AN AMERICAN JEWISH – GERMAN INFORMATION & OPINION NEWSLETTER dubowdigest@optonline.net

AMERICAN EDITION

JUNE 28, 2011

Dear Friends:

Yes, the summer is upon us but political matters do not seem to be taking a mid-year vacation. In fact, things seem to be looking up – at least for Israel. Chancellor Merkel is hanging tough with her position against a unilateral UN move for statehood by the Palestinians. Both the EU and the UN are opposed to the forthcoming “Gaza flotilla” which, though weakened greatly by the refusals of Turkey and Greece to allow boats to join it, is due to start out this week.

The Schalit issue is one again up in the air (see article below). Even a 1,000 for one swap doesn’t good enough.

Jewish and Israeli questions are definitely on the back burner these days with the Euro bailout of Greece and other EU countries by mostly German money takes first place. Saving the Euro is Numero Uno or should I say, “Nummer Eins”

On to the news…

IN THIS EDITION

GERMANY: A DIPLOMATIC GIANT – OR A MIDGET? – In depends on which issues.

”UNLESS” – The political “unless” becomes a “perhaps”

FRATS: GERMAN STYLE – Unlike the American variety.

MERKEL, SARKOZY & THE SCHALIT MATTER – Germany and France flex their muscles. Will it make a difference? Not so far.

ANTI-SEMITISM ON THE LEFT – The Left Party’s left shows its true colors.

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THE INSURANCE WARS – Not enough aggravation? Let’s battle it out with each other – publicly!

GERMAN PASSPORTS – FOR ISRAELIS! - It’s growing.

GERMANY: A DIPLOMATIC GIANT – OR A MIDGET?

How important is Germany on the world diplomatic stage? Certainly it isn’t as important as, say the U.S., China or Russia, to name a few. It is the prime economic engine of Europe but there are lots of questions of how much muscle it has on the diplomatic front.

In my last edition I wrote about how “… the Federal Republic’s abstention in the UN on the Libya no-fly zone placed Germany in a very weak position. Since then I came across an article in Der Spiegel by Dirk Kurbjuweit, a noted German journalist entitled “Germany's Waning Influence: An Outsider on the Global Stage”.

In it Mr. Kurbjuweit states, “Angela Merkel's recent trips to India, Singapore and the US revealed a lot about Germany's current international role. On her foreign visits, the chancellor is a listener rather than a talker, eager not to ruffle any feathers. In its desire not to offend, Germany is becoming increasingly marginalized on the global stage.

This year, Merkel's Germany embarked on a curious course, a new version of Germany's famous Sonderweg ("special path"), if you will. It let down its Western allies in the war over Libya, and it was the only country to conclude, as a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, that it had to get out of nuclear power as quickly as possible. And in the euro crisis, Germany has acquired the reputation of being principally concerned with protecting its own money.

In principle, this behavior reflects postwar Germany's fundamental fear of war, nuclear power and inflation. And these fears are currently shaping Merkel's foreign policy. (Ed: Underlining mine)

As far as population goes, Germany ranks among the medium-sized dwarfs when compared with China and India, both nations of more than a billion people. It does well by Western standards on the economic dynamism front, but lags behind China, India and Singapore. And when it comes to readiness to use military force, the Germans are generally hesitant, as shown by their total unwillingness to participate in the Libyan conflict.

At the moment, Germany is best known internationally as the country that produces high-quality cars for the world's drivers, even after the crisis. It also stands out

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because of its nice chancellor. On her trips, she seemed humble and sometimes even endearingly clumsy.

When she was supposed to inspect an honor guard in Washington, she took a few awkward steps before she managed to fall into step and get on the correct side of her military escort. On another occasion, she almost forgot to take along her husband when going to the waiting Obamas. And her facial expressions were as wonderfully childlike as always, clearly showing her joy or displeasure.

The American poet John Ashbery has written a superb poem about America called "A Worldly Country." It is not a line that one would associate with Merkel's Germany. After reunification, there was often talk of a Germany that had "grown larger." But that phrase wasn't quite true.

In fact, when it comes to world politics, Germany has become smaller and has remained provincial. It wouldn't have come as a great surprise if Merkel's plane, upon returning home, had landed in the former capital, the sleepy city of Bonn, instead of big, brash Berlin.

I have only been able to touch on a few of the major points that Mr. Kurbjuweit makes in his article. You owe it to yourself to read the whole thing which you can do by clicking here. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,768482,00.html

Interestingly, he does not mention the Israel – Palestinian situation once nor does Iran figure in anywhere. Perhaps it is that the article is focused elsewhere and that those two issues are tangential. I’m not sure whether it is proper to relegate them to insignificance.

Surely, the diplomatic battle going on mostly in Europe for Israel to get support to defeat the Palestinian statehood move in the UN this September clearly has Germany as a major player. Its “split personality” toward Iran where the government is for strong sanctions while its business community continues to have substantial business relations, is also not unimportant.

However, if Germany is trending, as Mr. Kurbjuweit puts it, “…towards insignificance” won’t that eventually have a major impact on how seriously it is taken on these latter two issues? If so, to quote that world expert on all matters, my grandmother, “Oy vey!”

”UNLESS”

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You may recall that in my last edition I spelled out the difficult situation Chancellor Merkel’s CDU party was in because of the very low poll numbers her coalition partners, the Free Democrats had. If they did not improve, I noted, the chances for re-election in 2013 (national elections) were poor – UNLESS – “the Chancellor (might) try to join up with the Greens instead. There are vast differences between the two parties but – nothing is impossible. At least now the CDU has a nuclear policy that the Greens might swallow.”

At the time I wrote that a Black (CDU) – Green coalition seemed like a pipe dream, something that had very little possibility of turning into something real.

No sooner had the last edition gone out when up popped a news article in Thelocal.de with the headline, “Green Party boss Cem Özdemir has said that he could envisage a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) after the next federal elections in 2013.

Özdemir was quoted as saying, "We are following an independent path and looking to see with whom we could best implement green policies," he told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper in an interview published Saturday.

"The intersection with the (centre-left Social Democratic Party) SPD is of course greater. However we have always said that, depending on the situation at the time, we would also talk with the CDU," said Özdemir, who is joint party leader with Claudia Roth.

He insisted, however, that despite the Merkel’s decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 there was much that still divided the two parties.

Özdemir, meanwhile, ruled himself out of being his party’s candidate for chancellor, a role which would traditionally see the candidate become foreign minister if the Greens were to be the junior party in any coalition. “I don’t see myself in this role," he told the paper.

He said the issue of who would lead the party into the next election had not come up yet. "We have to remain focused,” he warned. "Governing after the CDU-FDP won’t be a walk in the park. We have to use the time until the election to have our policies well prepared. "

Özdemir is a highly respected politician. He is a member of the AJC Berlin Advisory Board and very sensitive to Jewish and Israeli issues. From my perspective, while it is a long shot, a Merkel – Özdemir grouping would be about as good as it gets.

Interestingly, while not admitting that they are getting any closer to the CDU, the Greens at their recent party pow-wow (Der Spiegel) “dropped their demand for a nuclear phaseout by 2017 and voted on Saturday to back Chancellor

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Angela's Merkel's timetable to shut all reactors by 2022. The vote shows pragmatism and is a sign that the Greens are getting ready to return to power, commentators say. But, they add, it also helps Merkel”. Click here to read about it. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,770754,00.html

What color emerges when you mix green & black? We may find out in 2013.

FRATS: GERMAN STYLE

When I was a college student at the University of Kentucky, a great “fraternity school” I was relegated (happily, however) to joining the one Jewish fraternity on campus, ZBT. Jews were just not eligible to join the “Christian” fraternities. That all changed in the 1950’s as membership in almost all fraternities and sororities as things began to liberalize. In the 1960’s with the Civil Rights revolution membership requirements liberalized even further when racial discrimination began to crumble. I would imagine that today colleges and universities absolutely outlaw discrimination. It’s probably illegal. American fraternities have never been very political. They’re mostly social (sometimes to a fault) and today even try to perform good deeds in the communities where they are located. Hell Week has become Help Week.

The situation in Germany is quite different. Today in the Federal Republic (DW-World) “The Burschenschaften are German student groups that have always been German patriots. Now some may be lunging into extreme-right territory with a debate on whether to make German blood a requirement for membership.

 A Burschenschaft is a German student organization whose members often live together, take part in fencing competitions and support each other for life. They were originally started to fight against Napoleon and for a unified Germany in the 19th century, but their traditional tendencies have made some of them seem more and more like right-wing extremists in recent years.

This week the Deutsche Burschenschaft, the largest umbrella organization for these student groups, holds its annual conference. During the meeting, members were expected to vote on a raft of measures seeking to define who can join and, ultimately, what it means to be German.

According to Alexandra Kurth, a political scientist and expert on these student groups, the legal committee of the Deutsche Burschenschaft issued a decision late last year that any potential member who was not ethnically German or whose parents were not ethnically German, or whose parents were German but the candidate himself was not, would need to be checked by the committee.

While the decision has effectively been a rule since it was announced, a motion by conservative members sought to win the official support of 75 percent of those at the

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conference. Another measure sought to expel one of the member groups for admitting a student who meets all the other requirements but whose parents are Chinese. However on Thursday, both measures were withdrawn from the agenda due to pressure from the organization's liberal wing.

But Spokesman Michael Schmidt said he nevertheless expected a "heated debate" over the criteria for membership.

Let’s hope the Burschenschaften leaders come to their senses and realize that they are living in the 21st Century not the 19th. Incidentally, Germany’s Economics Minister and head of the Free Democratic Party Philipp Roesler, who natural parents were Vietnamese, would not be eligible to become a Burschenschaft member under current rules.

One might argue that the whole matter is a “tempest in a teapot” but that is not the case. Like in the U.S., those that are kept out of certain social organizations are frequently also left out when it comes to business and professional contacts. And, it’s really an embarrassment for today’s Germany if the rules go unchanged.

MERKEL, SARKOZY & THE SCHALIT MATTER

For almost the last five years, the kidnapped (by Hamas) soldier, Gilad Schalit has been held in Gaza as a prisoner. Haaretz recently reported, “German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a joint call Friday for the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Schalit as part of a deal with Hamas.

Merkel and Sarkozy have each called for Schalit's release in the past, but this marks the first time the two European leaders issued a joint call on the matter, which was an unusual move at a meeting meant to discuss the urgent Greece debt crisis.

The comments come eight days before the fifth anniversary of Gilad Schalit's abduction.

Israeli sources close to the negotiations said the international move carried large significance.

According to reports in the Arab world, there has been a renewed attempt at advancing negotiations in hope to secure a deal which would free Schalit. Israeli sources have abstained from estimating the chances of such a move.

Moreover, foreign media has reported that Egypt has been recently stepping up its involvement in negotiations based on the plan German mediator Gerhard Conrad has outlined in the past. Cairo would like to leverage its new regime's improved

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relationship with Gaza's Hamas rulers after it had helped draw up a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah.

Israeli officials believe Egypt has a strong interest in advancing a deal on Schalit after its success in mediating the Palestinian reconciliation agreement.

The Jerusalem Post reports, “For France, the Schalit case is particularly sensitive because the captive soldier holds dual Israeli-French citizenship. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe met with Schalit's parents, Noam and Aviva in Jerusalem during a visit to Jerusalem earlier this month.

Germany has mediated attempts to reach a deal between Hamas and Israel for several years.

Earlier in June, Noam and Aviva Schalit appealed to the French judicial system to hold Hamas, including its Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal, responsible for kidnapping their son Gilad and keeping him hostage in Gaza for the past five years.

If their legal effort in France is successful, arrest warrants could be issued against members of Hamas, including Mashaal. A suit can be filed in France due to Schalit's dual citizenship.

French law is applicable to anyone who is a French citizen, even if the criminal act against him occurred outside of France, explained an attorney for the Schalit family in Israel, Nick Kaufman.

The matter of Schalit’s French citizenship, previously unreported as far as I know, gives a new twist to the matter. However, diplomatic attempts by Germany over the last five years have not brought about a solution. It is well known that Israel is willing to trade 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Schalit. That deal has been on the table for some months. While the civilian Hamas people are willing to accept it, it has been vetoed by their military wing which is closely connected to Iran.

After writing the above it was reported in JTA “Efforts are intensifying for the release of Israeli hostage Gilad Schalit on the fifth anniversary of his capture by the terrorist organization Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had accepted a German-mediated deal for Schalit's release, and was awaiting Hamas' response.

"This proposal was harsh; it was not simple for the State of Israel," Netanyahu said Sunday according to a statement released after the weekly Cabinet meeting.  "However, we agreed to accept it in the belief that it was balanced between our desire to secure Gilad's release and to prevent possible harm to the lives and security of the Israeli people.  As of now, we have yet to receive Hamas's official answer to the German mediator's proposal."

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It looked as if things were finally moving ahead on this sensitive matter. As per Netanyahu’s statement, the German mediator remains the “middle man” trying to affect a solution. However, (Jerusalem Post) the deputy chairman of Hamas' political bureau, Moussa Abu Marzouk said in the most recent interview with al-Hayat that Konrad (Ed. Note: The German mediator) adopted the position of the Israeli government in negotiations over the prisoner swap, describing the German mediator's offer as "radical and unfair."

The announcement came after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that he had previously agreed to the terms of the German mediator for the prisoner swap. Israel has yet to receive Hamas’s formal answer to a German proposal to secure Schalit’s release in exchange for a willingness to release 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners, Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet session.

He spoke just one day after the Schalit family marked the fifth anniversary of their son’s kidnapping”.

We’re at the “Who knows?” stage once again. Perhaps some elements in Hamas thought that giving up Schalit even for 1,000 Palestinians was too big an issue to trade away. My guess is that the 1,000 Palestinians themselves might have different thoughts.

Stay tuned!

ANTI-SEMITISM ON THE LEFT

Spiegel on-Line reported, “Swatiskas intertwined in the Star of David, a map of the Middle East with Israel missing, boycotts of Israeli products: Germany's far-left Left Party (Die Linke), many feel, has a growing anti-Semitism problem. The issue threatens to divide the party.

Germany's far-left Left Party has been struggling for months to have its voice heard on the national political stage. Falling membership numbers, shrinking support and a very public leadership battle this spring have all left the party struggling to find relevance.

Now, though, the party is facing yet another challenge. For years, the Left Party -- a partial outgrowth of the East German communists -- has been criticized for harboring anti-Semitism and being overtly critical of Israel. Just recently, Left Party floor leader Gregor Gysi pushed a resolution through the party's parliamentary faction stating: "In the future, the representatives of the Left Party faction will take action against any form of anti-Semitism in society."

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The party, the resolution (continued), will no longer participate in boycotts of Israeli products, will refrain from demanding a single-state solution to the Middle East conflict and will not take part in this year's Gaza flotilla.

That resolution, however, did not sit well with the party's left wing. The group protested against being "muzzled," complaining that Gysi's declaration was "undemocratic" and "dangerous," as Left Party parliamentarian Annette Groth complained. And Gysi, formerly head of the party, gave in. This week, he plans to compose a further resolution on anti-Semitism.

”…it seems unlikely that the Left Party will be able to quickly silence the debate. On Monday, Dieter Graumann, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, wrote a guest commentary for the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung in which he accused Left Party members, particularly those from western Germany, of "downright pathological hatred of Israel." He also wrote that the "old anti-Zionist spirit from East Germany still stains the party."

There are many within the party who agree. Chief among them is Benjamin-Christopher Krüger, a founding member of a Left Party working group which aims at rooting all forms of anti-Semitism out of the party. "We have an anti-Semitism problem," he said.

Several recent incidents bear witness to the problem. In April, the website of the district chapter of the Left Party in the western city of Duisburg featured a swastika entangled with a Star of David. The symbol linked to a pamphlet which called Israel a "rogue nation" and called for a boycott of Israeli products.

Why should anybody be surprised? In recent years the worst sorts of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic utterances have been coming out of the mouths of those on the extreme left. The virus of anti-Semitism is far from dead and being anti-Israel gives convenient cover to closet anti-Semites.

I have followed Gysi’s career ever since the Berlin Wall came down because I actually got to know his father, Klaus Gysi who was East Germany’s State Secy. for Religious Affairs fairly back in the 1980’s. The Gysi family was Jewish in origin and Klaus was, indeed, a sort of God Father to the small Jewish community in East Germany. I do not know the son but my guess is that he has sublimated his Jewish connection because of his left political commitment until now. What has emerged from the left wing of the Left Party has probably reached the point in his mind that he could take its anti-Semitism any longer and finally had to speak out. He is certainly no strong supporter of Israel. However, I believe that he saw his party going down an ugly path that he and much of Germany could and would not support. Frankly, what he has done is a very important not only on Israel’s behalf but also in the on-going fight against anti-Semitism.

To read another good article on the subject, this one by Ben Weinthal published in

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Y-Net News, click here. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4086872,00.html

THE INSURANCE WARS

Since we Jews don’t have enough trouble in today’s world, a group of Holocaust survivors and their relatives, mostly in Florida, have decided that we should legally (and very publicly) battle it out with each other over an insurance issue. Such is the situation concerning who has the right to sue European insurance companies for Holocaust related damages.

JTA reports, “At issue is whether Holocaust survivors and their families should be allowed to sue European insurance companies for failing to pay on the policies of Jewish policy-holders killed at the hands of the Nazis. Except in extraordinary cases, such as lawsuits against state sponsors of terrorism, Americans cannot use U.S. courts to sue foreign entities.

In the late 1990s, Jewish groups including the Claims Conference reached settlements with European insurance companies that resulted in some $306 million being disbursed for survivors and survivor institutions through the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, known by the acronym ICHEIC (pronounced EYE-check). These groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, the World Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Restitution Organization see protecting the insurance companies from individual lawsuits as key to the strategy of getting European nations and institutions to agree to negotiated restitution settlements that result in money for needy survivors.

But Dubbin (Ed. note: An attorney) and some survivor groups, like the National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, say the ICHEIC agreements never legally precluded individual lawsuits, and that legislation allowing such lawsuits against the insurance companies would correct a historic injustice. They say the ICHEIC process, which officially ended in 2007, was irredeemably weighted toward the insurers.

Opponents say that if Congress passed a bill that would allow individual U.S. lawsuits against the insurance companies, it would upend the executive branch’s exclusive control over foreign policy. Essentially, they say, it’s a jurisdiction issue.

“It would be a cruel and unrealistic increase in expectations to have people go to court to try to sue companies against whom they would have great difficulty getting jurisdiction,” said Stuart Eizenstat, the Clinton administration’s special representative for Holocaust issues at the time the ICHEIC settlements were being negotiated. Today, Eizenstat is a top negotiator for the Claims Conference.

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The battle between the two sides abounds with allegations of bad faith and greed, and even the threat of elderly survivors picketing a fundraiser for a politician once seen as sympathetic to their cause.”

It is now back in the Congress. A bill which “…would allow courts to proceed over executive branch objections in litigating claims aimed at insurers has been or is about to be filed. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, who has championed similar bills for years, is now able as chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to expedite the bill.”

The passage of the bill would certainly upset the long standing current situation of the major American Jewish groups doing the negotiating without dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of lawsuits being individually filed. So far it’s mostly Florida based Senators and Representatives who are behind it. Even with Rep. Ros-Lehtinen’s power pushing it the chances of upsetting the current arrangement are slim. However, the continuing dispute between the two Jewish groups is not going away any time soon. Read the whole story by clicking here.http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/21/3088234/once-again-holocaust-insurance-bill-spurs-heated-exchanges

GERMAN PASSPORTS – FOR ISRAELIS!

If you read the American Jewish press (The Forward, etc.) you occasionally come across ads from law firms advertising the fact that they can obtain German passports for Jews with German family backgrounds. In reading them I didn’t think many American Jews and certainly Israelis would be interested. I was wrong especially about the Israelis!

Y-Net News recently reported, “For many years, Israelis of German descent boycotted German products, refused to set foot on German soil and severed all ties with the country they were born in. But now, their own children and grandchildren are fighting for the right to become German citizens.

Recent years have seen a surge in the number of offspring of Israelis of German descent applying for a passport. These figures are 10 times higher than the number of Israelis seeking citizenship in other European countries, like Poland of Romania.

A new study conducted by Dr. Sima Salzberg of Bar-Ilan University, which will be published in the Eretz Acheret magazine edited by Bambi Sheleg, reveals that some 100,000 people living in Israel possess a German passport as well.

 According to figures provided by the German Embassy, in the past few years about 7,000 Israelis have applied for a passport every year. More than 70,000 such passports have been granted since 2000. Other countries like Poland, Romania and

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Austria have only issued up to 6,000 passports to Israelis throughout the past decade.

 These figures point to an amazing growth in the popularity of the German passport, considering the fact that Germany and its symbols are still banned by quite a few Israelis – mainly Holocaust survivors or relatives of Holocaust victims.

 The article, which quotes experts and academics, provides a series of reasons for the German passport's popularity among Israelis: Former citizens feel a real desire to regain a citizenship robbed from them or from their forefathers; Israelis are no longer ashamed to possess a German passport; and the younger generation can gain personal benefits.

 Israelis with a German passport don't need a visa to enter the United States, can receive a scholarship for academic studies abroad, can enter countries which Israelis are banned from – and money, the study rules, erases any ideology.

 "These figures are the result of many factors," says Sheleg. "It's a fascinating identity issue. What makes 100,000 Israelis, many of them offspring of Jews who emigrated from Germany, apply for a German passport?

 "I strongly object to this idea, which seems like a fantasy to me, a sort of oversight of reality. And yet, it's fascinating to see the excitement leading many of them to issue a German passport. It's unclear what exactly they're missing."

The data are included in a special issue of Eretz Acheret, published this time together with Yakinton, a magazine issued by the Association of Israelis of Central European origin in honor of the 75th anniversary of German Jews' immigration to Israel, which will be held at the Jeckes Heritage Center in Tefen.

 The association's chairman, Reuven Merhav, slams the new trend, saying that "there is one passport, a blue one, which carries the State's symbol, and that's the document we use to identify ourselves abroad and which gives us the freedom of movement we have in the world, as of right and not on sufferance."

Obviously, Mr. Merhav’s unhappiness with the trend among young people in Israel is largely falling on deaf ears. While I do not have any statistics for American Jews I would imagine the numbers are probably less. It’s easier to get around in the world with an American passport so one that is not non-Israeli is not a necessity. However, if a youngster is planning to stay in a Euro country for any period of time, perhaps it’s easier to do that with a German passport.

A main point it seems to me is that among the new generations the stigma of “Germany” is not what it was to older Jews. Like owning a Mercedes or a BMW, having a German passport has become a commodity with very little if any negative emotional feeling attached to it.

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DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be contacted by clicking here.

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