US accuses Merkel of failing to combat Iran’s terrorism and antisemitism
“The German government is so disappointing,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALU.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks next to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, during a news conference to announce the Trump administration's restoration of sanctions on Iran, at the U.S. State Department in Washington, U.S., S(photo credit: PATRICK SEMANSKY/POOL VIA REUTERS)
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Germany’s largest circulating paper in a jaw-dropping on interview on Monday that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is not doing enough to fight the Islamic Republic of Iran's terrorism.“Berlin does too little against mullah terror,” reads the sub-headline of the interview conducted by paper’s editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt via video.When asked about the difference between Europe and the US with respect to the controversial Iran nuclear deal, Pompeo said: "There's been disagreement for years now about the value of this nuclear deal. The United States views it not only as unfortunate, but dangerous. The Europeans have suggested that somehow staying inside of this is important, the United States have taken a different approach. We are not going to allow them to have the money and wealth to allow them to continue to ferment terror.”We are not going to send pallets of cash over to the Iranian regime," he added. "We are going to develop a system that makes sure Iran never has a nuclear weapon. The United States has the capacity to lead the world to push back against this terror threat."When Reichelt asked Pompeo about Germany’s moral responsibility (a reference to the Holocaust), Iran’s murder of the innocent wrestler Navid Afkaria, and sanctions targeting German companies who do business with Tehran, Pompeo said "German business will understand the risk and they will comply with the UNSC resolutions. It is the German government that is so disappointing. This country (Iran) has created assassination campaigns across Europe.”Pompeo added that "the German government tells us they agree with that they don't want Iran to buy and sell weapons, yet they have come up with no plan, no alternative to prevent it. The US is going to lead, the US will make the right decision, the moral decision. Not only did they execute this wrestler, remember this is the most antisemitic nation on the planet, that does not only threaten to destroy America, but also the nation of Israel. I think the German people understand the risk, the threat to themselves and to the world. This is not a country that should escape the sanctions that UNSC Resolution 2231 lays out, that is not a nation that on October 19 this year be able to buy and sell weapons."The Jerusalem Post sent a press a query to Germany’s federal commission for combating antisemitism, Felix Klein, asking if he agreed with Pompeo about the Islamic Republic of Iran being the top state-sponsor of antisemitism.Klein criticized antisemitism in the US last year but has refused to answer multiple Post queries about Iran’s sponsorship of Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Klein’s counterpart in Elan Carr, America's special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, has previously said that Iran is the "world’s chief trafficker in antisemitism" and that "antisemitism isn’t ancillary to the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a central foundational component of the ideology of that regime – and we have to be clear about it, and we have to confront it and call it out for what it is.”It is unclear why Klein won’t criticize the regime of Ali Khamenei in Tehran - the top international state-sponsor of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Merkel's Foreign Ministry has celebrated Iran's Islamic revolution multiple times at Tehran's embassy.In 2019, the president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, sent a congratulatory telegram in the name of the German people to honor Iran's Islamic revolution.
Merkel told the Knesset that Israel's security is "non-negotiable" for her government. Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi urged Merkel to join the US in imposing UN snapback sanctions on Iran's regime to prevent Iran from purchasing new weapons. Merkel ignored Ashkenazi's request.In response to Klein's silence, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean for the human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post on Tuesday that "tragically it is clear why Dr. Klein won’t condemn Iranian regime’s Jew-hatred and Holocaust denial, his government won’t let him. Implications play out not only in halls of diplomacy but on streets of Germany. Shame on Chancellor Merkel and foreign minister [Heiko] Maas."
