Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Germany: Foreign Minister accuses Israel of appartheid (again)

Roger Boyes of the Times is right Muslim migrants behind rise in antisemitism - Germany has the most urgent problem - but it is extremely doubtful, as the following shows, that Germany will do anything to counter antisemitism, except for the usual nice and comforting words.

Via Watch Anti-Semitism in Europe:
Last Thursday the German minister of Foreign Affairs, Sigmar Gabriel, met with Muslim migrants and citizens as well as staff of the "Kreuzberg Initiative against anti-Semitism" (KIGA e.V.) to discuss the anti-Semitic slogans heard on pro-Palestinian demonstrations and within Muslim communities in recent days after Trump decided to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel.

As Palestinian director Pary El-Qalqili said that anti-Semitism is approached the wrong way because instead of talking about the problem of the Palestinians who suffered under Israeli occupation, "they talk about the supposed anti-Semitism of the young people", Gabriel assured her that the Federal Government has criticized Trump's decision immediately and, of course, takes the right to criticize Israel's government policy. He himself, Gabriel resumed, said some years ago, after visiting Hebron in the occupied territories, that what he saw reminded him of apartheid.

In 2012 Sigmar Gabriel, at that time head of the German Social Democratic Party, described Israel as an “Apartheid-Regime” on his Facebook site while he was visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories: “I was just in Hebron. That is a lawless territory there for Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime, for which there is no justification,” Gabriel wrote. Afterwards he apologised to Israel for the comparison made in his Facebook post. “If my formulation led to the misunderstanding that I wanted to put Israel and its government on the same level as the old apartheid regime in South Africa, I am sorry," he said. I did not and explicitly do not want to do this, as this comparison would be more than unfair to Israel and would downplay the old South Africa.”  
He seemingly forgot his apology. Read more (in German) at Berliner Zeitung.

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