European Division on Iran

It looks like Sarkozy and Kouchner have dramatically re-oriented French foreign policy on Iran. For the first time, the U.S. is getting rhetorical support from Europe in its attempts to ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian regime. The Germans, on the other hand, have been far more reluctant to endorse calls for more aggressive economic sanctions lately - in part, because as one of Iran's biggest trading partners, they have the most to lose.

In light of all this, I continue to be amazed by what passes for analysis at the Süddeutsche Zeitung. While the commentator acknowledges that German "skepticism" is based on economic interests, there is no attempt to explain Kouchner's logic or French interests in the matter. Instead, we get a vague mixture of a morality that sees all threats of military force as taboo and the condescension at which the German center-left excels: "Klug war es nicht" ([Kouchner's statement] was not very clever).

More Speculation on the Israeli Airforce Raid

As our commenters have observed, the Israelis have been surprisingly disciplined so far in maintaining silence on the air force raid in Syria that took place earlier this month. Meanwhile, in the American press, the North Korean angle is getting a great deal of coverage.

One of the theories that is gaining increasing traction is that the Israelis targeted an incipient nuclear weapons program, which the North Koreans had just provided to Syria. I continue to be skeptical of this theory, if only because the person behind it seems to be John Bolton. This crank has been a fanatical opponent of the sensible rapprochement with North Korea from the beginning. He is now seeking to undo the one foreign policy success that the Bush administration has to show for itself - the neutralization of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (something that could have been achieved two terms ago, had it not been for people like Bolton).

If North Korean nuclear weapons were involved, I would expect to see a lot more serious reactions from Christopher Hill and the White House. As it stands, we only have Pyongyang's condemnations to go on, as well as reports of a North Korean ship docked at Tartus. The only North Korean connection that makes sense to me is a shipment of Scuds or other missiles that had been approved a long time ago, before the deal with the U.S. Who knows, perhaps Pyongyang even tipped the Americans off beforehand.

It is obvious that all people in the U.S. and Israel with access to real intelligence on this matter are keeping absolute silence. In fact, based on a conversation with someone close to a Western intelligence agency, it appears to me that almost everyone is in the dark about what happened. However, we are getting some news via the German "spy ship" to which Hazbani alluded several times earlier. Der Spiegel is apparently set to publish a story quoting German military sources, who observed two Israeli F-15s entering Syrian airspace and "being surprised by the speed at which the Syrian air defenses recognized them," Haaretz reports (Hebrew only, at this time). Apparently, the Germans believed that the target was a weapons shipment to Hizbullah.

We may never know what happened, though I believe that in this day and age, it will not take much longer for someone to leak the details. Jeha earlier commented that the raid may have had something to do with the Lebanese presidential elections (so, in other words, some kind of anti-Hizbullah action or operation against other pro-Syrian elements). I am not sure Israel would be maintaining this kind of secrecy in that case, and I don't think we would have seen such a big operation either.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst

BND spy "Fat Willy" (Photo: Spiegel)

Ha'aretz has a long profile of former German intelligence officer Willy Dietl, a famous journalist and writer, with extensive experience in the Middle East and Central Asia. Dietl's cover was blown in November 2005 when the chief of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, under pressure from the country's media. revealed to a parliamentary commission that the BND had paid five journalists to inform on their colleagues, in a bid to track the source of leaks. The revelation caused a scandal in Germany, and the once-respected reporter and author of several books about the intelligence community and terrorism (Spy Ladies: Frauen im Geheimdienst, Holy War, Bridgehead Afghanistan, Im Visier: ein Ex-Agent enthüllt die Machenschaften des BND) now lives in disgrace.

Among his successes as a collection agent, Dietl counts his recruitment of two agents, from an unnamed country (Jordan or Syria?), who monitored the Abu Nidal crew:

Willy Dietl credits the crowning glory of his achievements to his running of two intelligence officers from a country that borders on Israel. He declines to name the country, because the two are still in active service. Dietl met a relative of the two, who was arrested in the country in question after he was falsely informed on. After the man's release, he moved to Germany, where Dietl helped him start life anew and became friends with him. His two relatives, the intelligence officers, were very impressed by Dietl's efforts and grateful to him.

"Over time I became friends with the two of them," he relates. "Only afterward did I discover that they were professional intelligence officers, who were in charge of collecting information and monitoring the activity of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization. After a while I recruited them for the BND. They gave me a complete list of Abu Nidal's operatives, their passport numbers, their code names, their travel plans to Europe and many other details. It was a gold mine. You have to remember that in the 1980s, Abu Nidal's organization was considered the most dangerous and most daring terrorist group in the world. They carried out many attacks against targets in Austria and Italy, against Israeli and Jewish targets and against the PLO. Now, suddenly, we had advance information about every trip of the organization's people to Europe."

On the BND's relations with the Mossad:

Do you know whether the BND shared this information with other espionage organizations, including the Mossad?

"I don't know, but I have no doubt that they did. The Mossad is one of the closest organizations to the BND, and Israel was one of the targets for attacks by the Abu Nidal group."

On Germany, I thought this was particularly interesting and accurate:

In Germany, in contrast to Israel, the public does not want to understand that intelligence work is necessary to protect the country's citizens and its democratic character. In Germany, the moment your name is mixed up in anything related to intelligence, you are considered odious, so you can imagine how badly the affair has hurt me.

German Police Cadets are Sick of the Holocaust

Berlin Police Commissioner Dieter Glietsch
(Photo: Berlin.de)

German politicians, activists, and Jewish community representatives have expressed outrage over comments allegedly made by "an entire class of police cadets" to a Holocaust survivor who was delivering a lecture on the Nazi period, antisemitism, and xenophobia at the Berlin Police Academy.

The incident took place nearly a month ago, on February 27, when the 83-year-old Isaak Behar visited the class, as part of a session about the Nazi regime mandated by the curriculum. Police cadets apparently told Behar that they resented "constantly being reminded about the Holocaust." Others made remarks to the effect that "Jews are rich" (Tagesspiegel).

The story, first reported by the Berliner Zeitung, has received widespread coverage in German newspapers since it broke on March 19. A report of what transpired during the discussion only reached Berlin's Police Commissioner, Dieter Glietsch, last week, "almost by accident" and through sources outside of the department. It is possible that Behar himself brought it to Glietsch's attention. The commissioner expressed his consternation about the report and about the fact that it had only reached him now (Berliner Zeitung). An inquiry has already begun, and condemnation has been virtually unanimous.

Reports about a resurgence of antisemitism in Germany invariably make big headlines - in Germany and abroad. There are certainly reasons to be concerned, but I hope that the blame does not fall on the German police or state, for the problem clearly lies elsewhere. This has not always been the case. Just twenty years ago, German politicians and civil servants were far slower in responding to reports of antisemitism. But the current German elite is sui generis in its awareness of the dark sides of the German past and its dedication to combating antisemitism and Holocaust denial - with a few exceptions. I would even go so far as to say that no country's political elite in the world today can claim to be as sincere as Germany's in confronting its past.

While the current German elite, which came to political maturity in the 1960s, shares a fundamental consensus about the importance of Holocaust education, a younger generation of Germans is slowly undermining the values and institutions for which some of its parents (the ones born in West Germany) struggled for several decades. This younger generation, composed of men and women who while born in pre-1989 West or East Germany have spent most of their lives in the unified Federal Republic, today declares that it is "sick of the Holocaust." In the words of one German headline "Deutsche Polizisten: Kein Bock auf Holocaust Vortrag" (if anyone knows how to translate this into equally compelling idiomatic English, please let me know).

Of course, German fatigue about the Holocaust, which once prompted Henryk Broder to quip that "the Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz," is not an entirely new phenomenon. Perhaps there has always been a profound disconnect between the discourse of the elite described earlier and that of German society at large. Things have only become more complicated since Germany's unification, especially as neo-Nazi or "national" groups in East Germany emerged as protest movements against the communist regime before 1989, and against immigrants and leftists today. I think the reaction of the police cadets reflects the views of large segments of the German people from similar class backgrounds. They have increasingly come to the conclusion that the Holocaust is being rammed down their throats.

Contrary to the claims of right-wing demagogues, I don't believe that there is a surfeit of Holocaust education in the country. But an effective strategy to counter these dangerous tendencies cannot consist in hysteria about the return of Nazism to Germany. Perhaps, it might be a better idea to dwell on the positive. Organizations such as the American Jewish Committee have long realized this. The point is that Germans have a great deal to be proud of when it comes to dealing with their history - just consider, for the sake of comparison, the situation in Japan or Turkey. The German elite should be confident of this record and its role in in these achievements; it should speak of German accomplishments in this sphere as much as it speaks of duties and responsibilities today. At the same time, of course Germans must continue to monitor and engage critically, in clear terms and without glossing over the issues involved, the kind of self-serving (and often antisemitic) ressentiment that came to the surface in the affair of the Berlin police cadets.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE:
I encountered some bizarre transcriptions of German words in a Ha'aretz article about the incident described above. The article referred to chants of "Zig [sic] Heil" (i.e. Sieg Heil), and to the police academy's tours of the "Ziekenhuizen [sic] concentration camp" (probably the Sachsenhausen KZ just outside Berlin). I'm not sure how to explain these transcriptions - both of these spellings look vaguely Dutch to me, so maybe they hired some translators from the Netherlands or Belgium.

Jewish Kindergarten Attacked in Berlin

Police search the crime scene. The graffiti reads "[Get] out of here." (Spiegel)

Vandals defaced a Jewish kindergarten in Berlin with swastikas and antisemitic messages last Sunday. They also threw a smoke bomb into the building and apparently tried to set it on fire. The Chabad-run "Gan Yisrael" was unoccupied at the time. As of today, there are still no leads in the police's search for suspects (Berliner Morgenpost). However, most of the press has been reporting that the attack was carried out by neo-Nazis.

There has been a revival of Jewish life in Berlin over the past 5 years. The growth in infrastructure is due largely to the activities of Rabbi Josh Spinner, backed by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, on the one hand, and Chabad on the other. Spinner established a yeshiva in the eastern part of the city (Rykestrasse in Prenzlauer Berg), while Chabad has built a new synagogue, community center, and kindergarten in the west, not too far from the city's main traditional synagogue. They have been trying to meet as well as to stimulate the increased demand for Jewish religious life that has accompanied the immigration to Germany of Jews from the former Soviet Union since the early 1990s.

Neither the members of the yeshiva nor the Chabad rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal and his shluhim (lit., "emissaries" - basically young interns) hide their Judaism. The Israeli rabbi of the traditional Joachimsthaler shul, Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg also walks around Berlin as if he were in New York or Bnei Brak. Aside from staying true to what they would do in North America or Israel, the rabbis have been trying to inspire their congregants to be public about their Judaism. There is no doubt, however, that attacks such as the one on the kindergarten will make those few religious Jews who do wear kippot in public reconsider.

Unlike the rabbis, the young hazan (cantor) of the shul, who hails from Har Nof in Jerusalem, slightly adjusted his wardrobe (at least when I last saw him several years ago), opting for a beige stetson in favor of a black Borsalino.

Many, though not all, Jewish institutions in Berlin are protected by two security details. City police officers maintain a 24-hour presence in front of the community synagogues, while Israeli security guards monitor all those who want to enter, during regular hours. I am surprised that the kindergarten was not equipped with surveillance cameras at the least.

To my knowledge, the incident has not made the pages of Ha'aretz, but the Jerusalem Post carried a wire report on it last Monday. Deidre Berger, the director of the American Jewish Committee's Berlin Office, visited the kindergarten after the attack to express the organization's solidarity with the staff, parents, and children.

Making Hamas Palatable

Sergey Lavrov, 17 September 2004.
Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Until now, the Russians have maintained at least a posture of ambiguity about their position on the Mecca agreement and the resulting Palestinian unity government. That is to say, Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have pretended that they would toe the Quartet line, which demands that the Palestinian government recognize Israel before sanctions on it are lifted.

It seems that the Russians, too, have realized, like some of the European statesmen who have been pushing Israel to negotiate with Hamas, that the movement has no intention of conceding anything on the recognition front. To get around this significant obstacle, the Russians have now made it clear that they do not really care.

The real priorities for Russia lie in throwing a stick in the spokes of the U.S., and in ingratiating themselves with the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, at no real cost to themselves (the Russians could care less about what happens in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel). These aims require a lifting of the sanctions against Hamas - without placing such exacting requirements on the Palestinians as recognizing the existence of the Zionist entity. Hence, it is enough to dangle the promise of a cessation of Qassam firing - a hudna of unknown duration. If that doesn't work out, no one will ever really expect Russia to bear responsibility for its enforcement anyway.

Nevertheless, it must be at least a little embarrassing to have Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas's political wing in Damascus, say, in Moscow, that the organization will not recognize Israel, immediately after a Russian announcement of support. After all, according to a February 26 statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry,

There was reaffirmed on the Russian side the position in favor of the achievement of an inter-Palestinian consensus with due regard to the well-known criteria of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators and restoration of the Palestinians' peace dialogue with Israel on an international legal basis (emphasis added; Russian MFA).

To then have the organization's Gaza spokesman Ismail Radwan declare that "We have not given up in any way our position regarding the territory of Palestine," and a different Hamas figure announce that

[Hamas's] position is clear. All the land of Palestine [from the sea to the river] belongs to the Palestinians and Israel is the enemy. However, [Hamas's] political horizon offers a hudna for 15-20 years, in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, the return of the refugees and the release of the prisoners (Ha'aretz),

makes it difficult to render the Russian decision in terms consistent with Quartet policy. This is where Chirac comes to the rescue. In a move that is all too typical of his foreign policy in the Middle East, the French president has announced that he will push the E.U. to support the new unity government - no matter what, it seems. It remains to be seen which way the Germans will swing; the Christian Democrats are staking out a pro-American, anti-Putin position, while the Social Democrats have been following the old Schröder line (see my previous post on this).

ADDENDUM: Avi Isaharoff and Amos Harel argue not only that "Hamas is still Hamas" but that the organization has basically already defeated Fatah. There is no doubt that it will get only stronger in the future. Even if international sanctions persist, the money will come either from Iran or from the Saudis. My only hope at this point is that the Iranians pour so much of their oil revenue into Gaza that the mullahs go bankrupt.

Russia and the Mecca Agreement

Putin and King Abdullah (Photo: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia)

It remains to be seen how long the Saudi-brokered Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas will last. The new unity government has not been formed yet, and the success of the transition to it represents the first test of this document. The other, equally significant test that the agreement faces is the international response.

The motivations behind the Saudis' mediation efforts were at least three-fold. For one, they continue earlier efforts by the Saudis, most notably the peace plan of 2002, to seize the initiative to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflicts, with an eye to both the Arab street and the West. Two, the Mecca agreement was an attempt to reassert Saudi influence over the Palestinians, especially as Iran and Syria have made claims to sponsorship over Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And finally, the Saudi government might be hoping to force the Americans and the Israelis to back down on their demands that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist, thereby providing a ticket for the movement's entry onto the world stage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, currently on a trip to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states has long been pushing for Israel to drop its objections to Hamas. He immediately hailed the Mecca agreement, and used the opportunity once again to undermine the policy of the U.S. and the EU. In so doing, Putin may be ingratiating himself simultaneously to the Saudis and to the Palestinians, as well as their backers. The question is now whether the Europeans, many of whom (with the exception of the Germans) have long been critical of the recognition demands anyway, will side with Russia or Israel and the Americans.

The Russian declarations about the Mecca agreement should be seen in conjunction with Putin's recent anti-American tirade at the Munich security conference. Russia is clearly trying to play spoiler wherever it can, in order to increase its bargaining power vis-a-vis the U.S., especially in the former Soviet Union but also when it comes to economic interests at large. But to be effective at obstructing American policy aims, Russia cannot do without the Europeans. We saw the potential of a Moscow-Berlin-Paris alliance in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since then, however, Franco-American relations have improved significantly, and the leading candidates for the upcoming French presidential elections are unlikely to move closer to Putin. In Germany, the return of the Christian Democratic Party, led by Angela Merkel, to power, has resulted in the reconstruction of the transatlantic alliance between Washington and Berlin, undoing the damage to it done by Gerhard Schröder's SPD government. Merkel, moreover, is deeply suspicious of Putin's ambitions and his moves in Russia, the Caucasus, and in East Central Europe. All this does not bode well for Russia's aims to get Berlin and Paris to play spoiler and obstruct American policy in the Middle East with it.

Finally, unlike the Arabs and the post-colonialists in the West, Germany's elite still believes that Israel as a Jewish and democratic state has a right to exist. Whereas among European and American academics, Israel is an anachronism or a great injustice (the Naqba is equivalent to the Holocaust, declares a recent op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor), German elites take very seriously the implications of Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel; a refusal which plainly reveals the maximalist intentions of large parts of the Palestinian nationalist movement unto the present day.

Racist Attacks up in Germany

(Source: Perry-Castaneda)

ADDENDUM: Two men in their mid-twenties from the town of Sangerhausen in Saxony-Anhalt have been indicted for their role in an arson attack on a facility housing applicants for political refugee status. The suspects, who are known neo-Nazis, threw three Molotov cocktails into an apartment in the facility early on Saturday morning. No one was hurt in the attack (SZ).

Last Friday afternoon, an Israeli and a Yemenite student, both in their twenties, were attacked by five men in a Magdeburg streetcar. The assailants pushed the victims and taunted them with racist slurs. One of them pulled a knife and threatened the students. However, the two were able to fend off the attackers, and the tram-driver alerted the police who arrested the five men, aged 35 to 46. They have been charged with sedition [Volksverhetzung, literally "incitement of the people"], uttering threats, and assault (Spiegel).

Magdeburg is a mid-sized city in the former East German Land of Saxony-Anhalt, which currently leads all other German Bundesländer in the number of hate crimes committed by right-wing extremists. In the statistics, Saxony-Anhalt is followed by three other former East German Bundesländer, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony. However, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg also reported significant increases in hate crimes. Overall, German police are reporting record numbers of such crimes for the year 2006.

These crimes are often attributed to young people who came of age in the 1990s. There is indeed a strong right-wing extremist youth culture in many towns of the former East Germany, that rose to prominence especially after the fall of the Berlin wall. In this particular case, the attackers came from a slightly older generation, educated entirely in the German Democratic Republic.

I last visited Magdeburg sometime in December 2003, when I had the chance to visit the Jewish community there. It is a rather dreadful city, visibly depressed. Like much of Saxony-Anhalt, it suffers from high unemployment. For some reason or another, its university has attracted a number of Israeli and other foreign students - one of whom I met in the synagogue. A former artillery-man who had served in Lebanon until the withdrawal, he complained bitterly about living conditions in the East. Most of the Jewish community, as elsewhere in Germany, consists of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Few of them have any desire to stay in Magdeburg; I remember a group of high schoolers who were especially enthusiastic about leaving for Canada (rather than the U.S. or Israel).

Volksverhetzung under German criminal law (Paragraph 130) covers incitement to "hatred or violence against certain parts of the population," or attacks on "the human dignity of others through insults, malicious libel, or defamation," (German Ministry of Justice). Paragraphs 130.3 and 130.4 also outlaw Holocaust denial and the use of symbols from the Nazi era. Convictions can lead to imprisonment from 3 months to 5 years and/or a monetary fine.

German Leftists fight Antisemites and Anti-Zionists

The caption above Ahmadinejad's head reads "I want nuclear holocaust."
The text below calls for a demonstration against "the most dangerous politician of our time."
See I Like Israel for info.

Germany today is one of the few countries in the world in which committed groups of non-Jewish, left-wing activists actively support Israel. In other European countries, the kind of coalition behind the upcoming protest advertised in the poster above would have been impossible. Just imagine an alliance consisting of religious and secular Jewish organizations, leftist anti-fascist student groups, Israeli-German friendship associations, and foundations (run and funded by non-Jews) committed to fighting antisemitism. Only in America would the kind of action organized by "I like Israel" attract a significant amount of support from non-Jews; it would come almost entirely from the right of the political spectrum.

While elsewhere in the world, radical leftism is synonymous with anti-Zionism, a small but significant number of German neo-Marxists and anti-fascists, who maintain a number of impressive print publications, unequivocally define anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism. Most of these pro-Israel German leftists define themselves as "anti-Deutsch" - that is, opposed to German nationalism. For several decades, they have been fighting what they perceive as the re-appearance of antisemitism and nationalism through the backdoors of leftist anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Zionism. They have also tenaciously opposed the self-serving equations of Nazi atrocities with Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories by some German intellectuals, in the process drawing attention to the convergence of Holocaust deniers, Muslim fundamentalists, and pro-Palestinian groups. Often, these young, highly-educated activists challenge neo-Nazi groups as well as the ubiquitous keffiyeh-clad shock-troops of the anti-globalization, anti-American, anti-Israel left on the streets of Germany's large cities. Unlike leftists in England, France, and Berkeley, California, they do not underestimate the virulent antisemitism sweeping through much of the Muslim world. They see it as the historical responsibility of Germans to oppose the genocidal rhetoric of individuals such as Iranian President Ahmadinejad and organizations such as Hamas.

Living in Berlin several years ago, at the height of the second intifada, I had the opportunity to meet a number of organizers from the ranks of the anti-Deutsche. Most of them emphasized that they are "unfortunately only a small part of the German left." They were often deeply critical and pessimistic about the German discourse on Israel and the Middle East, noting rampant bias against Israel in the media. At the same time, they also expressed fears about the resurgence of neo-Nazi groups in the former East Germany and the resulting increase in attacks on "foreigners." I was therefore pleased to read an article by Assaf Uni, "The good men of Leipzig ," in Ha'aretz a few days ago (thanks for the reference, Ima), which described the relative success of the anti-Deutsche in this city.

One European Response to the Gaza Escalation

Israeli armor, north of the Gaza strip

An op-ed by Christiane Schlötzer in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung illustrates once again that the Europeans just don't get it. The analysis is full of clichés and condescending judgments. Perhaps the kicker was Schlötzer's assertion that

Both sides in the conflict are hostages to policies that, one has to say it, ... , are characterized by Old Testament obstinacy. [In dem Konflikt sind beide Seiten Geiseln einer Politik, die – man muss es sagen, ... – von alttestamentarischer Sturköpfigkeit geprägt ist].

To the writer, the Israelis (and Palestinians) are like children, abandoned by their irresponsible parents (the US). What they ought to do, she seems to imply, is to talk things out like reasonable adults. Or worse, they are like unconverted Jews, who must open their ears to the New Testament's message of love and kindness.

Although Schlötzer accuses Israel of living in a "dream" (nightmare would be better), her critique seems fundamentally divorced from the realities on the ground. She does not present even a shred of understanding for the responsibility of a state to protect its citizens and borders. Nor does she consider the possibility that a government that allows terrorists to launch an attack across a border ought to be held accountable in some way.

Equally absurd is the writer's patronizing conclusion:

by now at the latest, Israel ought to recognize that it is impossible to separate itself from the Palestinians forever by unilaterally drawing a border. A few terrorists who dig a tunnel to kidnap a soldier could destroy this dream. [... spätestens jetzt muss Israel erkennen, dass es nicht möglich ist, sich mit einer einseitigen Grenzziehung ein für alle Mal von den Palästinensern zu trennen. Schon ein paar Terroristen, die einen Tunnel graben, um einen Soldaten zu entführen, konnten diesen Traum zerstören].

The problem is that this was not "just" a few terrorists but a sophisticated, well-planned operation. Furthermore, it is bizarre that the writer turns this into an argument against Israel's "dream" of separating itself from the Palestinians. The terrorists operated from Gaza, which is no longer occupied by Israel. They ventured far beyond the 1967 borders to launch an offensive raid on Israeli troops. This is unacceptable in any scenario; it cannot be regarded as some kind of inevitability that resulted from a policy of unilateral disengagement, unless one argued the right-wing view that no withdrawal should have taken place at all because the Palestinians would be rewarded for terrorism.

It was also annoying to see the writer evade responsibility by attributing to the Palestinians en masse the rhetorical question:

Why should a brutal kidnapping be worse than the daily perceived arbitrariness of the occupation? [Oder dass ein brutales Kidnapping schlimmer sein soll als die alltägliche, als Willkür empfundene Besatzung.]

This ignores the fact that the Gaza Strip, from which the terrorists attacked, is no longer under occupation. Indeed the entire analysis sounds like something canned long before the withdrawal took place. Perhaps this is why it sounds so trite.

German Government Reaction to Brutal Attack on German-Ethiopian in Potsdam

A few days ago, a German citizen of Ethiopian origin was viciously assaulted late at night. Apparently, the victim, who is currently in an induced coma and still in mortal danger, managed to reach his wife's voicemail by cell phone during the attack. In the background of the recording, one can hear people yelling racist slurs. A taxi driver intervened in the scene and chased away two men. According to his testimony, they seemed to have been skinheads or other right-wing extremists (bomber jackets, very short hair...fairly plausible conclusion given the context). This is what CDU Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble had to say, quoted in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung:

„Wir wissen die Motive nicht, wir kennen die Täter nicht“, sagte Schäuble noch am Donnerstag im Deutschlandradio Kultur. „Es werden auch blonde blauäugige Menschen Opfer von Gewalttaten, zum Teil sogar von Tätern, die möglicherweise nicht die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit haben.“

[We don't know what the motives were; we don't know who the perpetrators are. People with blond hair and blue eyes are also victims of violence, in part even by perpetrators who possibly do not have German citizenship].

An unbelievable remark, no? He should be censured by Angela Merkel.

In the meantime, the German police have arrested two suspects. Their initial indictment notes that xenophobia and right-wing extremism were highly likely motives in the attack on the victim.

European Condemnation of Tel Aviv Suicide Bombing

Obviously a condemnation of the bombing, but this time it is coupled with an indictment of the Hamas and the PA government that preceded it. The op-ed argues that Hamas, unlike its predecessor, has made its support of terorism clear and open. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung argues that Hamas's claim that the bombing was "self-defence" characterizes the organization's misanthropic worldview, which is shaped by the "crude assumption, that the land of the Middle East has been polluted through its settlement by Jews."

Das Gute an der palästinensischen Autonomiebehörde ist die Klarheit, die von ihr ausgeht: Sie wird von der Terrorgruppe Hamas geführt, die Israels Existenzrecht und somit jegliche Friedensverhandlungen ablehnt. Jassir Arafat hatte es stets verstanden, die Weltöffentlichkeit hinters Licht zu führen. Die Hamas aber lässt nun keinen Zweifel mehr an ihren Absichten.

Der Terroranschlag am Ostermontag, exekutiert von der Palästinenser-Miliz „Islamischer Heiliger Krieg“, wird von der Hamas als „Recht auf Selbstverteidigung“ gerechtfertigt. Darin drückt sich das menschenverachtende Weltbild der Hamas aus, das von der kruden Annahme geprägt ist, der Boden der Nahost-Region werde durch die bloße Besiedlung durch Juden verunreinigt.

Nazis had Einsatzgruppe Ready in 1942 to Exterminate Jews in Eretz Yisrael

A new study by two German historians, Klaus-Michael Mallman and Martin Cüppers reveals that the Nazis had a unit waiting in Athens to carry out the extermination of the Jews in Palestine with the help of local Arab collaborators (the latter is not necessarily a major part of the research - it was simply emphasized in the Ynet article). Ha'aretz has since reported on this study as well. I have also found the reference:

Klaus-Michael Mallmann und Martin Cüppers, "Beseitigung der jüdisch-nationalen Heimstätte in Palästina -Das Einsatzkommando der Panzerarmee Afrika 1942," in Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwartvon Jürgen Matthäus/Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2006.

One of the SS personalities involved in this unit was Walter Rauff, who died unmolested in Chile. The link is to a Wikipedia article which alleges that Rauff was protected by Allende!