Merkel gov’t continues UN assault against Israel, snubbing German Jews

Germany’s UN ambassador has voted again for an anti-Israel resolution, ignoring pleas from the nearly 100,000-member Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Jewish state to change its voting pattern.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post: “Having Germany again vote for a UN Resolution labeling the Jewish people’s holiest site – the Western Wall in Jerusalem along with Solomon’s Temple Mount and the historic Jewish Quarter of the Old City as ‘occupied Palestinian territory’ – is an outrage and intolerable.”

He continued, “It begs the question: Are these anti-Israel UN votes at the behest of the German Foreign Ministry? Does this vote reflect the views of Chancellor Merkel? If the answer is no, the German ambassador should be removed. If the answer is yes, we urge the chancellor to immediately order a review of its Middle East policy. No German government should ever be involved in delegitimizing Jewish history and presence in Jerusalem.”

Germany’s government has engaged in an orgy of diplomatic attacks on the Jewish state over the last two years, including voting against Israel a total of eight times in November. Germany voted 16 times at the UN in 2018 to condemn Israel.

The November 19 resolution that Germany voted for, titled “The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” was sponsored by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and State of Palestine. Egypt helped draft the resolution on “behalf of the State Members of the United Nations that are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation,” according to the resolution.

UN expert Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, wrote on Twitter in October that “Germany introduced 0 condemnations of China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, etc.” He asked German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas why he is singling out Israel and ignoring repressive, closed nations for diplomatic rebukes.

After over 130 Hamas rockets were fired on Israel in March, Germany’s UN ambassador Christoph Heusgen equated Israel’s counter-terrorism strategy with the US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Hamas: “Civilians must live without fear of Palestinian rockets or Israeli bulldozers,” said Heusgen.

Israel’s government says it only bulldozes the homes of Palestinian terrorists.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced last month that it is considering including the anti-Israel comments made by Heusgen in its top 10 list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitic and anti-Israel activities in 2019. Heusgen has frequently used his bully pulpit at the UN to join the ongoing orgy of diplomatic targeting of the Jewish state for opprobrium.

The German Foreign Ministry told the Post that Heusgen is not antisemitic.