Ambassador urges Germany to change anti-Israel stance at U.N.

Normally tight-lipped ambassador told 'Post' he holds private discussions with the German government regarding its support for evading US sanctions against Iran

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Updated: FEBRUARY 7, 2019 02:57
anti-Israel Germany 248 88 (photo credit: Sacha Stawski/Honestly Concerned )
anti-Israel Germany 248 88
(photo credit: Sacha Stawski/Honestly Concerned )
In an unusually strong public criticism of its anti-Israel voting at the UN, Israel’s ambassador to Germany on Tuesday called on the federal republic “to change its voting behavior.”
The Jerusalem Post asked Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff on Tuesday via Twitter about his views quoted in a Bild newspaper report that said, “Germany, of all places, regularly sides with the enemies of Israel. In November, Germany voted 16 times in 21 resolutions against Israel. It abstained in four resolutions.”
Issacharoff responded by writing on his Twitter feed, “[I] fully agree with Antje Schippmann’s article in Bild that it’s ‘urgently necessary’ to change German voting behavior in the UNGA on Israel and that Germany should adopt an ‘active leadership role in refocusing the common voting behavior of European partners.’”
The normally tight-lipped ambassador has previously told the Post that he holds private discussions with the German government regarding their support for evading US sanctions against Iran and other anti-Israel actions. However, he has declined to comment on those discussions and has issued no public criticism of Germany’s largely pro-Iran regime trade policy.
Schippmann’s article in Monday’s edition of Bild was titled “Germany in the UN: FDP wants to stop anti-Israel insanity. We can no longer be followers.”
Bild, the country’s largest circulating paper, reported that at a Free Democratic Party (FDP) session in the Bundestag, the party passed a resolution calling for a change in Germany’s voting behavior at the UN. The foreign policy spokesman of the party, Bijan Djir-Sarai and a fellow MP, Frank Müller-Rosentritt, introduced the pro-Israel resolution.
According to the resolution first obtained by the paper, the federal government “should clearly distance itself from one-sided, politically motivated initiatives and alliances.” The resolution said the German government should work to counteract the “political forces in the near and Middle East” which “openly threaten” the Jewish state.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has declared Israel’s security to be “non-negotiable” for her administration, has frequently joined the Islamic Republic of Iran to slam Israel at the UN.
“We must no longer abandon Israel to the UN. It is madness that we are constantly on the side of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran or Yemen against Israel,” Müller-Rosentritt told Bild.
Germany’s UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen is greatly disliked by many Israeli diplomats for his anti-Israel activities over the years, according to Jerusalem Post interviews with diplomats over the last eight years.
A Wikileaks cable revealed in 2010 that Heusgen, who was Merkel’s foreign policy adviser at the time, urged the US to water down its opposition to the UN’s anti-Israel “Goldstone Report” in order to force Israel to freeze settlement construction.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted on Tuesday that Germany “stands every day against antisemitism.”