To borrow from Lewis Carroll, we in the year 2019 truly appear to be “through the looking-glass.”
Today, the German parliament took the great step of approving a resolution that condemns the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement against Israel as anti-Semitic and reminiscent of Nazi-era boycotts that harrowingly targeted German Jews during the rise of the Third Reich.
Unbelievably, this makes the parliament of Germany — the erstwhile highly sophisticated and industrialized nation that nonetheless oversaw the most lethal and systemically executed genocide against the Jews in the history of the Jewish people (or any people, for that matter) — less anti-Semitic than the Democratic Party in the United States. The Democratic Party in the year 2019, after all, votes against anti-BDS legislation, harbors presidential candidates who categorically boycott the annual confab for the milquetoast pro-Israel group AIPAC, diligently waters down resolutions that merely condemn Jew-hatred, and utterly refuses to condemn virulent anti-Semites in its ranks.
The Times of Israel reports on the remarkable German resolution:
German lawmakers on Friday approved a resolution denouncing the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement against Israel, describing its methods as anti-Semitic and reminiscent of Nazi-era calls to boycott Jews.
The motion called on the German government not to support events organized by BDS or other groups that actively pursue its aims, and vowed that parliament wouldn’t finance any projects that call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the movement. It was filed by the country’s three governing parties, along with two mainstream opposition parties, and passed by a large majority.
The German motion stated that “the pattern of argument and methods of the BDS movement are anti-Semitic.”
“The campaign’s calls to boycott Israeli artists, along with stickers on Israeli goods that are meant to dissuade people from buying them, are also reminiscent of the most terrible phase of German history,” it added. “The BDS movement’s ‘Don’t Buy’ stickers on Israeli products inevitably awake associations with the Nazi slogan ‘Don’t Buy from Jews!’ and similar scrawls on facades and shop windows.”
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, was highly praising of Germany’s resolution: “This is an important decision in its own right and especially as it was adopted in a leading parliament in Europe. The decision reflects the understanding that BDS makes no attempt to build bridges, to engage in dialogue and to encourage coexistence for stability and peace between Israel and all its neighbors.”
In a Hebrew language tweet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: “I hope that this decision will bring about concrete steps and I call upon other countries to adopt similar legislation.” Netanyahu further hailed the “important decision to recognize BDS as an anti-Semitic movement,” condemning BDS as “work[ing] against the existence of the State of Israel.”
Notably, Germany is the first European nation to officially equate BDS with anti-Semitism.
Nonetheless, Germany’s recent foreign policy ventures in the Middle East leave much to be desired, from a pro-Israel perspective. As Caroline Glick has detailed, Germany is far too cozy with the jihadist Iranian regime and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah:
As for the Iranians, German leaders insist that their continued allegiance to the nuclear deal stems from their conviction that the deal is a non-proliferation agreement and advances their security, and not from their support for Iran. But evidence grows by the day that the opposite is the case. Whereas in Iran, last month the regime had to hire people to fill the streets to “celebrate” the fortieth anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, senior German leaders were happy to gush in joy as they congratulated the murderous regime for its longevity.
The German Foreign Ministry sent State Minister Niels Annan and an Iran desk officer to celebrate the occasion at the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeyer sent a congratulatory telegram to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, praising the Islamic regime. In contrast, in November 2016, Steinmeyer refused to send a congratulatory telegram to President-elect Donald Trump and referred to him as a “hate preacher.”
Much still to be desired, indeed.