The ‘German-Israeli Society’ (DIG) is led by a woke leftist from the Green Party (Volker Beck). The DIG is almost 100% financed by the German Foreign Office (AA). The AA is no friend of Israel. The voting behavior in the UN, for example, speaks volumes. Germany is no friend of Israel. The DIG is also no friend of Israel.
Beck is not only President of the DIG, but also Managing Director of the ‘Tikvah Institute non-profit UG’ (Berlin) founded by Beck, which resides on ‘Kurfürstenstraße’ not far from the ‘Café Einstein Stammhaus’. He is also the managing director of N.N. UG, founded in 2017 with a share capital contribution of 2,000 euros and based at Almstadtstraße 7 in the no less sophisticated quarter ‘Scheunenviertel’ (Berlin) not far from the exclusive men’s outfitter ‘The Smart Dresser’.
On Twitter he is very much involved in questions of gender gaga and woken queerism. Israel plays a minor role on his tweet. The DIG is apparently a political platform for a different agenda: wokism and left-wing extremist restructuring of Germany.
Criticism of him can quickly be reinterpreted and framed as anti-Semitic and anti-gay. Apparently, Israel comes last for him and his work, as his profile on Twitter suggests.
The very young non-profit ‘Tikvah Institute non-profit UG’ (commercial register announcement of May 28th, 2020) can look forward to state funding of 300,000 euros almost right from the start. A continuation of the state grant seems only be a question of the near future. His party friends (‘Bündnis 90/Die Grünen’ aka ‘The Greens’) in the government will hardly refuse him this.
The DIG is very manageable with 6,000 members, probably primarily from the state-related area. Today, the DIG represents more of a training ground for politicians-to-be on the one hand, and a siding for veteran politicians on the other hand, for whom, Beck, the German-Israeli relationship is apparently the last priority.
Beyond a small cadre of political functionaries who like to go to Israel at state expense, the DIG has no relevance; neither in Israel nor in Germany. In Israel it is just as meaningless as the various state-financed business associations and delegations. They are ridiculous if you even see them in the big picture.
The DIG is one of the many German places where ‘Gratismut’ (to show courage at no costs&risks) is trained and cherished. Fighting anti-Semitism and fighting for Israel are stale lip service at best. Left and islamic anti-semitism are more or less ignored.
In Germany, the fight against hatred of Jews is an instrument used to defame political opponents. It’s never about Jews and Israel. They are projection screens that members of the political echelon are happy to pay for. However, that is another chapter.
Beck is said to have been controversially elected as President of the DIG, since he is said to have only approved his candidacy on the condition that there were no opposing candidates. Democracy works differently.
The German-Israeli relationship is suffering fundamentally and can hardly be described as good. The Greens and the left in general hardly miss an opportunity to agitate against Israel and downplay anti-Semitism – see documenta, Holocaust denial in the presence of a silent Chancellor, which can only be understood as affirmative, etc. pp.
In this context one thinks of the ‘working definition of the denial and falsification/belittling of the Holocaust’, which states, among other things: “Holocaust denial is understood to mean such discourses and forms of propaganda that deny the historical reality and the extent of the extermination of the Jews by the National Socialists and their accomplices during World War II – known as the Holocaust or Shoah.“
How else, for as propaganda, was that intolerable sentence by the guest of the Federal Government to be understood? Who cried out there, who jumped to the side of a profoundly incompetent Chancellor to teach him a lesson in history and statesmanship?
No, this is obviously only possible in cheaply prepared speeches; in real life the “Never again” and “Resist the beginnings!” on the way from the head to the vocal cords on the way (if ever thought of), because not internalized and above all not coming from the heart. Words are cheap.
The empathy ends immediately after the memorial service or is just lip service anyway. As long as no civil courage, which is otherwise so popular, is really and above all at the decisive moment and not (even if only) seconds later ready for action and boldly LIVED, calls and statements – even from institutions defined as friends – remain hollow and irrelevant. Like the DIG.
At least one anti-Semitic scandal and at least one anti-Zionist act against the State of Israel follows every wordy “Never Again” statement: from the UN, where Germany is always a reliable partner against Israel, to trade relations with Iran, whose state goal is the annihilation of Israel. Here, too, Germany is reliable on the side of Iran, since Germany is Iran’s largest European trading partner.
Germany is not a friend of Israel, and neither is the DIG. Apparently it is an association of functionaries at state expense that simulates to be an independent NGOs.
‘The Greens’ and ‘Die Linke’ are the dominant anti-Zionist force in Germany with a great love for the various terror organizations of the invented people of the “Palestinians”.
Demonization, Delegitimization, Double Standards
Beck has now recently joined this anti-Zionist camp by disinviting Israel’s largest Zionist grassroots movement, ‘Im Tirtzu’. He would rather fight Israel’s largest grassroots Zionist movement than confront the anti-Zionism of the Foreign Office and its party (‘Bündnis 90/Die Grünen’).
In connection with the anti-Semitic scandal at this year’s ‘documenta’, Beck successfully avoided calling on the Minister of State responsible for culture and the media, Claudia Roth (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), to step down directly and with a bang.
In a ZDF interview, Beck said he prefers to rant about the LIKUD, describing it as an anti-democratic party that wants to deliberately and systematically destroy democracy in Israel. This is delegitimization.
How does the German-Israeli Society want to talk to Israel in the future if the DIG considers the governing and prime minister party to be anti-democratic and Im Tirtzu to be right-wing extremists who are wrongly accused of price tag attacks?
Apparently for Beck it is a crime for a Jew and a Jewish organization to display the flag of Israel in Jerusalem, the Eternal Indivisible Capital of Israel?! This is delegitimization: not recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In this way, Beck is not only damaging the fragile, complex and difficult relationship between Israel and Germany, he is also damaging the German economy. Germany: On the one hand wanting to do good business with Israel, on the other hand rushing against Israel in the UN and on every conceivable political stage. Now even on the stage of the German-Israeli Society. That doesn’t work at all! The DIG and the AA are by that damaging the German economy too.
Only non-Zionist Jews seem to be “good” Jews for the DIG. This is demonization, this is selection. The “cheeky Jew” must be taught. Let us take a look at the statement by the DIG against Im Tirtzu.
In the last paragraph of the mostly confused statement, the DIG writes: “Therefore, according to our record, the Governing Board UNANIMOUSLY denied the motion regarding specific events involving Mr. Shay. No one has the right to have trips financed by the funds of the German-Israeli Society.”
This sentence is not confused, but worse: It is very clearly directed against a person as a representative of the Im Tirtzu. It is falsely assumed that Shay (Im Tirtzu) has made a claim to the DIG for reimbursement of travel expenses and lecture work.
That’s wrong. Here the DIG not only creates a false impression, the DIG also serves the anti-Semitic trope of the “cheeky, demanding Jew”, which one must now “UNANIMOUSLY“, as one emphasizes, have to be rebuked.
What is confusing is that apparently not a single member of the board opposed this assertion in the statement. And the DIG believes, if you look at their current press release on the formation of Israel’s government, that they must continue to lecture Israel and the “cheeky Jews”. But more on that later.
According to the DIG, he, Shay, allegedly not only violated German law, as the DIG never tired of emphasizing in its statement; says: documenting a conversation is fundamentally illegal in Germany. However, if the recording is in the public interest – documentation of a possible anti-Semitic attitude – then it is perfectly permissible to record a conversation.
The DIG strategy is obvious: The “cheeky Jew” is not only criminalized, as the DIG currently tries to do so by criminalizing journalist Benjamin Weinthal for his criticism of the DIG and the anti-semitic-czar Mr. Blume in Germany, but the “cheeky Jew” must also be rebuked that he has no claim to make at all!
The arrogance by the DIG of even assuming that Mr. Shay set a claim, gives a very deep insight, deeper than the DIG would like it to be. A claim Shay never made and which is fictitious by DIG. The DIG plays on the keyboard of anti-Semitism. The DIG is only clear and not confused where it is against Jews and against Zionism. The further opinion of the DIG is confused and full of missing references.
In addition, the DIG applies different standards to Israel than, for example, to Germany, where the most recent election to the Berlin Senate in the capital was even declared invalid! The DIG recognizes the democratic election results of the most recent democratic elections in Israel – with the highest turnout since 1999 with a good 73% of the votes – only with reluctance and with the expression of threats, lectures and reprimands.
The elections in Germany, however, are regarded as legitimate without any ifs and buts, although these elections – also in the federal capital – had to be declared invalid. To say: Neither Germany nor the DIG are in a position to teach Israel about democracy. Rather the opposite. Double standards towards Israel are driving the German political, NGO and media echelon.
Anyone who does not recognize a democratic election result or, against their better judgment, condemns it as anti-democratic is certainly not a democrat, and anyone who only does this in the case of Israel is an anti-Semite who wants to delegitimize, demonize and apply double standards to the State of Israel.
A glance at the current DIG press release on the formation of a government is sufficient. One threat and reprimand after another. Unbearable mastery of morals by a German without a factual basis, without justification and with fictitious accusations:
One reads: “The composition of the current governing coalition and voices from the current governing coalition are a cause for concern in Israel as well as in the membership of the German-Israeli Society. In particular, the questioning of the status quo of the separation of powers and the role of the Supreme Court, Israel’s highest court, have been irritating. (…)
The DIG is betting that Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of the Likud will ensure that the heated rhetoric used by some members of the ruling coalition will not determine the new government’s domestic and foreign policy goals. (…)”
Eventually, Beck becomes openly threatening and, in an intolerable manner, lectures Israel about its declaration of independence. A German wants to teach Jews about their rights again. For 1,000 generations Germany has forfeited any right to judge and teach Jews.
The DIG abbreviates and roughly falsifies the content of this declaration of Israel’s independence: “We, the German-Israeli Society, defend Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and as a nation with equal rights in the family of nations, but also as a place where all its citizens and citizens without distinction of religion, race and sex, social and political equality is guaranteed. So it is laid down in the Hachrasat ha-ʿAzma’ūt, the Israeli Declaration of Independence (…).“
Finally, the German association DIG is denied any right or competence to authoritatively interpret the declaration of independence. It is simply irrelevant what the DIG means. It evidently documents their ignorance, incompetence and arrogance. Volker Beck strikes the words of a ‘Herrenmenschentum‘ (‘master race’) against Israel.
In total. Beck and the DIG board have to resign. His stance is anti-Israel, divides the diaspora with his hate speech against Israel’s democratically elected government and harms the now clammy German economy.
Resignation of Beck and DIG Board > Petition
Editor’s note of January 2nd:
At the urgent request of many, we have decided to release this commentary. The post has been updated slightly.
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2 – The author is real, she is Israeli and the biographical information is correct, but it is a pseudonym to protect her family in Germany. She fears anti-Semitic ‘lawfare’ attacks by so-called anti-Semitism commissioners and other para-governmental organizations. Left-wing anti-Semites, they fear, are trying to criminalize and officially harass Jews who criticize them as a new, old strategy.
German original text > CLICK HERE
Translation VonNaftali. In case of doubt, the German original applies