Germany: Spiegel magazine 'manufactured diplomatic crisis with Israel'

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Der Spiegel alleged that Israel denied Steinmeier’s plane permission to fly through its airspace during a trip to the Middle East in May because he snubbed a visit to Israel.

Israel’s embassy in Berlin and the Foreign Ministry vehemently denied a German Der Spiegel article alleging that Israel’s air traffic authority denied German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s plane permission to fly through its airspace during a trip to the Middle East in May because he snubbed a visit to Israel. ”With regret we take note of the news item in the new Spiegel edition,” Adi Farjon, the spokeswoman for Israel’s embassy in Berlin, wrote to The Jerusalem Post.

“Although the flight route of the foreign minister was presented correctly, the described reasons for a change of flight route is completely unfounded. Flight routes to Israel and over Israel are determined by Israel’s air authority and dependent on many factors; political considerations, however, do not play a role.”

“The named reason is therefore not comprehensible,” Farjon added. “At the time that Foreign Minister Steinmeier travelled to Lebanon and Jordan, our Foreign Ministry was already preparing the Israel trip of the foreign minister long before the flight question to the Israeli air traffic authorities.”

Ulrich Sahm, a veteran German journalist in Israel, asserted in a Monday article that Spiegel manufactured the crisis between Israel and Steinmeier.

“Spiegel’s contention is astonishing, because at that time it was already known that Steinmeier would be coming to Israel in two weeks to receive an honorary doctorate at Hebrew University,” wrote Sahm, a prominent German journalist in the German-language website Israelnetz. The article’s title states: "Spiegel invents annoyance between Israel and Germany."  More.

Worth recalling this about Spiegel:

The Samuel Wiesenthal Center listed Jakob Augstein, owner/editer, of the Spiegel,among the authors of the top ten anti-semitic/anti-Israel slurs in 2012.  This is what Mr. Augstein wrote:

 “With backing from the US, where the president must secure the support of Jewish lobby groups, and in Germany, where coping with history, in the meantime, has a military component, the Netanyahu government keeps the world on a leash with an ever-swelling war chant.”

“Israel’s nuclear power is a danger to the already fragile peace of the world. This statement has triggered an outcry.Because it’s true. And because it was made by a German, Guenter Grass, author and Nobel Prize winner. That is the key point. One must, therefore, thank him for taking it upon himself to speak for us all.”

“Israel is threatened by Islamic fundamentalists in its neighborhood. But the Jews also have their fundamentalists, the ultra-orthodox Hareidim. They are not a small splinter group. They make up 10% of the Israeli population. They are cut from the same cloth as their Islamic fundamentalist opponents. They follow the law of revenge.”

“The fire burns in Libya, Sudan, Yemen, in countries which are among the poorest on earth. But those who set the fires live elsewhere. Furious young people burn the American, and recently, the German flag. They, too, are victims, just like the dead at Benghazi and Sanaa. Whom does this all this violence benefit? Always the insane and unscrupulous. And this time it’s the U.S. Republicans and Israeli government.”

“Gaza is a place out of the end of times….1.7 million people live there on 360 sq. kilometers. Israel incubates its own opponents there.”

All translated quotes from Spiegel Online - Jakob Augstein

Respected Die Welt columnist Henryk M. Broder, who has testified as an expert in the Bundestag about German anti-Semitism, labeled Augstein a “little Streicher” adding: “Jakob Augstein is not a salon anti-Semite, he’s a pure anti-Semite…an offender by conviction who only missed the opportunity to make his career with the Gestapo because he was born after the war. He certainly would have had what it takes.”