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.
Israeli official says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has canceled meeting with visiting German foreign minister. https://t.co/8eBcJhdq8g
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....
Of course, for all of his faults, FDR really wanted to see the Nazis defeated. Does Obama want to see ISIS and Iran defeated? The answer to that question is either 'no' or 'he hasn't made up his mind yet.'
Yet to think of ISIS and Hamas as being in a state of war may be to
overestimate their hostility and underrate their grasp of political
reality. Hamas doesn’t so much fear ISIS as it does worry about a wild
card group making decisions for them about war with Israel at a moment
when they might prefer to continue the truce with the Jewish state.
Similarly, ISIS has enough on its plate fighting in Syria and Iraq
against forces that would like to see it destroyed without opening up a
new front in Gaza at a moment when its strength there is minuscule
compared to the enormous military that Hamas can deploy against Israel.
But despite animosity and distrust, it is more than obvious that both
Hamas and ISIS share a common enemy in Egypt. The Sisi government in
Cairo is dedicated to the eradication of the Muslim Brotherhood and
regards Hamas, which was founded by Brotherhood supporters and whose
help to the group during the unrest in Egypt was included in the charges
against former President Mohammed Morsi, as a hostile entity. Egypt is
even more determined to isolate Gaza than Israel. In that sense, the
Hamas-ISIS connection is a natural alliance.
That’s why Hamas has a vested interest in creating more chaos in
Sinai than exists along its border with Israel. No matter what their
opinion of each other might be, Hamas understands that the Egyptian
government is a far more dangerous threat to its continued survival than
is Israel. Under the circumstances it doesn’t take much of a leap of
imagination to believe that Israel’s intelligence about
Hamas’s involvement in ISIS activities in Sinai has the ring of truth.
This realization ought to do more than cause concern in both Cairo
and Jerusalem. The Sinai had already been transformed into something of a
Wild West for terror in the years since a bloody Hamas coup allowed the
group to seize control of the independent Palestinian state (in all but
name) that currently exists in Gaza. But with ISIS moving into the void
of security that the Sinai has become, a low level conflict with
terrorists may be about to turn into something far more serious.
More to the point, this tacit alliance between otherwise rival
Islamist terror groups ought to cause some foreign policy experts
who have regarded Western acquiescence toward Hamas’s continued grip on
Gaza as a given to rethink that assumption. If Gaza is no longer merely a
launching pad for rockets and tunnels aimed at terrorizing Israelis but
is also a base for terror aimed at toppling moderate Arab governments,
continued tolerance of its sovereignty in Gaza is not only morally
wrong; it is a suicidal proposition for the West.
Just as the Israelis have refrained from toppling Hamas in Gaza lest
they be stuck governing the dysfunctional strip, so too do Western
nations have a distaste for regime change in the strip. But perhaps it
is time that those who were so quick to criticize Israel for launching a
counter-attack against Gaza-based terrorism last summer realize that
the perpetuation of Hamas rule there is a threat to more than the Jewish
state. So long as an Islamist terror group has a secure base next to
both Egypt and Israel and is getting aid from Iran, it is reasonable to
assume that it will be undermining the security of both of those states
as well as the rest of the region.
While I cannot prove it empirically, there are many scholars who believe that had Adolph Hitler and the Nazis (may their name and memory be obliterated) not been so obsessed with murdering Jews, the outcome of World War II might have been different and we might all be speaking German now. Will the West (particularly Europe and the Democratic party in the US) allow its all-consuming hatred of Israel and/or Jews to overlook the storm that is brewing in Gaza?
In Jewish law there's a phrase that describes when two similar things find each other. The phrase - which comes from the laws prohibiting the mixing of milk and meat is מצא מין את מינו (the type found its own type). Europe's BDS movement and their Israeli supporters have found their own type: The neo-Nazi movement. Benjamin Weinthal reports.
If labeling Jewish goods sounds darkly reminiscent, it does as well
to Germany’s neo-Nazi groups, who have recently co-opted the country’s
BDS movement.
But the neo-Nazis shouldn’t get all the attention — labeling goods
from East Jerusalem is a brazen act of economic warfare from Europe, and
one that violates the principles of the very peace process Europe
claims to promote.
The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians said merely
that Jerusalem is a subject for final-status negotiations, not a
“settlement.”
The European Union itself defines Jerusalem as a corpus separatum — a
“separate body” whose status is subject to negotiation — rather than
occupied territory.
More broadly, the drive to label Israeli merchandise has allowed
Germany’s resurgent far-right to push its way to the front of the
anti-Israel movement.
In 2009, Jürgen Rieger, a Holocaust denier and then-deputy chairman
of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany, called on Germans
to boycott Israel.
In 2012, the party submitted a legislative initiative in the state
parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania to mark Israeli products.
Udo Pastörs, the NPD’s leader in the state, has declared Germany a “Jew
Republic.”
To its credit, the German government did not join the 16 out of 28 European foreign ministers who signed on a letter calling for labeling of Israeli products from the 'occupied territories.' But among those who did sign on was Austria, the birthplace of Nazism, which is still trying to portray itself as a victim of Nazism 80 years later. Here's Weinthal again:
To its credit, Germany did not sign a European foreign ministers’
letter calling for product labeling. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
administration has demonstrated it has learned from its nation’s
history: The first phase of the Holocaust, after all, started with
targeting Jewish businesses with the crude Nazi slogan “Kauf nicht bei
Juden” (Don’t buy from Jews).
While visiting Israel in 2014, Merkel said flatly that boycotting Israel “is not an option for Germany.”
Nevertheless, 16 of the 28 EU foreign ministers did sign the
sanctions letter, including regional leaders France and Britain, and
Germany’s neighbor (and Hitler’s birthplace) Austria.
The similarities between the BDS movement and the beginnings of Nazism are stunning and too obvious to miss. Obviously, that's of no concern to Europe.
Must see video: New York City Councilman blasts pro-'Palestinian' 'activists'
New York City Councilman David G. Greenfield makes remarks on the floor
of the council moments after Pro-Palestine activists protested the
commemoration of 1.1 million people killed in Auschwitz. Greenfield is
the grandson of holocaust survivors.
Throwback Thursday: Ukraine rediscovers its Nazi past
Last Thursday, January 1, there was a huge demonstration in Kiev to honor the memory of Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator during World War II.
Via AFP:
The march on what would have been Stepan Bandera’s 106th
birthday moved along the same streets on which hundreds of thousands
rallied for three months last winter before ousting a Moscow-backed
president.
Some wore World War II-era army uniforms while others draped
themselves in the red and black nationalist flags and chanted “Ukraine
belongs to Ukrainians” and “Bandera will return and restore order”.
“The Kremlin is afraid of Bandera because he symbolises the very idea
of a completely independent Ukraine,” Lidia Ushiy said while holding up
a portrait of the far-right icon at the head of the march.
Bandera is a mythical but immensely divisive figure in Ukraine whom some compare to Cuba’s Che Guevara.
His movement’s slogan — “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” — was also the catchphrase of last year’s pro-European revolt.
As noted above, the marchers in Kiev are honouring what amounts to be
a Pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist, chanting that he will return and set
Ukraine free.
Western propaganda, and shoddy AFP reporting aside, Bandera is not a
“mythical” figure. He was a very real and polarising person, who
ordered the death of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Jews, and Russians
during WW2.
So who is this Ukrainian nationalist messiah? Via Wikipedia:
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian political activist and leader of the Ukrainian nationalist and independence movement.
In 1934, he was arrested in Lwów (in Ukrainian, Lviv) by Polish authorities and was tried twice:
for involvement in the assassination of the Polish minister of internal
affairs, Bronisław Pieracki; and at a general trial of Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists executives. He was convicted of terrorism and
sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
In September 1939, while Poland was being invaded, under unclear circumstances Bandera managed to get freed from prison and proceeded to work, with German support, for an uprising in the Kresy.
These eastern Polish territories had a majority Ukrainian population,
and went on to become modern Western Ukraine. At the same time, he tried
to stoke unrest in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, modern
Eastern Ukraine. His goal was to establish a unified Ukrainian state,
composed of areas inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians, but that had been
under the control of Poland and the Soviet Union.
...
After the war, in 1959, in Munich, Germany, Bandera was assassinated by the Soviet KGB (secret police).
Assessments of his work have ranged from totally apologetic to
sharply negative. On 22 January 2010, the outgoing President of Ukraine
Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of
Ukraine. The award was condemned by European Parliament,
Russian, Polish and Jewish organizations and was declared illegal by the
following Ukrainian government and a court decision in April 2010. In
January 2011, the award was officially annulled.
The US and most of Europe is silent about what's going on in Ukraine. The only one who seems concerned is Czech Republic President Milos Zenman.
Here are some words of truth and sanity from one of the last leaders
left in Europe (from Zenman’s interview on Pravo, a Czech daily
newspaper):
“From the statements by PM Yatsenyuk, I think that he is a
‘prime minister of war’, because he does not want a peaceful solution
to the crisis [in Ukraine] recommended by the European Commission.”
Yatsenyuk wants to solve Ukrainian conflict “by the use of force.”
According to Zeman, the current policy of Kiev authorities has two
“faces.” The first is the “face” of the country’s president, Petro
Poroshenko, who “may be a man of peace.”
The second “face” is that of PM Yatsenyuk, who has an uncompromising position toward self-defense forces in Eastern Ukraine.
Zeman said he doesn’t’ believe that the February coup, during which
then-President Viktor Yanukovich was deposed from power, was a
democratic revolution at all.
“Maidan was not a democratic revolution, and I believe that
Ukraine is in a state of civil war,” Zeman said, responding to what he
described as “poorly informed people” who compared Maidan with
Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution in 1989.
...
Via ITAR TASS News Agency:
That the European Union has refrained from saying at
least something critical about the recent torch-light street procession
by neo-Nazis in Kiev is a sure sign some something is fundamentally
wrong with the EU, Czech President Milos Zeman said on a local radio
station. The procession and the way it had been prepared looked pretty
much like Nazi parades in Hitler’s Germany before World War II.
“Something is going wrong with Ukraine. On the Internet I saw
a video of a crowd of several thousand demonstrating in Kiev’s
Independence Square. They were carrying portraits of Stepan Bandera. I
saw that portrait for the first time. He (Bandera) reminded me of
Reinhard Heydrich (the chief of Nazi Germany’s main security office and
acting Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia – TASS),” Zeman said. “Something is going wrong with Ukraine and something is going
wrong with the European Union, which has failed to protest that
demonstration,” Zeman said.
Yes, that's the entry hallway to the synagogue, right outside the study hall where last Tuesday's terror attack took place. But Peres apparently made his statement while visiting the mourners.
"My grandfather, Tzvi Meltzer, was murdered in a synagogue by Nazis as
he was wrapped in a prayer shawl just for being a Jew," related Peres.
"Today too, our people are united under faith against all murder and
terror. The memory of your loved ones will be blessed."
Peres was accompanied by Rabbi David Yosef, Sheikh Kablan of the Israeli Druze community, Ali
Saeed of the Bedouin community and Abu Ghosh mayor Salim Jaber.
I've done a couple of posts today that show how the international news media assists Hamas by taking its side. But here's another key factor that the media ignores.
Imagine that American and
British reporters had sent back a steady stream of news stories and
photos highlighting the plight of German civilians: photos of ruined
homes and apartment blocks, wailing women and children, overwhelmed
hospitals and so forth. Suppose, further, that these reporters never
mentioned anything about the ugly ideology of Hitler and the Nazis,
their genocidal hatred for Jews, their plans for world conquest, their
persecution of political opponents, etc.
We
would all agree that reporters acting in this way would be guilty of a
serious breach of journalistic ethics. They would be actively misleading
their audience by telling only a small portion of the truth. One can
mislead as effectively with half-truths as with lies, after all. The
ideological divide between Hitler and the Western democracies was the
single-most important aspect of the conflict. World War II was a clash
of worldviews and ideologies more than anything else. It was a war for
the heart and soul of Europe: Would Europe be a fascist, militaristic
continent driven by genocidal hatred, or a haven for liberal democracy
and the basic human freedoms that go with it?
As
absurd as it sounds, the imaginary scenario sketched out here has been
unfolding before our very eyes in the Gaza strip over the past month.
Gaza is filled with Western reporters whose focus has been
overwhelmingly on the suffering of civilians. The suffering of innocent
bystanders in war is a newsworthy story, to be sure, but it is not the
only or even the most important aspect of the clash between Hamas and
Israel (and the Israeli military is far more careful to avoid civilian
casualties than were the Allies in World War II). Like our hypothetical
reporters in Nazi Germany, Western journalists ignore the most important
aspect of the conflict — its ideological side.
Here
is the most important thing to know about this conflict: Hamas is an
Islamic Nazi party, while Israel is a Jewish liberal democracy.
There's something else we're not being told about Gaza - unless you read this blog and others like it. According to this spread sheet, there were approximately 700 journalists in Gaza during the war. Of those 700, a grand total of 15 deemed it newsworthy to report on Hamas launching rockets among civilians, Hamas using civilians as human shields, Hamas using hospitals as military headquarters, Hamas using mosques as ammunition dumps, and many other war crimes. Why so few? Ask your local newspaper.
The 'Palestinians' have a long history (see above) of throwing their lot in with the Nazis. They're doing it again. The hashtag #HitlerWasRight is unabashedly trending as a result of its promotion by 'Palestinians' on Twitter.
Pope's 'man of peace' says murdering Jews not a crime
At the same event at which Pope Francis I called 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen a 'man of peace,' the peaceful man had some choice comments about murdering Jews. This is from Tom Gross.
(4) There is also concern in Israel that the Pope called Palestinian
Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas a “man of peace” today at an event where
Abbas, in the Pope’s presence, repeated his demand that any Palestinian
who murders an Israeli must not be punished at all.
Gross also has some comments about the infamous picture of the Pope praying at the 'security fence.'
But none of the Western media I have seen have drawn attention to the
exact spot that the Pope chose to pray: in front of large graffiti
comparing Bethlehem to the Warsaw Ghetto.
The photo above is from the main EU-funded Palestinian media outlet,
the Maan news agency.
(There is another version of this photo below.)
A few comments:
(1) Comparing Israel with Nazi Germany forms part of the working definition of anti-Semitism formulated by the EU and others.
...
(2) Bethlehem is a relatively prosperous town where restaurants and
juice bars are packed, and BMWs, Mercedes and Humvees compete for
parking spaces in the center or town. By contrast, 400,000 Jews were
herded into the Warsaw Ghetto and those who weren’t beaten or starved to
death there, were taken to be exterminated at nearby camps.
(Yes, there is of course a political problem between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority, and one day, one hopes, the security barrier can
be removed without its removal leading to increased terrorism, but this
has nothing to do with the Warsaw Ghetto. One wonders why the Pope’s
Vatican handlers were eager to choose that spot – or are so insensitive
as to allow the Palestinian Authority to guide the Pontiff to that
spot.)
(3) The Pope represents an organization, the Vatican, which even
today, after seven decades of repeated appeals, is still refusing to
make public its wartime archives detailing the full extent of its
collaboration with the Nazis before, during and after the Holocaust.
The 'settlers' council' has filed a police complaint for incitement against Leftist icon Amos Oz after Oz referred to 'hilltop youth' as neo-Nazis. They expect Oz to be arrested 'within hours' as happened earlier this week to a Yitzhar woman who advocated throwing stones at Arabs and IDF soldiers. Somehow, I don't think Oz will be arrested....
Representatives of the Binyamin and Samaria Residents Council filed a
complaint with the Israel Police against Amos Oz on Sunday, following
the author's comments that "hilltop youth" were "neo-Nazis", Channel 2
reported.
"The writer's words are serious incitement to racial hatred, and for
that he deserves the Nobel Prize in racism," said the Council.
Executive Director Sagi Keisler said that he expects that police will arrest Oz in the coming hours.
"Following the precedent of Eliraz Fein from Yitzhar,
who wrote similarly unsavory things in the settlement's internal forum
and was arrested immediately afterwards, the police can't ignore the
writer's grave incitement," he said.
Fein was arrested last week after she published a statement
online reading “I am in favor of throwing rocks (at Jews, in terms of
Arabs there of course isn’t any question), even in a situation where
the rock kills a soldier!!!”
Pro-Russian units in Ukraine connected to Cossak's?
A magazine from the Ukraine reports that at least some of the pro-Russian forces in the eastern Ukraine are connected to the Cossack's. Yes, those Cossack's.
From the identified militants, a few notes can be made from the
following gunmen who appear to be connected to the raids in Sloviansk
and Kramatorsk. For one, not all are from Russia.
While some may be local radicals, others appear to come from Belorechensk in
Russia, or have connections to related neo-Cossack groups. This does
not necessarily exonerate Russian state involvement, however. While it’s
been known that military veterans and Russian ‘tourists’ have been
actively involved for some time, the presence of Registered Cossacks of the Russian Federation connects Russia officially to the ongoing crisis. Registered Cossack organizations enjoy financial and organizational support from the authorities,
including monthly salary as police auxiliaries. This, of course, isn’t
the first controversial deployment of Cossack forces, who made a name
for themselves on the world stage enforcing the law in Sochi.
Another point of interest is the insignia seen on a number of the gunmen. For clarity’s sake, the symbol is that of Andrei Shkuro‘s ‘Terek Wolf Company’, a detachment of White emigre Cossacks who fought for Nazi Germany during the second world war.
You might surmise that these units that fought for Nazi Germany in World War II aren't exactly lovers of Jews.
Earlier this week, French soccer player Nicolas Anelka got a 5-game suspension for making the Quenelle (reverse Nazi salute) during a December English-league game. I thought some of you might be interested in the origins of the Quenelle (Hat Tip: Gudrun E).
The quenelle gesture, invented, named, and popularized by Dieudonné, is a combination of the French bras d'honneur gesture – meaning "up yours" – and an inverted Nazi salute. The word quenelle is a verlan (French backwards slang) version of the vulgar expression nique-le ("fuck him"); it has no connection to the French dumpling of the same name.
The quenelle gesture was first reported seen in a
non-antisemitic show by Dieudonné titled "1905," in connection with a
gesture signifying a dolphin.[7]
Later, Dieudonné himself linked the gesture to "anti-Zionism." In 2009,
he topped the list of the French "Anti-Zionist" party, headed by the
France-based Shi'ite activist Yahia Gouasmi,[8]
in elections for the European Parliament, and, at a press conference
launching his electoral campaign, he declared that "dragging a little quenelle to the bottom of the ass of Zionism" was a project dear to his heart.[9] His campaign poster shows him making the gesture:
...
From the beginning, Dieudonné has claimed that his quenelle was
an anti-establishment gesture; coupled with this, he has maintained
that the establishment is corrupt, is ruled by the wealthy who use your
money and lie to you, and is controlled by the Jews.
Dieudonné's brand ofpopulism has been endorsed by populist
movements and political parties, including the French extreme-right
National Front party. National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is
godfather to one of Dieudonné's children,[10] was photographed in a quenelle in a Strasbourg restaurant along with his former lieutenant Bruno Gollnisch.[11]
The quenelle has been used by youth groups, students, police, and
soldiers, though not all have seemed to be aware of its antisemitic
connotations. Some, however, clearly are: French essayist and filmmaker
Alain Soral, a leading thinker of the French far right and a friend of
Dieudonné who, like him, has been accused of antisemitism and has been
banned by some French media,[12] was photographed in front of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial mid-quenelle.[13]
Two French soldiers in Paris were photographed doing the gesture in September 2013 in front of a synagogue;[14]
and photos circulating online show members of the public making the
gesture at in front of goods wagons used to transport Jews to their
deaths during the Second World War.[15]
Video: European Parliament Vice President calls customs officials Nazis, shouts Heil Hitler at Frankfurt Airport
I would love to see video of the actual incident....
European Parliament Vice President Jacek Protasiewicz, who is Polish, made a drunken scene at Frankfurt's airport on Wednesday, calling customs officials Nazis and shouting at them "Heil Hitler," according to reports in the German media.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video (which is a Polish news report).
According to German daily Bild, the Polish politician
disembarked from a plane at the airport, visibly drunk, and then caught
the attention of customs officials when he stole a man's baggage cart
and sprinted toward the exit.
When the officials asked Protasiewicz for identification, he began to
hurl insults at them, calling them names such as "Hitler" and "Nazi,"
asking them, "Were you ever in Auschwitz?" Bild reported.
The
German daily quoted an eyewitness as saying "the man appeared to be
very drunk when he shouted in English that he was from the EU."
Police were then called to the scene, forcibly removing Protasiewicz in handcuffs when he refused to accompany them peacefully.
The
German daily noted that Protasiewicz enjoys immunity as a member of the
European Parliament and is therefore unlikely to face prosecution.
Polish
news portal RMF 24 quoted Protasiewicz as denying being drunk and
explaining that he was responding to the rude behavior of a Frankfurt
Airport official.
Protasiewicz said that he showed the official
his documentation upon request. "When he saw my diplomatic passport, he
was displeased that he could not demonstrate his power over me, a
passenger from Eastern Europe. Giving me the passport he used the word
"raus" [out]. This word worked on me a bit like a red rag to a bull. I'm
still from the generation that remembers the atmosphere of post-war
[Europe] and "raus" in Poland is associated with German arrogance, not
with a polite civil servant.
According to Protasiewicz, he
explained to the customs official that "raus" in Poland has associations
like "Heil Hitler." He continued: "This upset the officer. He started
to push me, so I said to him that before using force, let him consider
Auschwitz. Auschwitz, because it is the best lesson in humility."
When
asked about reports that he was drunkenly staggering and stammering,
Protasiewicz claimed that he has only had one glass of wine on the
plane.
For those who still think that there is a difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, please consider the picture below.
And for those who still don't get it....These are BDS'ers calling for a boycott of Israel in honor of 'Israel Apartheid Week.' And yes, that's the reverse Nazi salute.
Knesset members heckled and then walked out on a speech in the Knesset chamber by European Parliament President Martin Schulz on Wednesday after Schulz repeated as fact 'Palestinian' claims regarding denial of water and the 'blockade' on Gaza. To add insult to injury, Schulz spoke in German.
Schulz condemned Israeli “settlements” east of the 1949 armistice
line as “an obstacle to peace,” and claimed, “The blockade of Gaza
creates despair and extremism.”
MKs reacted with anger. “The president of the European parliament, a
son of the German nation, is unashamed to quote lies he heard yesterday
in Ramallah,” MK Motti Yogev (Jewish Home) accused.
Yogev burst into Schulz’s speech, saying the EU parliamentary head
had “chutzpah” for “supporting the Palestinians who are inciting to
destroy Israel, 70 years after the Holocaust.”
Both claims Schulz cited are false, he said. Israeli Jews and
Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria get equal amounts of
water. “Regarding the ‘blockade’ on Gaza, Israel has not been in Gaza
for some time, and Israel is the one that supplies the Palestinians in
Gaza with food and with the concrete they use against Israel,” he said.
Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett expressed outrage over Schulz’s
claims as well. “We will not be silent in the face of lies,” he said.
Culture Minister Limor Livnat and Minister of Pensioners Affairs Uri
Orbach criticized Schulz as well. Jewish Home MKs ultimately walked out
of Schulz’s speech.
JPost adds that Jewish Home party chairman and Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett has demanded that Schulz apologize.
Bennett and the entire Bayit Yehudi faction walked out in the middle of
Schulz's speech, with several MKs yelling "Palestinians are liars" and
"shame."
"When he said Palestinians get 17 liters of water for every 70
Israelis get, it was a total lie. It's preposterous," Bennett told The Jerusalem Post after
the Bayit Yehudi walk-out. "All the ministers were perplexed. I stayed
quiet at first, but then he criticized the Israeli blockade on Gaza and
said it caused pain to the Gazans."
"Did he forget that we
expelled 8,000 Jews from Gaza? This week I worked on helping the
evacuees. Did he forget that [Gazans] shoot thousands of missiles at us?
And then he criticizes us about the very place we vacated?" Bennett
asked.
The minister demanded that Schulz "take back his lies," and
called for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to make the same demand.
"Our
national honor as the State of Israel isn't mine or the ministers'. It
belongs to all of the people of Israel," he stated. "I won't sit in the
Knesset and hear a European, certainly not a German, saying such
things."
The Bayit Yehudi leader said that when he noticed no one
else was protesting, he instructed his faction to walk out quietly,
though some only listened to the first part.
According to Bennett, the Bayit Yehudi were "the only ones who stood up for our national honor."
"I
thought Schulz would express the EU's regular criticism about Israel in
the West Bank. He started out speaking nicely about the Holocaust, he
showed a lot of empathy. He spoke about the importance of peace, and I
get it, he's not in the Bayit Yehudi," Bennett recounted. "We can accept
criticism, but we cannot live with lies."
The Bayit Yehudi leader
pointed out that Schulz quoted Edmund Burke as saying "the only thing
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"He could criticize us, even sharply, but to tell lies and expect me to be quiet? It won't happen," Bennett stated.
Although they didn't walk out, other MK's also ripped Schulz.
Immediately after Schulz departed, Culture Minister Limor Livnat took the stand to say his words were "a vulgar lie."
"Schulz
told lies in German, and it's unfortunate someone can speak German in
this house, but it is our responsibility to stand up against it,"
Pensioners' Affairs Minister Uri Orbach said. "The generation of
Schulz's parents and the generation of the Arab MKs' parents
collaborated to destroy the Jews."
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
