- BERLIN -- One of Germany's
largest pro-Israel demonstrations in recent memory took place in Berlin
last Saturday--but with no support from German Jewish groups, and severe
criticism from some.
-
- The some 3,000 demonstrators--waving Israeli flags, blowing
shofars and marching under the slogan "Germany on Israel's Side"--were
nearly all fundamentalist Christians who oppose a Palestinian state and
view Jews as unfulfilled until they accept Jesus as their saviour.
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- In leaflets distributed at the march, the Union of Jewish
Students in Germany decried the missionary goals and the anti-Muslim preachings
of some of the organisers.
-
- But Mordechai Lewy, deputy chief of mission at the Israeli
Embassy, told the JC: "If someone is demonstrating for Israel, for
a just cause, shall I tell him, please don't demonstrate?"
-
- The Jewish student group said that, while it stood firmly
with Israel, it would not join hands with the marchers. "Many fundamentalist
groups do not recognise the right of Jews to exist if they do not believe
in Jesus," said the UJSG's leaflet. "We sharply condemn this
goal."
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- The students also distanced themseves from the right-wing
political agenda promoted by some of the demonstration's organisers, one
of whom had been quoted as saying that Israel should wage "a holy
war against those who hate you, oh God."
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- "We completely reject this incitement against Muslims,"
the students said. Gunter Keil--head of The Bridge Berlin- Jerusalem,
the fundamentalist Christian organisation behind the demonstration--rejected
the criticism.
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- Although he maintained that Judaism was "completed"
through Jews' acceptance of Jesus, he said his group did " not have
a division devoted to a mission to the Jews."
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- He added: "We have nothing against the Palestinian
people. But for us, the Palestinians are Arabs. The word 'Palestinian'
is made up . . . so there can't be a Palestinian state in Israel."
He said the demonstrators had chosen to march on a Saturday to make it
clear that the Israeli Embassy and Jewish groups were not involved in the
planning.
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- But the embassy did publicise the event in its electronic
newsletter, and Ambassador Shimon Stein accepted a statement of support
from the group, with more than 6,000 signatures gathered through its Jerusalem-Shalom
website, at the embassy the day before the march.
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- Some communally involved political analysts said that
they found the tacit partnership with Christian fundamentalist groups troubling.
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- "I share the goal to show solidarity with Israel,
but I see certain problems here," said Martin Kloke, an analyst of
Israeli-German relations. "Some of these groups only support Israel
because they think Israel and the Jews have a certain role in the apocalyptic
times in which they think we now live."
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- Mr Kloke added that some of the fundamentalists had made
statements implying that the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin had been a punishment from God, to prevent Israel from giving away
land.
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- Mr Lewy said that by implication to justify the Rabin
assassination was "lunacy," but added that more generally, given
international criticism of Jerusalem in recent months, there "should
not be a witchhunt against people who are ready to do something for Israel."
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- At the march, information from the Israeli Embassy and
the Jewish National Fund was handed out alongside fundamentalist Christian
literature.
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- "We have so few friends in Germany in this horrible
time in Israel," commented Sara Rozenbaum, who represents the JNF
in Germany.
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- "Our Christian friends are always with us on the
front line for Israel." Ms Rozenbaum, who is Jewish, said that she
"tried not to think about" the missionary issue and the march
organisers' strongly voiced opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian
state.
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