07 March 2007
The Central Council of Jews in Germany and Israel's ambassador in Berlin have criticized statements made by some Catholic bishops regarding the plight of Palestinians in the terrotories occupied by Israel. German bishops, led by Cardinal Karl Lehmann, went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and visited both Israeli and Palestinian sites. After their trip to Ramallah, several bishops likened the situation of Palestinians to that of Jews during World War II. The bishop of Augsburg, Walter Mixa, spoke of a "ghetto-like situation", and the Cologne cardinal Joachim Meisner compared the Israel's security wall to the Berlin Wall, saying that one would confine animals but never human beings.
Dieter Graumann, vice-president of the Jewish umbrella organization, said that whoever equates the situation of Palestinians to the suffering of Jews in the Nazi ghettos had not learnt anything from history. Graumann added that such a statement was anti-Semitic in character.
Israel's ambassador Shimon Stein reacted "with disbelief and outrage" to the bishops' statements and called them "demagogic", saying: "If you use terms like 'Warsaw Ghetto' and 'racism' in relation to Israeli or Palestinian politics then you have forgotten everything, or learnt nothing, or morally failed." Stein pointed out that the bishops had not informed themselves about the reasons for Israeli security measures. Stein's predecessor as ambassador, Avi Primor, said the comparisons between the Nazi era and the current political situation in Israel were "unacceptable" and "counterproductive."
Avner Shalev, chairman of Israel's Holocaust memorial institution, Yad Vashem, wrote in a letter to Lehmann that whilst the bishops' visit to Yad Vashem had been positive, the remarks by some members of the Episcopalian delegation illustrated "a woeful ignorance of history and a distorted sense of perspective."
Reacting to the criticism, Hans Langend
