Skip to main content

Netanyahu Cancels Meeting with German FM on Principle

Share This article

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made good on his promise not to meet with the German foreign minister unless he cancelled his plans to meet with anti-Israel NGOs (non-governmental organizations). President Reuven Rivlin, however, did meet with him.

"My policy is clear: not to meet with diplomats who visit Israel and meet with organizations that defame IDF soldiers and try to prosecute our soldiers as war criminals, which diplomats would never consider doing in the United States, Britain or anywhere else," Netanyahu said in a statement.

Earlier, he said he would cancel his meeting with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel if he insisted on meeting with Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem, both known for their anti-Israel activities, especially when it comes to Israeli soldiers and Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank.)

Gabriel insisted it's "perfectly normal" to meet with "social groups" when visiting a foreign country.

But neither Breaking the Silence nor B'Tselem can be accurately described as "social groups." Instead, they routinely criticize Israeli policy and its military.

B'Tselem accuses Israel of expropriating "Palestinian land" in Judea and Samaria, and Breaking the Silence alleges IDF soldiers commit "war crimes."

In a 2015 interview with CBN News, author Tuvia Tenenbom explained how European NGOs fan the flames of anti-Semitism in the Middle East.

Click here to read NGO Monitor's report on Breaking the Silence.

Meanwhile, President Rivlin took the diplomatic high road, welcoming Gabriel's arrival in Jerusalem on Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day, which he called particularly significant.

In a statement following their meeting, Reuven acknowledged that Israel is accustomed "to receiving criticism from time to time," but he said criticism needs to be based in reality, especially with regard to the IDF.

"Our army is the most moral army in the world," Reuven told the German foreign minister. "It is an army made up of all our children. We know how to maintain our army as the most moral in the world, and we will continue to do so."

Israeli parliamentarians largely supported Netanyahu's decision.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called it "an important step in the fight against those who slander Israel internationally."

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said "Breaking the Silence is not an anti-Netanyahu organization; it is an anti-IDF one."

MK Michael Oren, who served as Israeli U.S. ambassador during the Obama administration, said, the Germans "will respect us more."

"I think it unbecoming and inappropriate [for] leaders of democratic nations, particularly democratic allied nations, to come into our country and meet with organizations that openly oppose the policies of the democratically elected government of Israel. That is an undermining of Israeli sovereignty and democracy," The Jerusalem Post reported.

"I think that at the end of the day, the Germans will respect us more," he added. "If we don't draw redlines, people don't respect us," he added. "We had a situation here that was anomalous and not in accord with normal behavior between states, certainly not between allied democratic states."

Even former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon applauded Netanyahu for refusing to meet with Gabriel, saying Europe's "funding and involvement…crosses red lines in relations between countries."

Opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog and MK Tzipi Livni both criticized Netanyahu's decision.

 

Share This article

About The Author

Tzippe
Barrow

From her perch high atop the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, Tzippe Barrow tries to provide a bird’s eye view of events unfolding in her country. Tzippe’s parents were born to Russian Jewish immigrants, who fled the czar’s pogroms to make a new life in America. As a teenager, Tzippe wanted to spend a summer in Israel, but her parents, sensing the very real possibility that she might want to live there, sent her and her sister to Switzerland instead. Twenty years later, the Lord opened the door to visit the ancient homeland of her people.