{"id":77833,"date":"2020-05-09T17:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-09T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=77833"},"modified":"2020-05-08T07:56:17","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T05:56:17","slug":"07-00-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=77833","title":{"rendered":"German diplomat tweets to defend advocate of Holocaust trivialization\/BDS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>German diplomat tweets to defend advocate of Holocaust trivialization\/BDS<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

BENJAMIN WEINTHAL <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Andreas G\u00f6rgen tweeted at least seven posts in favor of Achille Mbembe over the last week without links to critical texts of Mbembe alleged antisemitism and belittling of the Shoah.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Twitter application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017 \/ (photo credit: REUTERS\/THOMAS WHITE)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

BERLIN – Germany\u2019s foreign ministry has been plunged into a new anti-Israel row after a top diplomat posted a series of tweets in defense of an academic who supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel, and has been accused of trivializing the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andreas G\u00f6rgen,the director of the foreign ministry\u2019s department for culture and communication, tweeted an article titled \u201cAntisemitism Accusations against Achille Mbembe : Comparing is not equating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

G\u00f6rgen tweeted at least seven posts in favor of Mbembe over the last week without links to critical texts of Mbembe alleged antisemitism and belittling of the Shoah.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Deutschlandfunk Kultur article claims that Mbembe did not compare the former apartheid system in South Africa with the Holocaust. Antisemitism experts, however, claim Mbembe trivialized the Holocaust via his comparison.<\/span><\/p>\n

The German government\u2019s antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein told the news outlet WAZ that Mbembe had \u201cquestioned Israel\u2019s right to exist and also compared South Africa\u2019s apartheid system to the Holocaust \u2014 something that is out of the question in view of the unprecedented crimes during the Nazi era, and especially given Germany\u2019s historical responsibility for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

German Jews and other experts agree with Klein\u2019s assessment. Critics say G\u00f6rgen has used his official foreign ministry Twitter feed to push articles that support Mbembe. His Twitter biography makes no reference retweeting or Tweets signifying a lack of endorsement of the content. The Jerusalem Post first identified G\u00f6rgen\u2019s stream of allegedly pro-Mbembe tweets on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prominent Austrian-based foreign policy think tank mena-watch tweeted: “Why has this foreign ministry of foreign affairs been busy for days protecting Achille Mbenbe against any criticism? One cannot call it balanced if only the defenders have their say and not even a text of the critics is posted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mena-watch responsed to a tweet from G\u00f6rgen in which he posted an article claiming the antisemitism accusations against Mbembe are a \u201cSign of a witch hunt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Profesor Richard Landes, an internationally distinguished historian and expert on antisemitism, told the Post that “The real witch-hunt is this kind of criminally sloppy use of elisions to smear Israel and paint her as a pariah, and then an equally sloppy but opposite use of terms to clear Mbenbe of any responsibility for his own ‘word crimes.”‘<\/span><\/p>\n

Mbembe urges the complete \u201cglobal isolation\u201d of the Jewish state and signed a BDS boycott petition against Ben Gurion University academics.<\/span>
\nG\u00f6rgen says his twitter feed address \u201ceducational policies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal\u2019s chief Nazi-hunter who oversees the organization\u2019s Jerusalem office, told the Post that \u201cIt is incomprehensible why a high-ranking official of the foreign ministry is devoting such efforts to support a BDS advocate who compared apartheid to the Holocaust.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The German cultural festival Ruhrtriennale invited Mbembe to deliver the opening remarks for its summer festival. However, the supervisory board cancelled the festival yesterday due to the coronavirus crisis. Critics urged the festival to disinvite Mbembe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zuroff said Germany\u2019s foreign minister Heiko Maas should \u201ctake the steps to send [G\u00f6rgen] him home, \u201cadding Maas needs to \u201cdraw the proper implications\u201d and have G\u00f6rgen “pack his bags.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The antisemitism expert Zuroff said Maas \u201capparently showed great sensitivity toward the Shoah\u201d on Twitter and questioned how G\u00f6rgen\u2019s playing down of the Shoah meshed with Maas\u2019s recent tweets remembering the Holocaust. Zuroff said that surely G\u00f6rgen has \u201cmore important issues to deal with during the pandemic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Post has sent twitter and email queries to G\u00f6rgen and the German foreign ministry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, the director of the German Foreign Ministry\u2019s representation for the Palestinian territories, Christian Clages, was revealed to have liked scores of antisemitic tweets while using his government Twitter feed. Clages retained his job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German diplomat tweets to defend advocate of Holocaust trivialization\/BDS BENJAMIN WEINTHAL Andreas G\u00f6rgen tweeted at least seven posts in favor of Achille Mbembe over the last week without links to critical texts of Mbembe alleged antisemitism and belittling of the Shoah. The Twitter application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017 \/ (photo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77833"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77865,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77833\/revisions\/77865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}