In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Nahshon said Grosser’s “extreme opinions are tainted by self-hatred.”via jpost.com
The Israeli Embassy has gone on the offensive to counter the growing efforts in Germany to delegitimize the Jewish state.
German governments – including local and regional ones – frequently give anti-Zionist and anti-Israel Jews prizes and speaking engagements to vent criticism of Israel. Last year, then- German president Horst Köhler issued the Federal Merit Cross, one of the country’s most prestigious awards, to Israeli lawyer Felicia Langer, who has equated Israel with Nazi Germany and the South African apartheid regime.
Speaking from France, Grosser, a sociologist, political scientist and historian born to a German- Jewish family in Frankfurt in 1925, told the Post in a telephone interview that he stands by his statement that “criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism have nothing to do with each other.
It is rather Israel’s policies that promote anti-Semitism globally.”
Grosser has compared his treatment by the Nazis in the early 1930s with Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. His family fled to France in 1933.
The “Palestinians are despised by Israel” and Israel has “no feeling for [the] suffering in Gaza and in the territories,” He told the Post.
“It’s all about understanding the suffering of others,” he said.
“This understanding generally does not exist on the part of Jews.”
Grosser said he plans to “criticize” Israel during his speech on Tuesday and to reference Theodor Herzl in saying that there should be “no discrimination by sex and religion” in Israel.
The speaking invitation has frayed relations between the city of Frankfurt and Germany’s Jewish community. The Central Council of Jews in Germany called for Grosser to be disinvited.
The Frankfurt Jewish community issued a statement, saying, “In recent years, he has represented escalating positions that are unacceptable for us.”
