[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 64 (Friday, May 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E840-E841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER JOSCHKA FISCHER'S REMARKABLE DISCUSSION OF 
      ANTI-SEMITISM AND GERMANY'S UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 16, 2002

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with my colleagues a 
particularly insightful article by Joschka Fischer, Federal Foreign 
Minister of Germany. He discusses the unique relationship between the 
Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel. The article was 
published on May 13 of this week in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 
one of Germany's most distinguished newspapers.
  The Federal Republic of Germany is not the Nazi Germany that 
perpetrated the Holocaust, and the democratic and pluralistic 
government that has emerged in Germany since 1945 is rightfully one of 
our closest and most important allies and friends. Nevertheless, 
because of Germany's history, the German government has a special 
responsibility and a special relationship with the state of Israel. It 
also has a special responsibility to fight against intolerance and 
racism.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to read Foreign Minister 
Fischer's perceptive comments thoughtfully and carefully. His 
sensitivity to the relationship between Germany and Israel and his 
criticism of the atmosphere of anti-Semitism welling up in western 
Europe reflects the finest of German culture and tradition. I commend 
Foreign Minister Fischer for his courageous and outspoken article. I 
wish with all my heart that there were other such prominent individuals 
who would be as bold and outspoken and honest as Joschka Fischer. I 
wish there were others who would speak out with such clarity and force 
against the anti-Israel hysteria that is fast becoming anti-Semitic 
frenzy in France and elsewhere in western Europe.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that Foreign Minister Fischer's article be placed 
in the Record, and again I urge my colleagues to read it thoughtfully.

         The Question Facing Germany: Can We Criticize Israel?

              (By German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer)

       Berlin.--Germany remained silent, conspicuously silent 
     considering the unspeakable statements made recently by 
     Jurgen Mollemann, the chairman of Free Democrats in the state 
     of North Rhine-Westphalia and the head of the German-Arab 
     Society, and those of like mind.
       In his statements, Mr. Mollemann showed that he was a 
     verbal resistance fighter against corporation and bravely 
     announced that he, of course, would also attack the aggressor 
     in his own country. The heroic talk was directed at Israel, 
     and Mr. Mollemann was referring to the Palestinian struggle 
     against the occupation. We, therefore, can safely assume that 
     he was not calling on Hamas to distribute leaflets to Israel, 
     but justifying their terrorist bomb attacks. There was no 
     national outcry, no resignation, nothing of the kind. 
     Instead, Mr. Westerwelle said it should be possible to 
     criticize Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism.
       Something seems to have changed in Germany, and nobody 
     notices this with greater

[[Page E841]]

     authority and distress than German Jews. They feel alone, 
     again, and that ought not be so. Not in Germany.
       ``Given anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe that is 
     becoming more manifest in the context of the Middle East 
     conflict, the old Damocles sword question once again hangs 
     over the heads of Jews living in Germany: Was it right to 
     stay in Germany?'' When this kind of warning comes from the 
     pen of such an attentive and sensitive observer of German-
     Jewish relations as Solomon Korn (Frankfurter Allgemeine 
     Zeitung on May 6), it raises a question for each and every 
     one of us and, indeed, the question of whether German 
     democracy is credible.
       Mr. Korn, the leader of the Jewish community in Frankfurt, 
     notes that many German Jews have felt abandoned in recent 
     months. He describes how it feels to be viewed as 
     ``collectively liable'' for any action taken by Israel 
     against the Palestinians. And he also refers to the very 
     understandable ``old traumas'' and ``barely healed emotional 
     wounds'' that German criticism of Israel never ceases to 
     evoke there. ``Were the same criticisms of Israel expressed 
     by Americans, for instance, it would hurt far less than when 
     expressed by the Germans . . .'' Why do such obvious things 
     need to be explicitly stated again today?
       Strictly speaking, what is at issue is the conflict between 
     Israel and its Arab neighbors. But on a different level, 
     whenever Israel is discussed in Germany, the fundamental 
     debate about German identity is never far behind. ``Can we 
     criticize Israel?'' The mere question raises suspicion 
     because, of course, we can and indeed sometimes must 
     criticize the politics of the Israeli government. Nowhere is 
     this done more forcefully than in Israel itself. Every 
     democratically elected government makes mistakes and is, by 
     definition, subject to criticism.
       In the Middle East, a tragic conflict is escalating. Two 
     peoples are fighting for the same land, and only a historical 
     compromise based on the formula ``two states, one peace'', 
     will be able to solve this conflict. The current situation 
     inspires little hope. Israel feels threatened by continuing 
     Palestinian terror. At Camp David in the summer of 2000, so 
     the Israeli view, Israel offered the Palestinians a state of 
     their own and was given the second Intifada in return. Since 
     then, Israel has been fighting for its survival once again, 
     for a life in safety and in recognized borders. The 
     Palestinians finally want an end to the Israeli occupation, 
     to the continued building of Israeli settlements and to the 
     loss of territory. They are fighting for their own state, for 
     a life in dignity. However, after the Camp David talks broke 
     down, the agonizing question in Israel remains whether the 
     Palestinian leadership in the end does not want more and 
     indeed something entirely different.
       -The right of pre-1967 refugees to return to Israel, the 
     terror deployed to force Israel to accept false compromises, 
     the demographic factor that works against Israel, the fear 
     for the Jewish character of Israel and the fear of a bi-
     national Palestine and the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish 
     state as the long term goal of Yasser Arafat's Palestine 
     Liberation Organization--these are Israeli fears right across 
     the political spectrum.
       -The Palestinians fear that Israel wants to force them to 
     make further territorial concessions, though in their view, 
     by accepting the borders of June 4, 1967, they are contenting 
     themselves with 22 percent of the land. Land for peace is the 
     only possible compromise formula. Radical Israelis want peace 
     and land, while radical Palestinians want land without peace. 
     Neither will work.
       -This tragic and extremely dangerous situation is not 
     really appropriate for a German identity debate, but for 
     coordinated action by the international community, led by the 
     United States and supported by Europe, to break the spiral of 
     violence and lead the parties of the conflict back to the 
     negotiating table step by step.
       -So why is there such fierce criticism of Israel here in 
     Germany and in Europe? Why is there such widespread bias? 
     This is exactly what Mr. Korn's warning addresses, and quite 
     rightly. Given Germany's history, criticism of Israel always 
     also reflects the mental state of our country.
       -Fifty years ago, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer 
     and Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, laid the 
     foundations for relations between Israel and a democratic 
     Germany that still apply today. Since then, German democracy 
     has--occasionally in the face of some resistance--accepted 
     Germany's continuing historical responsibility for the 
     genocide of German and European Jewry, and this 
     responsibility is the firm and central founding stone of 
     German democracy after 1945.
       -This was the only way for trust to grow between the former 
     perpetrators and victims. Only on this basis could a chance 
     for new coexistence emerge from what historian Dan Diner 
     called the ``negative symbiosis.'' No line can be drawn under 
     Germany's historical and moral responsibility for the 
     destruction of European Jewry. It forms the basis of 
     Germany's social obligation to uphold the right of existence 
     and security for Israel and its citizens. This responsibility 
     is not a matter of current political constellations, but a 
     permanent principle of German policy.
       -Israel can rely on democratic Germany as a partner and 
     friend, now and in the future. Our obligations, our ties and 
     the fact the ice remains thin even after 50 years must be 
     respected by all criticism in Germany that does not aim to 
     destroy what has been built since Konrad Adenauer and David 
     Ben Gurion began.
       -Otherwise, criticism not only would cause harm, but also 
     increasingly compromise Germany's capacity to help the search 
     for a just peace in the Middle East. Or, to put it 
     differently: Criticism is possibly only on the firm 
     foundation of indelible solidarity--and there have been 
     things in recent months that do compel Israel's friends to 
     express criticism in the interest of Israel itself.
       -But there is a second issue that weighs just as heavily as 
     Germany's special relationship with Israel. It concerns 
     ourselves, Germany and us Germans. Do we actually comprehend 
     what Nazi barbarism and its genocidal anti-Semitism did to 
     us, to Germany, its people and its culture? What Hitler and 
     the Nazis did to Germany's Jews they did first and foremost 
     to Germans, to Germans of the Jewish faith! Albert Einstein 
     was as much a German as was Max Planck. The Nazis excluded an 
     entire group of our own people, deprived them of their 
     rights, dispossessed them, humiliated and then finally 
     expelled or murdered them.
       -This is why the question whether German Jews feel secure 
     in our democracy and, though even today this can only be a 
     hope, might one day be able to feel ``at home'' in it again, 
     is not a minor one, but a question par excellence about the 
     credibility of German democracy.
       -When Germany sent its Jewish citizens to Auschwitz and 
     other extermination camps from platform 17 of the Berlin-
     Grunewald station and countless other ramps and enriched 
     itself with their worldly good, it robbed itself, its culture 
     and society. Germany has been unable to close this wound 
     inflicted by the Nazis to the present day. The Holocaust 
     monument will be a symbol of this loss that Germany inflicted 
     on itself through its barbarity to its own citizens, the 
     effects of which are still being felt today.
       -Jewish communities in Germany have grown perceptibly since 
     German unification in 1990, largely as a result of 
     immigration from the former Soviet Union. New Jewish schools 
     are being built, German-speaking rabbis are once more being 
     trained at the Jewish University in Heidelberg and the 
     Abraham-Geiger College in Potsdam. And still Mr. Korn calls 
     the Jews in Germany a ``source of continuing unease that is 
     hard to define.'' An unease, that some possibly try to 
     overcome by unconsciously--on the issue of the Middle East 
     crisis--turning the descendents of the victims into 
     perpetrators, believing this could salve one's conscience. 
     But this is a dangerous misconception, that, under the slogan 
     of presumed ``normalization,'' can end only in the abyss of 
     anti-Semitism.
       -The unconscious mechanism of transferring guilt to 
     Israel's policy in the Middle East will not release Germany 
     from responsibility for its history. One should not even 
     attempt that, for it will end in disaster. The only response 
     to our history must be a positive one: a growing Jewish 
     community in Germany with Jewish people who can live here in 
     freedom and safety as citizens--and not as ``fellow 
     citizens!''--of our republic. The extent to which we succeed 
     in supporting and promoting the life and well-being of Jewish 
     communities in Germany is also a yardstick of our ability to 
     create an open and tolerant society. For that reason, each 
     and every instance of anti-Semitism is not only a threat to 
     Jews in Germany, but also to our society and our democracy as 
     a whole. ``Is it right to stay in Germany?'' The ease or 
     difficulty with which our Jewish compatriots are able to 
     answer yes to this question depends crucially on whether they 
     can live perfectly ``normally'' as Jews in Germany and as 
     Germans.
       -Nevertheless, the German-Jewish relationship will always 
     remain a very special thing. This is why there is a need for 
     sensitivity and unrelenting self-scrutiny. Only once there is 
     natural togetherness can there be criticism that does not 
     attack the precarious German-Jewish relationship at its 
     roots. And hence, silence about current events in the Middle 
     East, Germany and Europe, which rightly distresses many Jews 
     in Germany, is impossible.
       -Are the Jews in our own country strangers to us? Even 
     today? What can we do against this mixture of unsparing 
     frankness and speechlessness that Mr. Korn complains of 
     between Jews and non-Jews in Germany? This challenge cannot 
     be turned into a historical issue; it will not fade with 
     time. On the contrary, criticism of Israel that is founded on 
     the obligation imposed on us by our history, on trust and 
     friendship is not anti-Semitism--and it does not force German 
     Jews to unconditionally support everything that is 
     democratically decided in Israel.
       -Under no circumstances can we permit the tragic conflict 
     in the Middle East that pits the legitimate aspirations and 
     rights of two peoples apparently irreconcilably against each 
     other to be used as an instrument for domestic political 
     ends. Those who practice such methods to capture a mood and 
     votes, those who wish to dispose of German history, as it 
     were, by a detour to the Middle East, and those who hit the 
     wrong note by misconceived reaction must be opposed by all 
     those who perceive German unity as freedom to accept 
     responsibility and not act as an escape into a supposedly 
     harmless ``normality.''





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