Two renowned scholars, Ilan Pappé and Norm Finkelstein, have recently been prevented from speaking in Germany about Israel and Palestine. Both men are descendants of German Jewish Holocaust survivors. Their speeches were blocked by Germany’s powerful pro-Israel lobby.
Over the years this lobby has built a network of politicians and institutions to silence critics of Israel and stop German citizens from taking action against Israeli crimes such as the illegal seizure of land, massacres, oppression and the denial of basic human rights to Palestinians.
In October 2009 exiled Israeli historian Ilan Pappé was scheduled to speak in Munich, but his speech was cancelled due to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby. Pappé responded by saying that his father "was silenced in a similar way as a German Jew in the early 1930s". Like himself, Pappé went on, his father and his father’s friends were regarded as "'humanists' and 'peacenik' Jews whose voices had to be quashed and stopped". Pappé said he was "worried, as any decent person should be, about the state of freedom of speech and democracy in present day Germany", as witnessed by the decision to censor his talk.
In February 2010 Prof. Norm Finkelstein was to speak at a number of prestigious institutions in Berlin and in Prague. When his speaking tour was cancelled due to Zionist pressure, Finkelstein said that "some Germans seem determined that their fellow German citizens only hear opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict that support the policies of the Israeli government. Such intolerance is not good for Palestinians who are living under a brutal military occupation. It is not good for Germans who want their country to support human rights and international law. It is not good for courageous dissenting Israelis who need support from the European Union."
Professor Rolf Verleger, spokesperson for the group European Jews for a Just Peace, immediately denounced the cancellation of Finkelstein’s tour. Finkelstein, Rolf declared, stood in the "humanistic tradition of German Judaism" that included Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt and Rabbi Leo Baek. Rolf added that his own father had died 45 years ago on the very day of the projected Finkelstein event in Berlin. Rolf’s father lost his entire family in the Auschwitz death camp.
Adapted from "Silencing Critics of Israel. Germany’s Fear of Finkelstein",
by Ali Fathollah-Nejad, published by the website Global Research on March 4, 2010. See:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FAT20100...