Chancellor Angela Merkel, Champion of Zionism

"A few days ago, I found in my mailbox an invitation that was probably sent to me by mistake. The President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder, and the President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch, are ‘honored’ to invite me to a festive dinner on the occasion of Her Excellency the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel receiving the Theodor Herzl Award."
"Why is Merkel being given the Theodor Herzl Award? Because her representative at the United Nations abstains in anti-Israel resolutions — and thereby de facto supports them? The same official who equates Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with Israel’s demolition of the homes of Palestinian terrorists? For not relocating the German embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the United States did, and also warning other countries against taking such a step? For all this, she gets the Theodor Herzl Award?"                                   German political commentator Henryk Broder

"The Zionist Organization of America opposes the World Jewish Congress’s decision to honor German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the Herzl Award. The ZOA firmly believes that a foreign leader who continues to support the disastrously flawed 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which will enable the Iranian regime in time to become a nuclear weapons state, is a singularly inappropriate recipient of the WJC’s most prestigious award."                                                               “By any reasonable yardstick, Chancellor Merkel has done little if anything to justify the bestowal of this award and a great deal that should disqualify her as a candidate for this award."                                                                                                            "Which policy she has pursued does the WJC believe distinguishes Chancellor Merkel as a worthy recipient of this award? Her refusal to close down the operations in Germany of the vicious blood-soaked terrorist group Hezbollah? Her opposition to recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? Her stubborn support for the Iran nuclear deal that is opposed on bipartisan basis in Israel? Her unabashed claim that Iran is not anti-Semitic, despite its repeated calls for the Jewish State’s destruction."                                                                    "Whatever else may be said of Chancellor Merkel, she is an entirely inappropriate recipient of an award adorned with the name of the founding father of Political Zionism."                                                                                                 Morton Klein, President, Zionist Organization of America

(Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

"It seems paradoxical that Germany — as a country that is said to have learned from its horrendous past and which has a strong commitment to fighting antisemitism — is one of the strongest economic partners of a regime [The Islamic Republic of Iran] that blatantly denies the Holocaust and commits human rights abuses on a daily basis. Germany has included Israel’s security as a part of its raison d’être. As a matter of course this should exclude doing business with a fanatic dictatorship that is calling for Israel’s destruction, pursuing nuclear weapons and financing terror organizations around the world."
Dr. Josef Schuster, President, Central Council of Jews, Germany

Just about unanimous, the response of major Jewish organizations to the decision of the World Jewish Congress to honour German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the presentation of its prestigious Theodor Herzl Award for Zionism. Frau Merkel is beloved by her German subjects, and perhaps many Jews are among them, but it is her policies and that of her political ruling party that has made life for German Jews untenable in Germany. She and her party have expressed their deep shame and regret at Germany's Nazi past and its hugely successful efforts to annihilate European Jewry.

While expressing themselves as champions of Israel and good friends of the Jewish State, Germany also appears to subscribe to the much-mooted theory that good friends are permitted to be critical of the values and/or policies of their closest friends because they feel it is in the very best interests of friends to genuinely express opinions reflecting their perspectives for the greater goal of guiding them toward preferred options. Germany prefers two states side by side, an Israeli next to a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority, on the merits of its decision making in the past, turning down one goodwill offer after another to negotiate with Israel, and appears to favour a one-state policy; the obliteration of Israel, with the Jews being absorbed into a Palestinian state. This, from the PA which has already repeatedly stated unequivocally that no Jews would be permitted to live within a Palestinian State; so the take-home solution is a Juden-rein, one-state dedicated to the Palestinians alone, thank you very much.

Somewhat reminiscent of Nazi Germany which had resolved to initiate and carry through to fruition a Juden-rein Germany, to be followed by a Juden-rein Europe, and once the Thousand-year Reich was achieved, presumably, a Juden-rein world community. What Nazi Germany failed to fully accomplish, it seems that the German Democratic Republic has put into motion in Germany once again. The six million European-Jewish lives that were lost in the Holocaust have now been replaced by the presence in Germany of six million Muslims who have brought with them their own brand of viral anti-Semitism.

Germany had, over the past post-war years, absorbed a Turkish expatriate population that had come to the country as temporary foreign workers and eventually achieved citizenship, to be joined eventually by others from the Middle East. When Chancellor Merkel decided Germany would generously open its borders to a million irregular arrivals, migrants and refugees, they  joined the already-present five million Muslim German citizens. Jews who had lived in Germany for hundreds of years began to once again suffer a rising tide of anti-Semitism and violence.

Germany financially and philosophically supports various groups that promote Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment programs. Germany approved a UN resolution in May of 2016 -- at the annual assembly of the World Health Organization -- co-sponsored by the Arab League and the Palestinian delegation, singling Israel out as the world’s nonsensical sole violator of "mental, physical and environmental health". Unsurprisingly, and ironically, the German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), labelled a "far-right" group that wants to halt Muslim immigration to Germany, has attracted the attention of German Jews

A 69-year-old German Jew, Emanuel Bernhard Krauskopf, joined the AfD in 2013, founding an offshoot, Juden in der AfD (Jews in the AfD, or JAfD). This was in reaction to Germany’s mainstream parties' inattention to anti-Semitism. "Every Jew who has been murdered in Europe since 2000 has been killed by Islamofascists", stated Mr. Krauskopf, who lost 50 family members in Nazi concentration camps. Many Jews in both eastern and western Germany were embracing the AfD , believing that continued mass migration poses a threat to the future of Jews in Germany. His detractors accuse him of being a "Jewish Nazi".

Demonstrators carry a banner that reads “Against any kind of anti-Semitism” during a rally against the annual al-Quds Day march in Berlin, July 11, 2015. Anti-Israel rallies are held annually on the day. (Gregor Fischer/picture alliance via Getty Images)

"Look, when the media tells you that the AfD is a Nazi party, and when the media looks for some Nazis [in AfD], which we have – like ALL the parties in Germany – this is nothing special about the AfD. The Left consists of Jew-haters, not all of them. Yes, we have some [‘Jew-haters’]. We try to get rid of them. It's not so easy because we have free speech."
"To import Jew haters into Germany while knowing it is an anti-Jewish act that's not just you know, some memorial. This is reducing our security in Germany by the chancellor of Germany herself."
"They [Berlin] are playing it down [the threat from Muslim immigration]. They're lying. No other word. They are lying about it. So, there are lots of excuses and the situation gets worse every day. Because the government has lost control. Jew-haters have been imported."
"[The German government knows] these are Jew-haters, so now you have no excuse like the normal excuse was after World War Two: ‘Yeah, but we didn’t know that this would happen, we didn‘t know...’ You know it now."
Bernhard Kraukopf