German - Israeli Difficulties (Again)

The director of Israel's Holocaust memorial has said he was "appalled and surprised" by comments three Roman Catholic bishops from Germany made that compared conditions in the West Bank to the Holocaust.

"The remarks illustrate a woeful ignorance of history and a distorted sense of perspective. Israel's actions do not bear any resemblance to the Nazis," Avner Shalev, director of the Yad Vashem memorial, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Bishops Conference.

He said was especially disappointed because Lehmann, who led a delegation to Israel and the West Bank last week, had shown a "deep understanding of the Holocaust and its significance for Jews, Germans and the entire world."

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers, reported that during the visit, Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke of Eichstaett commented on conditions endured by Palestinians.

"Photos of the inhuman Warsaw ghetto at Yad Vashem in the morning, in the evening we go to the ghetto in Ramallah — that blows your lid off," Hanke said.

Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg also spoke of "ghetto-like conditions" in the West Bank.

The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine quoted Cardinal Joachim Meisner, a third member of the delegation and the archbishop of Cologne, as likening the separation barrier in the West Bank to the Berlin Wall.

"I never thought I would have to see something like this ever again in my life," said Meisner, who is from the former East Germany.

Conference secretary Hans Langendoerfer has expressed regret over the comments.

During the trip, Langendoerfer said, "a few very personal remarks were made as a result of individuals' emotional dismay that already were self-critically set right" — including the reference to the Warsaw ghetto.

"I regret this tone of discord that has crept into the trip," Langendoerfer said in a statement.
The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the Nazis in 1940 as a holding pen for Polish Jews before they were sent to concentration camps.

While saying criticism of Israel is legitimate, Shalev said comparing the Nazi plan to annihilate the Jewish people to the West Bank situation "does nothing to help us understand what is going on today."

"These unwarranted and offensive comparisons serve to diminish the memory of victims of the Holocaust and mollify the consciences of those who seek to lessen European responsibility for Nazi crimes," Shalev wrote.

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