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Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Germany: Editorial rejecting Israel as Jewish state causes uproar



The Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (Neue OZ), located in the city of Osnabrück in the German state of Lower Saxony, published an editorial on Thursday entitled “Israel as Jewish state: Unacceptable demand.” It compared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s goal of having the Palestinian leadership recognize Israel as a Jewish state to the creation of an “Apartheid state” or a “theocracy” such as the “Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The writer, Franziska Kückmann, argued that “Arab Israelis would be second- class citizens” if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas were to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Israel’s demand to be a Jewish state is not compatible “with a modern state” and “should not be accepted by the international community,” Kückmann wrote.

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In a telephone interview with the Post, Michael Grünberg, head of the Jewish community in Osnabrück, said Kückmann’s comparisons with Iran and Apartheid were a “new form of anti-Semitism.” He said that “when one denies Jews the right to their own state – and that is what the woman does –” it is anti-Semitism.

More: Jerusalem Post

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