Friday, July 26, 2013

EUROPE CANNOT BE TRUSTED, AN INTERVIEW OF MANFRED GERSTENFELD BY GERMAN JEWISH PUBLICATION JUDISCHE ALLGEMEINE……..

KGS

I received permission to republish, as well as the translation, of this highly interesting and timely interview of Dr.Gerstenfeld, first published in German by the Judische Allgemeine.
Judische Allgemeine 25 July 2013
Translation from German
europe can't be trusted 25.7.2013
It is a pity that there are no psychiatrists who analyze countries and supra-national entities. The E.U. would be a suitable client for treatment. In one of my books I call one major element of the European Union’s attitude toward Israel, “Humanitarian racism.” This is one of the least recognized forms of racism. It can be defined as attributing reduced responsibility to people of some ethnic or national groups regarding their criminal acts and intentions, even if these are major.

Europe Cannot be Trusted

Dr.Manfred GerstenfeldIsraeli expert, Manfred Gerstenfeld comments about the new E.U. directive and the demonization of Israel.
Mr. Gerstenfeld, Israel feels itself discriminated by the new E.U. directive concerning the territories? Why is that?
This directive is another step in a lengthy anti-Israel discriminatory process by the European Union. It has many aspects to it. One is that it signals to Israelis that the Europeans only have demands from them. At the same time Europeans turn away from the huge incitement and demonization of Israel by the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, the European Union is giving financial support to the Palestinian Authority. This Palestinian body continuously glorifies murderers of Israeli civilians, and also calls for the murder of Israelis.
What do these calls for hatred represent concretely?
One can find a summary of this huge hate-mongering on the Palestinian Media Watch website. There are so many Palestinian hate messages that this website divides them into categories such as ‘animalization,’ ‘Jews and Israelis are evil,’ ‘Jews and Israelis are ‘cancer and other diseases,’ ‘Jews/Israelis endanger all humanity,’ and so on. All this is partly financed with E.U. funds.

There have recently been inconclusive debates in various European parliaments about whether their countries’ funding to the P.A. also serves to pay generous salaries to Palestinian mass murderers sitting in Israeli jails. While devising ways to cause Israel problems, the E.U. remains largely inactive about Syria, where, according to the UN, every month approximately 5000 people are killed and many more are wounded.
How do you explain all of this in view of the European official post-war credo, “Never again to allow anti-Semitism.”
It is a pity that there are no psychiatrists who analyze countries and supra-national entities. The E.U. would be a suitable client for treatment. In one of my books I call one major element of the European Union’s attitude toward Israel, “Humanitarian racism.” This is one of the least recognized forms of racism. It can be defined as attributing reduced responsibility to people of some ethnic or national groups regarding their criminal acts and intentions, even if these are major.
Humanitarian racists judge misbehavior and crime differently according to the color and power of those who commit them. White people are held to different standards of responsibility than people of color are, for example. Israelis are often condemned for whatever measures they take to defend themselves. Palestinian responsibility for suicide bombings, murderous missile attacks, glorification of murderers of civilians and promoting genocide is frequently reduced. The latter appears in the platform of Hamas.
A short time ago you published a book Demonizing Israel and the Jews. You write there that at least 150 million out of the 400 million adult citizens of the E.U. hold a demonic view of Israel. How did you arrive at these figures?
A study in seven countries conducted by the University of Bielefeld, carried out on behalf of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, found that well over 40% of people sixteen years and older agreed with the statement that Israel conducts a war of extermination against the Palestinians, in other words a genocidal war. The figure for Germany was 47%. An earlier study by the same university at the beginning of this century was limited to Germany. It asked those polled whether they agreed with the statement that Israel behaves toward the Palestinians like the Nazis behaved toward the Jews. Fifty-one percent answered in the affirmative.
The results of similar studies done by others institutions in Norway and Switzerland are in line with these data. These findings illustrate the analogies between the mindset of many contemporary Europeans and large parts of the continent’s population in the Middle Ages, who had similar irrational and hateful views of the Jewish people.
How was this picture created?
If one frequently condemns and attacks Israel and largely looks away from the enormous criminality in many parts of the Arab and Muslim world, an atmosphere is created in which these absurd ideas emerge and gain great popularity, as statistics show. People don’t ask the most minimal of rational questions: How has the Palestinian population grown so much over the past decades? And how does this growth fit the demonic views of Israel that it commits genocide? I am not even speaking about the fact that Palestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals and Israeli doctors try their best to save sick Palestinian children.
Is the E.U. guilty of this?
Many in E.U. politics and civil society have helped to create and maintain these demonic views of Israel. This brings us back to the recent E.U. directive. This anti-Israel measure hardly received reactions in Europe. This shows that a circular process is going on. The E.U. helps to create a widespread, very negative atmosphere about Israel and in such an environment it can take further discriminatory measures against it, which stimulate these negative views.
The E.U decision is also legally doubtful.  My colleague at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Ambassador Alan Baker has summed this up in a paper. There are flawed legal and political European assumptions concerning the status of the pre-1967 armistice lines as Israel’s border and the illegality of Israel’s settlements. He also points out that the current European position negates the E.U. commitments as a signatory and witness to the Oslo Accords. It has undertaken not to undermine negotiation issues concerning final status of the territories, borders, settlements, Jerusalem and so on.
This directive is published at a time when the U.S.A. tries to restart the peace process. How does the European position affect this?
It gives great support to the many Israelis who are convinced by now that further concessions will not lead to peace and that whatever agreement presented as final will only encourage the Palestinians to continue the — from their viewpoint — rather successful incitement. Thereafter, they will make further demands, with the help of Europeans and other allies, until Israel is annihilated. There is much evidence to support that opinion. Another colleague of mine, Ambassador Dore Gold found after the Oslo Agreements in 1993 when he was Israel’s ambassador at the U.N. that the Europeans continued to vote for the same anti-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly of the United Nations as they did before.
In other words, you say that Israel cannot trust the European Union?
I think that is a fair summary. Accepting some of the European positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict may ultimately become suicidal for the State of Israel.
Questions by Michael Wuliger

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