The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Germany “to declare its opposition to a draft UN Security Council resolution that would demand Israel’s return to its pre-June 1967 borders."
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council at UN headquarters in New York, U.S., February 20, 2018(photo credit: REUTERS/LUCAS JACKSON)
The German government informed The Jerusalem Post that it has not decided on how it would vote on an anti-Israel resolution sponsored by Tunisia and Indonesia condemning the Trump administration’s peace plan for Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.“The Federal Government examines each draft resolution put to a vote in a UN body and decides on this basis for further action,” German Foreign Ministry sources told the Post.The vote on the resolution that was scheduled for Tuesday was delayed, but was expected to be moved forward a later time, a diplomatic source told the Post.Human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Germany on Sunday “to declare its opposition to a draft UN Security Council resolution that would demand Israel’s return to its pre-June 1967 borders.”The draft of the resolution that was slated to be presented this week by Tunisia and Indonesia on behalf of the Palestinians to the UN Security Council lost steam on Monday and was be postponed by the PLO due to lack of support among Security Council members.The Wiesenthal Center said the resolution “states several times that a two-state solution would be based on what Abba Eban, Israel’s late foreign minister... dubbed, ‘Auschwitz borders.’ In addition, the resolution labels ‘Israeli settlements,’ ‘illegal occupied territories,’ including ‘east Jerusalem.”’Rabbis Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Wiesenthal Center, and Abraham Cooper, the organization’s associate dean and director of Global Social Action Agenda, said that “On the eve of the June 1967 war, Israel’s border was a mere seven miles between Jordan and the Mediterranean. No Israeli will ever agree to place the nation’s heartland and key population centers in existential peril.”Hier and Cooper added that “Israel will never cede sovereignty over its capital, Jerusalem. From 1948 to 1967, Jews were barred from visiting the Western Wall, and all synagogues in the Old City were destroyed. The international community did nothing then to safeguard Jewish rights. Since 1967, pilgrims of all faiths have had their religious rights protected by the Jewish state.“We urge German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to announce that Germany will oppose any such initiative and any language that defines Jewish holy sites, including the Western Wall, as ‘occupied Palestinian territory.”’The center’s officials said that, “it is high time for Germany, whose chancellor describes her nation as a friend of the Jewish state, to draw a diplomatic redline against initiatives that would endanger Israel’s future.”
In December 2019, Germany’s UN ambassador was listed on the Wiesenthal Center’s Top Ten Anti-Israel/Antisemitic List for casting over two dozen anti-Israel votes at the United Nations. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen reportedly compared Israel to Hamas and voted for scores of anti-Israel resolutions at the world body.Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.
