Kesher Talk

Will Germany support Israel?: Friedbert Pflueger, chairman of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union of the German Bundestag and a member of the national executive committee of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), pens a piece in today's Wall Street Journal Europe (subscription required). Whether or not he feels he represents actual German policy or if he is just trying to influence it, I am not certain:

What is needed is a balanced approach: We need to find a way to combine Israel's right to live within secure borders with the creation of a Palestinian state that is accorded the dignity that comes from sovereignty. This is a worthy goal. But our leaders need to understand that at this moment young Palestinians are being educated to hate Israel, fanaticized to the point that they line up to become suicide-bombers. At this point there cannot be any neutrality.

Israel's right to exist is absolute -- but it is more than that for Germans. Both Israel and Federal Republic of Germany are birds that rose from the ashes of World War II. Our raisons d'etres are intimately linked. Israel will never be just another state for Germans, no matter what spats take place. One of the reasons of state of post-war Germany has been for Hitler's vision of the extermination of the Jews never to be realized. This is why Germany will always support Israel.

posted by Howard @ 6/11/2002 02:24:12 PM