Schlaglicht Israel Nr. 6/08 Aktuelles aus israelischen Tageszeitungen 9. – 22. März 2008 1. Angela Merkel in Israel Drei Tage dauerte Angela Merkels Besuch in Israel, bei dem sie von acht Ministern und Wirtschaftsvertretern begleitet wurde. Höhepunkt des Programms war eine gemeinsame Kabinettssitzung der beiden Regierungen, die als„historisch“ bezeichnet wurde. Im Rahmen der Sitzung wurden Partnerprojekte in den Bereichen Bildung, Umwelt und Verteidigung beschlossen, die laut einer gemeinsamen Erklärung der Stärkung der politischen, kulturellen, ökonomischen und sozialen Beziehungen dienen und eine neue Partnerschaft begründen sollen. Im Vorfeld hatte es in Israel eine Debatte darüber gegeben, dass Merkel als erste deutsche Regierungschefin Deutsch vor dem israelischen Parlament reden werde. In der Rede, die Merkel zum Abschluss ihrer Reise in der Knesset hielt und auf Hebräisch begann, betonte sie, dass Deutschland gegen jede Bedrohung – insbesondere durch den Iran – an Israels Seite stehen werde. German isn’t the problem “I fail to comprehend the protest expressed by Knesset members[…]. Their argument that‘a speech in German will hurt Holocaust survivors’ is completely baseless.[…] Could it be that what we have here is a case of populism? By all means, if Knesset members truly want to initiate a meaningful protest, they can demand that the German national anthem will no longer be played in Israel; because the sound of the German national anthem certainly hurts the survivors[…]. As Germany, in complete defiance of any logic and while showing contempt to and hurting the feelings of hundreds of millions of Europeans and other peoples as well, did not see fit to change its national anthem, perhaps the time has come for an initiative by the Israeli parliament that would propose this.” Noah Klieger, JED 12.03.08 Eine Kanzlerin des guten Willens Der Besuch der Bundeskanzlerin in Israel wird die Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Staaten stärken, und Merkels Freundschaft und ihre erklärte Verpflichtung, Israel auch gegen die iranische Bedrohung zur Seite zu stehen, müssen hoch geschätzt werden. Merkel hat ihren Besuch sicherlich auch dafür genutzt, die Wesensart des [israelisch-palästinensischen] Konflikts aus nächster Nähe kennen zu lernen, und sie wird ihre europäischen Kollegen über die Aufrichtigkeit der Absichten Israels auf dem Weg zum Frieden aufklären können.“ Josef Charif, MAA 19.03.08 German clarity “Steinmeier spoke out against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference of Holocaust deniers in Teheran. He‘will never be mistaken for a historian’ he said.‘Yet it is important that we take notice of such shamefully aggressive and ideologically inspired acts- and that we respond with all due clarity.’ Yet the problem is Germany has not responded with clarity at all. When Iran first threatened to‘wipe Israel off the map,’ and when these threats were recently repeated in the form of predictions that Israel would disappear, Germany should have broken off diplomatic relations with Iran. […] Germany should be leading the international charge to force Iran to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons and its support for terrorism. But Germany is not leading this effort, even within Europe.[…] Sine this has not happened, it would seem necessary to spell out in greater detail and with greater urgency what, in Israel's view, Germany's ‘special responsibility’ should mean.” JPO 13.03.08 A special normalcy 1

“[Angela Merkel’s] visit did not generate front-page headlines here; in the public discourse, Germany has become an almost‘normal’ partner of the Jewish state. How can this be explained?[…] Germany is currently Israel’s best friend in Europe, and perhaps even in the world, excepting the United Sates. It stands out in the European Union for being willing to support Israel under difficult circumstance and for working to balance anti-Israel resolutions in international forums.” HAA 19.03.08 What Angela Merkel couldn’t say out loud “German Chancellor Angela Merkel's successful visit to Israel came in conjunction with worrisome developments back in her own country. Few in Israel realize that a majority of Germans probably disagree with several key statements she made here about her country's past- including the mention of shame and guilt- in the Knesset.[…] In contemporary Germany there are significant expressions of anti-Semitism and racism. This includes attacks on Jews, their cemeteries and Holocaust monuments, together with ongoing antiSemitic prejudice toward Jews among significant parts of the population.[…] At the same time, there are efforts in Germany to rewrite the past. Books by historian Jörg Friedrich, who compares the Allied actions to his nation's atrocities during the war, are best-sellers.“ Calev Ben-David, JPO 17.03.08 Trotz allem ein wichtiger Partner “Heute haben wir eine Situation erreicht, in der die meisten Israelis nicht nur die Bedeutung der Beziehungen zu Deutschland verstehen, sondern auch die Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel in Israel herzlich willkommen heißen. Und es besteht wieder das Gefühl, dass der Besuch und die Beziehungen zu Deutschland eine wichtige moralische Grundlage haben. Israel steht im Krieg der westlichen, demokratischen Welt gegen den radikalen Islam an vorderster Front. Die Deutschen stellen zwar keine Alternative zu unserem amerikanischen Bündnispartner dar, aber der Ä ußerung Merkels,‘wer Israel bedroht, der bedroht auch uns’ kommt große Bedeutung zu.[…] Was wichtig ist, ist der Feind von heute, nicht der von gestern. Merkel ist also die Kanzlerin des Feindes von gestern. Wenn es ein Problem mit diesem‘Feind von gestern’ gibt, so ist es der anti-demokratische und manchmal anti-israelische Pazifismus in Teilen der deutschen Bevölkerung.“ Amnon Lord, HZO 17.03.08 With the zeal of a convert “Anyone unaware of where Merkel was speaking (Jerusalem) would never have known it is a city where a third of its citizens have been living under occupation for more than 40 years, a city divided by a wall reminiscent of the Berlin Wall.[…] She rightfully described the Qassam rocket fire on Sderot as a crime, but did not say a word about repeated human rights abuses in the West Bank, the bombing of residential areas in Gaza or the settlements.[…] Had she been more balanced, Merkel might have made life in Israel and the occupied territories less intolerable.[…] One of her insiders equated her stance on Israel to that of a convert embracing a new set of beliefs. But either way, Merkel's stance does not represent Germany's or Israel's public discourse.” Tom Segev, HAA 19.03.08 2. Terroranschlag in Jerusalem Acht junge Israelis, der Großteil minderjährig, wurden bei einem Terroranschlag am 6. März getötet, als ein bewaffneter Palästinenser aus dem Dorf Jabal Mukkaber in Ost-Jerusalem in die Yeshiva Mercaz Harav eindrang. Die Religionsschule gilt als Flagschiff der national-religiösen Bewegung. Nach dem Anschlag wurde der Ruf laut, das Haus der Familie des Attentäters, der durch einen Soldaten gestoppt und getötet wurde, zu zerstören. Die Kontroverse wurde dadurch angefacht, dass die Familie ein Trauerzelt aufgestellt und mit Hamas-Flaggen geschmückt hatte. Zehn Tage später randalierten jüdische Radikale in Jabal Mukkaber – ihnen wurde erst spät von der Polizei Einhalt geboten. Der Unmut der national-religiösen Rechten mit der israelischen Regierung, war schon zuvor deutlich geworden, als Bildungsministerin Juli Tamir bei einem Kondolenzbesuch in der Yeshiva heftig beschimpft und tätlich angegriffen worden war. Murdered in a house of God “That the vicious assault has been widely reported and understood this weekend as the purported latest round in a‘cycle of violence’ is evidence of a failure to recognize what is truly at stake here.[…] In truth there is no cycle of violence. There is no spiral of 2

attack and counter-attack relentlessly unfolding here. What we have, rather, on the one hand, is a sovereign nation's desperate effort to live in its homeland, seek peace with those of its neighbors who will partner it, and defend itself against those who seek its destruction. And, on the other, we have the forces of militant Islam, firing rockets across Israel's sovereign borders, murdering Israelis wherever they can be found vulnerable, indoctrinating their people with a vicious intolerance of Jewish historical rights in this region[…]. Those who share the goal of a tranquil region, a safer world and the defeat of Islamic extremism must see Thursday night's yeshiva assault for what it is: the deliberate, inevitable consequence of an Islamist machine producing murderers whose instinctive humanity has been so overwhelmed by the indoctrination of hatred as to enable them to gun down blameless youngsters in a house of God.“ JPO 09.03.08 Heads to the right “It is still unclear whether the terrorist who entered the Mercaz Harav yeshiva on Thursday night and killed eight of its students knew exactly what place he was entering.[…] This institution, then, was the cradle of the settlement enterprise and its driving force. Most of the students killed in the terrorist attack were second-generation settlers. It should be said again, clearly and unequivocally: Their killing was a criminal act.[…] [But] from Mercaz Harav emerged the rabbis that led the vilest move in Zionist history. Most of the delusional right-wing perpetrators and the mongers of hate for Arabs came from this flagship.[…] The killing at the yeshiva is heartrending. No one deserved it. The innocents in Gaza and the victims at Mercaz Harav in Jerusalem were all an unnecessary sacrifice. They have already paid the highest possible price. Their families and those around them will probably adopt even more radical positions now, and so we will be led into another round of endless bloodshed. Gideon Levy, HAA 09.03.08” The power of land “Eight princes fell, in the name of God, in the war on our existence as a sovereign people in the Land of Israel.[…] The proper revenge for the murder at the yeshiva is under no circumstances more bloodshed. This would only serve the evil members of Hamas, who are drenched in blood. The proper revenge is through land, the land of Israel. This is the only thing they understand. We should take over the open areas in the Gaza Strip and stay there at least until Hamas and Islamic Jihad recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish State and lay down their weapons.“ Yoel Ben-Nun, JED 09.03.08 Power of revenge A sense of revenge is one of the most basic human instincts, just like any other survival instinct.[…] The State replaces the tribe, and its first order of business, before anything else, is to create a situation whereby law, order, and basic justice prevail and a person feels secure that someone protects him and punishes the bad guys.[…] In recent years, the basic sense of security and the feeling that we have a State that safeguards us has been eroded around here. This sense of security completely crumbles when we see a mourning tent for a murdering terrorist being erected within sovereign Israeli territory along with Hamas flags, and people come to offer their congratulations and sympathy, as if there is no police and no government.[...] If, God forbid, we see a Jewish vendetta for the massacre at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, do not look for the inciters or the rabbi who said something that can be interpreted in one way or another.[…] The guilty parties include the police chief or military major general, or whoever it may be that should have removed this mourning tent without thinking twice while confiscating and burning all the posters, thus behaving like a State and a kingdom, rather than a spineless entity.” Uri Elitzur, JED 18.03.08 Limp police in the face of a pogrom “Radical right-wing groups announced that they planned to gather[…] and march to the Jabal Mukkaber neighborhood. They were bent on destroying the home of the man responsible for the terrorist attack at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, and the place and time were printed on announcements pasted up all over the city. In view of this, the unbearable ease with which the rioters outwitted the police and carried out a pogrom at the site cannot be allowed to pass without the district police chiefs being called to account.[…] While Israel and the Jewish world raise a huge cry over every suspicion of an attack on Jews because of their ethnicity, it is intolerable that residents of the 3

capital are attacked solely because of their nationality. The ease with which the police allowed the pogrom also refutes any claim about the equal rights that East Jerusalem residents enjoy.” HAA 18.03.08 3. Die arabische Minderheit in Israel In den vergangen Wochen ist das Verhältnis zwischen den arabischen Bürger Israes und der jüdischen Mehrheit wiederholt diskutiert worden. Arabische und jüdische Knessetmitglieder lieferten sich einen heftigen Schlagabtausch, und die Rolle der in den von Israel annektierten Gebieten in und um Jerusalem lebenden Bürger wurde durch den Anschlag durch einen Palästinenser aus OstJerusalem in den Fokus gerückt. Gleichzeitig veröffentlichte das Mossawa Center, das sich für die Gleichstellung arabischer Israelis einsetzt, einen Bericht, der aufzeigt, dass rassistische Ansichten über die arabische Minderheit unter jüdischen IsraeIis zugenommen haben. Whither Israeli-Arabs? “What is going on in Israeli Arab society? What are the implications of the tangible fear among those Arabs who support Israel and the unabashed willingness of the Israeli Arab leadership to defend the likes of Hamas, Fatah and D'heim in their terror war against Israel? Is Israel's Arab minority- which comprises 20 percent of the population- lost?[…] Since the 1994 establishment of the PA, the Israeli Muslim leadership has been radicalized. That leadership currently consists of Arab members of Knesset, the Israeli Arab Higher Follow-up Committee, the Islamic Movement and so-called Arab human rights organizations. All of these leaders and organizations have worked steadily to undermine the Israeli Arab Muslims' sense of attachment to the State of Israel and to intimidate dissenting voices into silence.” Caroline Glick, JPO 10.03.08 Jewish tolerance limited “[Knesset member] Effie Eitam was not being nice when he threatened that we will expel Arab citizens of Israel who have been out of control at protest rallies and in the Knesset. The citizenship rights of Israeli Arabs are not conditioned on anything. However, it should be noted that these words did not cause great shock around here. This is not because most of the Jewish public thinks we should expel the Arabs, bur rather, because most Jews are simply fed up with the conduct of the Palestinians in Gaza, and most Jews are unwilling to tolerate Arab Israelis joining the waves of hate on occasion.[…] Our tolerance certainly has a limit, and if Knesset Member Zahalka thinks that one can be both a citizen with equal rights and an Israel hater he is making a grave mistake.[…] Those who think that the Jews don’t care about their honor, and flag, and sovereignty, will not bring a holocaust or expulsion upon themselves, but they will discover that Israel’s Jewish citizens are not suckers, and that we know how to enlist for a cause.“ Uri Orbach, JED 11.03.08 Racists? Us? “As long as Israeli citizens acquiesce in the existence of the outrageous‘nationality’ clause in their identity cards, or to legislation that discriminates against Arabs, or to the humiliating inspections that began at the airports and have since spread to every public institution; as long as no one demonstrates whenever a Knesset member curses Arabs; and as long as the number of people who rent apartments to or hire Arabs can be counted on one hand, Israel society cannot be absolved of the sin of racism.” Avirama Golan, HAA 19.03.08 HAA= Haaretz HZO= Ha Tzofe JED= Jedioth Ahronoth JPO= Jerusalem Post MAA= Maariv IHY= Israeli HaYom Die Artikel aus HZO und MAA wurden Medienspiegel der Deutschen Botschaft entnommen. dem Israel Veröffentlicht am: 6. April 2008 Verantwortlich: Hermann Bünz, Leiter der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Israel Redaktion: 4

Maike Ziesemer Anita Haviv Homepage: www.fes.org.il Email: fes@fes.org.il 5