a
classroom setting violates academic integrity,” she said.
“Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis” is being offered as a “DeCal” course,
which is part of a program of student-run classes that falls under the
jurisdiction of UC Berkeley’s Academic Senate. According to a
description of the course — which acknowledges “contentious” material
will be taught — the class will:
…[E]xamine key historical developments that have taken
place in Palestine, from the 1880s to the present, through the lens of
settler colonialism…we will explore the connection between Zionism and
settler colonialism, and the ways in which it has manifested, and
continues to manifest, in Palestine. Lastly, drawing upon literature on
decolonization, we will explore the possibilities of a decolonized
Palestine, one in which justice is realized for all its peoples and
equality is not only espoused, but practiced.
Students are also required to attend at least one event, on or off campus, “relating to Palestine.”
The faculty sponsor of the course, Dr. Hatem Bazian,
is the co-founder of SJP and a major supporter of the US Campaign for
the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). Bazian is a
former fundraising speaker for the anti-Israel organization KindHearts,
which was shut down by the US government in 2006 for its alleged ties to
Hamas.
You might think there's nothing wrong with that because college campuses are supposed to facilitate 'the free exchange of ideas.' But that's not what's going on here.
According to Rossman-Benjamin, “You
just need to take a look at the instructor, facilitator, authors of the
reading materials and listed guest speakers to see that the course is
biased and presents an egregious framework against Israel.” Furthermore,
she noted, “Not one reading or guest lecturer isn’t a virulent
anti-Zionist, absolutely opposed to the existence of the state of Israel
and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
Reading material includes selections
from works by anti-Zionist Israeli historian Ilan Pappe; the late Edward
Said, a fierce Israel critic; and Saree Makdisi, an advocate of the
elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Also, there are testimonies
from the controversial and widely debunked Israeli group Breaking the Silence.
“As seen from the syllabus, the class
doesn’t look at Israel and ask if it is a settler colonial state or if
Zionism is a legitimate ideology,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “The starting
point is that it is illegitimate. This is completely one-sided and has a
clear anti-Zionist bent, to the extent that it opposes the existence of
the Jewish state.”
And if you still think this course is anything other than a 'safe space' for anti-Semitic rants....
She also told The Algemeiner
that she finds it “concerning” that the course has “a strict
no-technology policy — no phones, voice recordings or photographs —
which makes me worried that some of the content will be inherently
anti-Israel and as such, the facilitators don’t want to make it public
in any way.”
By the way, if you pay taxes to the State of California, you're supporting this.
Is there any way to fight back? Here's one promising story from
Miriam Elman, an Associate Professor at Syracuse University.
A brief recap: [Israeli Filmmaker Shimon] Dotan [of New York University's Graduate School of Journalism] was invited by a University of Nebraska colleague to screen the film at SU. A tenured professor in SU’s Religion Department, M. Gail Hamner, then rescinded the invitation on account of warnings from colleagues that the “BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant” for her and Dotan if he came. Bottom line: Hamner was reluctant to bring Dotan to the conference because she felt intimidated by a faculty caucus who wouldn’t be happy about the screening of a well-received Israeli film.
SU responded admirably by reasserting the university’s commitment to free speech and its opposition to “any boycott of Israeli academic institutions or faculty.” An invitation to Dotan to present his film at a later time this year was also extended. On her part, Hamner issued an apology and reaffirmed her own support for academic freedom. To my mind, this rings hollow. A true defender of campus free speech actively solicits diverse viewpoints, and doesn’t surrender to peer pressure to conform. Still, Hamner’s expression of regret seems sincere and heartfelt.
All’s well that ends well? Not quite. Lingering questions remain: did Hamner have to “vouch” in the same way for other films in the conference – or was it just the product of an Israeli national that required special scrutiny? Are a group of anti-Israel colleagues exercising subtle veto power when it comes to academic programming related to Israel?
To get answers to these questions, and assess the magnitude of the problem, I and other SU faculty are now urging the administration to undertake a comprehensive and transparent investigation. Supported by the Academic Engagement Network, a new national organization committed to opposing BDS on campuses and to preserving academic freedom and free speech, we believe that only a full exploration as to why Dotan’s invitation was withdrawn will both lay this incident to rest and ensure that something like it won’t happen again.
This inquiry shouldn’t be construed as a witch hunt, nor is it likely to reveal a campus awash in anti-Israel animus. SU is generally a welcoming place for Israeli scholars and students. An exploration of the matter may also show that Hamner panicked unnecessarily and that her fears of the “BDS faction” were overblown. But it’s possible too that the inquiry will uncover more evidence of stealth boycotting.
Three lessons about these silent boycotts and how to defeat them can be learned from my university’s “Dotan Affair.”
First, administrators need to recognize that just because their schools are on record opposing academic boycotts of Israel doesn’t mean that individual faculty members are adhering to that institutional policy in their personal instructional practices. Administrators must make school policy crystal clear, but they also have to institute mechanisms to ensure that faculty members comply with it.
Second, the case highlights that successfully confronting silent boycotting ultimately depends on whether individual faculty are willing to take a stand. Like all bullies, stealth boycotters get away with their bigotry and intimidation because most faculty aren’t as honest and forthright as Hamner was about the pressures they’re facing, and because the vast majority of professors prefer to do their research and teaching and hesitate getting involved in "campus politics." The now multiplying anti-BDS organizations operating on campus are going to have to figure out a way to incentivize more faculty to engage proactively – and get those feeling cowed by BDS harassment to go public.
Lastly, the “Dotan Affair” shows that BDS, which bills itself as a human rights movement aimed at ending the Israeli "occupation," is in fact pure racist hatred, from which even famous anti-occupation, progressives Israelis – like Shimon Dotan – aren’t immune. To put a stop to stealth boycotting on campus and prevent more Israeli scholars from being privately shut out of academia, Zionists from across the political spectrum – left, center, and right – will need to fight together to ensure that all their voices can be heard on campus.
This battle is far from over. But I sure would not want my children or grandchildren on an American college campus today.
Labels: Adolph Hitler, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, BDS, Bir Zeit on the Hudson, Columbia, German anti-Semitism, Germany, Jewish anti-Semitism, University of California at Berkeley
Israelis in Germany spearhead anti-BDS movement
I'm about three quarters of the way through Tuvia Tenenboim's
Catch the Jew, in which, among other things, he uncovers anti-Israel activity by Europeans - especially by Germans - in Israel. Because of what I have read about the Germans, I was especially pleased to read
this article by Benny Weinthal about an anti-BDS group operating in Germany.
Israelis along with Germans launched the Action Forum group, which
included a protest against BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)
activists targeting Jewish state products in front of a Berlin
department store
on Thursday.
The
group’s goals are to counter “one-sided and wrong information” about
Israel in the German media, as well as to combat BDS, Gaby Spronz, an
Israeli engineer working in Germany and one of the founders of Action
Forum, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday The group has 1,500 members,
most of whom are in Germany, Spronz said.
Action Forum (Aktionsforum Israel) jump-started its
activity with 20 activists distributing flyers against BDS at Alexander
Square in front of the Galeria Kaufhof department store on Thursday.
“BDS is against Israel’s right to exist and for a Jew-free
Palestine from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea,” the Action Forum flyer
read.
“They are anti-Semites who are calling for a ban of Jewish
products,” activist Jan Zimmermann told the Post at the
demonstration.
Zimmermann was referencing a group of roughly 20
BDS supporters who circulated flyers in front of Galeria Kaufhof
calling for people to boycott the Israeli carbonated drink maker
SodaStream.
SodaStream has moved its plant from Mishor Adumim to the Negev,
costing over 500 'Palestinians' their jobs. But that's not enough for the BDS movement. If any of you think the Action Forum is exaggerating the threat,
please consider this from an editorial in the New Jersey Jewish News (New Jersey outlawed BDS last week).
Like the World Conference Against Racism in 2001, aka Durban I, from
which BDS originated, rather than fulfilling its stated goal of fighting
racism, the movement itself is peddling lies and racist ideology masked
as the good fight. Though supporters have been led to believe that they
are advocating for the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and
Palestinians living side-by-side, that’s not what BDS leaders appear to
have in mind. By including the “Right of Return” — an often-invoked
misnomer, as the language in UN General Assembly Resolution 194,
established in 1948, states that Arab refugees “should” be allowed to
return to their homes, not “must” — as one of their objectives, they’ve
made it clear that they envision Palestinians living by themselves. Just
listen to BDS founder Omar Barghouti:
“If the refugees were to return, you would not have a two-state
solution. You would have a Palestine next to a Palestine,” he once said.
He also wrote, “A return for refugees would end Israel’s existence as a
Jewish state.”
The obvious conclusion: BDS is not about human rights, and Barghouti
has acknowledged as much by saying the movement would continue even if
the “occupation” were to end. BDS is rather a shrewd public relations
strategy designed to draw intelligent, honorable individuals into the
movement’s racially motivated struggle to forcibly dissolve the Jewish
state.
Meanwhile, ordinary Germans are wising up to what's really behind BDS. This is from Weinthal's article:
The Action Forum equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. BDS is widely
considered to be anti-Semitic in Germany among experts on modern
anti-Semitism. The prominent German political scientist Samuel Salzborn
said BDS is “an influential anti-Semitic campaign against Israel.”
The
student council at Leipzig University approved an anti-BDS resolution
in early August. The resolution states: BDS “connects seamlessly to the
anti-Semitic boycott campaigns of decades past and explicitly to the
National Socialism” and to “the Nazi slogan ‘Don’t buy from Jews.”’ The
student council document noted: “In light of the Hamas, Hezbollah and
Iranian regime’s open and relentlessly expressed threats to destroy not
only Israel, but Jews worldwide, the BDS campaign presents an
existential threat to the Jews.”
Having experienced anti-Semitism, ordinary Germans are probably better able to identify it than anyone else. Too bad their government buries its head in the sand.
Labels: BDS, Benjamin Weinthal, German anti-Semitism, Germany, New Jersey
Germany (and Europe): The more things change....
NGO Monitor reports that the German government spent millions of dollars between 2012 and 2015 supporting Israeli groups that support boycotting Israel and
negating the Jewish state.
The NGO Monitor watchdog group has found that between 2012 and 2015,
Germany funneled at least $4.4 million to some 15 Israeli organizations,
and 42 percent of the donations went to groups supporting an
international boycott against Israel and policies negating Israel’s
existence as a Jewish state.
The report found that the German Economic Cooperation and Development
Ministry operates a Civil Peace Service (Ziviler Friedensdienst)
project in Israel, but in fact, on the ground the project is headed by a
different German group, KURVE Wustrow, which has partnered with two
local organizations—the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace and the
Palestinian Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.
NGO Monitor argues that the Coalition of Women for Peace actively
supports the BDS movement, including heading a project titled “Who
Profits from the Occupation,” a database of potential boycott “targets.”
The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee promotes violent riots
across Judea and Samaria, and its Twitter account often features posts
encouraging violence, the report said.
The German Embassy in Israel said that Germany “remains committed to
the two-state solution and devising sustainable peace in the Middle
East. The German government opposes any boycott of Israel, including BDS
activities, as such action undermines the peace process. The German
government’s funding policy seeks to support selected projects via
earmarked funds. Germany will continue to invest in projects and
initiatives that can promote and increase awareness to the two-state
solution.”
Still reading
Catch the Jew, and this is totally consistent with it. Hitler must be feeling proud.
And then there's the European Union, which despite all its problems still
focuses hatred on Israel.
Yes, that's an EU sponsored caravan for 'Palestinians' in Area C (which under the Oslo accords is totally controlled by Israel) and yes, it's illegal. This one is right next to the Jewish town of Carmel in the Mount Hebron region.
Israel has been
demolishing these illegal structures despite
European protests, but cannot do so
quickly enough.
I understand that Israel
Labels: BDS, European anti-Semitism, European Union, German anti-Semitism, Germany, home demolitions, Judea and Samaria construction
German University course: Israelis harvest 'Palestinian' organs
Those of you who thought that German anti-Semitism died in Hitler's bunker were sadly mistaken.
I am currently reading German reporter Tuvia 'Tobi' Tenenbaum's
Catch the Jew, in which Tenenbaum, who grew up as an Israeli Haredi, poses as a German reporter to gain access to 'Palestinians' and self-hating Jews. One of the things that's striking about the book is how much of the 'Palestinians' day-to-day activities are financed by European government NGO's (yes, that's why we just adopted an NGO law), and how many of those NGO's are financed by Germans.
Why?
Because many Germans, including those in power, have never forgotten Hitler's aspirations. Here's
more proof.
“Our sons were robbed of their organs,” was the title of a part of the
seminar’s course material, Rebecca Seidler, an academic who blew the
whistle on the anti-Israel material, told the weekly German-Jewish
newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine Zeitung in a Thursday article.
The paper reported that the University of Applied Sciences and Arts
(HAWK) offers a course on “The Social Situation of Youths in Palestine,”
which contains the allegedly anti-Semitic material.
After reviewing the content of the course, Seidler, who was
slated to conduct the seminar, complained to the university’s
management. The Dean of the faculty of Social Work and Health, Christa
Paulini, dismissed Seidler’s criticism in a telephone conversation as
being overly-sensitive.
Seidler told the JAZ that
material showed “a picture of a genocide on the Palestinians, an ethnic
cleansing as well as a complete disenfranchisement of Palestinians by
Israel.”
The seminar syllabus also covered the “victims of torture in Israeli prisons,” said Seidler. The JAZ wrote the seminar conveyed “anti-Semitic stereotypes.”
Jerusalem Post press queries to the HAWK media
department on Sunday were not immediately returned. The HAWK instructor
Ibtissam Köhler prepared the seminar material, which also contained an
anti-Israel essay from a right-wing extremist magazine titled “Compact.”
The seminar was slated for the semester 2015/2016. It is unclear how long the HAWK has conducted anti-Israel seminars.
The HAWK is located in Hildesheim, a small city in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, with a population of nearly 100,000.
HAWK’s
president Christiane Dienel told the German wire service DPA on Friday
that an ethics commission examined the seminar and it in “no way
propagates anti-Semitic or anti-Israel content.”
Read it all.
Labels: blood libel, European anti-Semitism, German anti-Semitism, NGO's
