'Nazi Germany helped establish Israel'
25 German professors co-signed a manifesto published in the Frankfurter Rundschau calling on Germany to stop giving Israel "preferential treatment," because, among other reasons, the country "helped" establish Israel by expelling Jews from Germany during the rule of the Third Reich. Approximately 160,000 Jews who were expelled from Nazi Germany ended up in the British mandate of Palestine and strengthened the Jewish presence here at the expense of the Arab population, they claimed.
Visiting in Israel as guests of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the Academic College of Netanya, four professors and co-signatories on the manifesto were debating their claims with Israeli academics who opposed them.
They claimed that approximately 160,000 Jews who arrived in mandatory Palestine enlarged Jewish control of the land from just six percent during the British mandate to approximately 60% after the War of Independence. Additionally, the Germans said their country has "paid off" its debt to the Jewish people by the sums it had given the Israeli government and survivors until today.
They admitted that the Holocaust was, nevertheless, an indelible stain in Germany's history.
The professors called on the German government to improve its relations with Arab countries by adopting an "evenhanded" approach to both Israelis and Arabs.
The debate was initiated by Dov Ben Meir, one of the heads of the Center for Strategic Dialogue at the college and formerly chairman Knesset. Prof. Moshe Zimmerman, an expert on German history, was also sitting on the Israeli side.
Ben Meir published his own counter-manifesto, rebuking the Germans' claims one by one.
First and foremost, unchecked data stated as fact has led the Germans to reach conclusions which, Ben Meir told The Jerusalem Post, were unjustified.
For example, regarding the 60% of land controlled by Jews after the War of Independence, as cited in the manifesto, Ben Meir said most of it was in fact not Arab land but unclaimed "state land," i.e. land belonging to the British and to the Ottoman Empire before them.
"They owe us something of an apology," he said.
He even claimed that due to Israel's recognition of Germany following the Reparations' Agreement between the countries the entire world came to see the country as "a different Germany."
He said Israel purchased from Germany ten times more merchandise than what the Germans offered as part of the Reparations' Agreement, stressing that these funds should not be construed as special treatment and should be considered the "debt of a rogue to his victim."
Ben Meir warned about Germany returning to the "black days" of Hitler if the country would stop its special treatment towards Israel.
Prof. Gert Krell, a retired professor of International Relations at Frankfurt's Johann Wolfgang Goethe University who specialized in the Middle East conflict, admitted after the panel finished its discussions that the manifesto was "well meant but not good enough."
"We did apologize. We have learned a lot from the discussions and from the criticism … the next publication will not be a manifesto, we may arrange a conference," he told the Post.
But Krell added that there "have been follow up studies already, which corrected some mistakes."
However, Krell said Ben Meir was "too much of a positivist," in believing that "he had all the facts and we didn't."
"It is difficult to have a dialogue when one side says 'I have all the facts.' There is a wealth of facts and it is important to agree on [at least] most of them," in order to have fruitful dialogue.
"We agreed that in relations between Israelis and Germans of our generation [Krell was born in 1945; JB] there are hidden emotions which may disturb clear thinking and distort our approach to the issues [at hand]," Krell said. "It is important to talk about [these hidden] emotions and discuss them, but not let them obscure concrete solutions.
Krell said the Frankfurter Rundschau published responses ranging from letters to the editors to full fledged articles, including Ben Meir's "counter-manifesto." Krell said he and his colleagues "explicitly supported" the publication of responses because they intended their manifesto as a "document for public debate."
Krell mused that the paradigm of criticism and pressure might in itself be a wrong approach. "It might be more important not to criticize the sides, but to come up with positive suggestions that would ameliorate and reduce the level of conflict, and to find a solution to the current situation [between Israelis and Palestinians," Krell said.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1203343697375&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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