MEP (ROGER GAESS): Germany reportedly lobbies to enhance Israel’s trade status and other ties with the European Union.  Among these is Horizon 2020, the EU’s largest-ever research and innovation program, which will provide Israel with some half billion dollars in scientific-research funding over its seven-year lifespan.  What do you see as the current German government’s aspirations for Israel within EU institutions? What is guiding this direction?

DAVID CRONIN: Israel is expected to draw down considerably more money from Horizon 2020 than the figure you mentioned. I’ve seen an internal European Commission paper predicting that Israel will receive a total of approximately $1.6 billion from the program by the time it concludes later this year (it began in 2014).

To be honest, I haven’t investigated the German government’s influence on EU-Israel relations lately. If you are talking about the influence of individual Germans on related policies, then I think we can point to the discussion about anti-Semitism as an example.

The EU’s executive, the European Commission, has been promoting a very dodgy definition of anti-Semitism. It’s generally known as the IHRA definition, as it was approved by a body known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. But the definition was actually written by the pro-Israel lobby more than a decade earlier. One of the lobbyists who drafted it, Kenneth Stern, has distanced himself from it — or at least claimed that it shouldn’t be used to muzzle free speech. 

If you look at the definition and its accompanying examples of anti-Semitism, they are clearly more focused on shielding Israel from criticism than on protecting Jews in Europe (something that is absolutely necessary). The definition claims, among other things, that it is anti-Semitic to describe Israel’s foundation as a “racist endeavor.” That could have a chilling effect on the work of historians or activists who draw attention to how adherents of Zionism — Israel’s state ideology — set up a system of racial discrimination in Palestine during the 20th century. That paved the way for the mass expulsion of Palestinians before and after Israel was established in 1948. 

It’s entirely accurate to describe that process of ethnic cleansing as a racist endeavor, but the European Commission wants to prevent us from doing so. Or at least to portray people who tell the truth about Israel’s crimes as anti-Semites. 

The two officials who are most active within the European Commission on this dossier are both Germans. They are Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU’s coordinator against anti-Semitism, and her deputy, Johannes Börmann. Both of them have actually tried to compare the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) with the Nazis. That’s quite outrageous, to put it mildly. The BDS call is a clear demand for justice and equality, the very opposite of what the Nazis stood for.

As officials, von Schnurbein and Börmann are supposed to work for the EU collectively and not for their home country. I have no evidence to suggest they are taking orders from (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel or anyone else in Berlin. But their agenda certainly chimes with that of the German establishment. We know, for example, that the Bundestag (on May 17, 2019) declared the BDS movement as anti-Semitic. 

MEP: How critical is the German-Israeli “special relationship” in shaping EU policy toward the Palestinians?  To what extent has that relationship enhanced the influence of the Israel lobby within EU institutions?

CRONIN: The “special relationship” is often framed as a response to the Holocaust, so it certainly has had some influence in shaping EU policy toward the Palestinians.  Israel has to a large extent weaponized the Holocaust, and EU governments, including Germany, have allowed them to do so. The suffering of Jews during the 20th century is being exploited to distract from Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians during the 21st.