On Feb. 12, I looked at the bearded face of the European Parliament's president, Martin Schulz, as right-wing Knesset members, led by ministers of the HaBayit HaYehudi Party, competed with each other in hurling insults at the German guest. I wondered what was going through the mind of the man, who heads the biggest multinational parliament in the world — the second in the world (after India) in terms of the size of the population it represents — upon hearing a Jewish member of Knesset accuse him of supporting “those who incite toward the destruction of Jews.”
What does the senior politician think of Jewish representatives who refuse to recognize the suffering of another people? What does the representative of the German Social Democrats (SPD), who may be elected this year as president of the European Commission — the executive arm of the European Union that initiates most of its laws — think about the extent of the rationality of some Israeli decision-makers?
One can assume that Schulz knows that Germany is the only country in the European leadership that has not adhered to the Feb. 22, 2013, request of the European High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, to fully implement the European legislation regarding the labeling of products made in the settlements. Germany’s foreign minister did not add his signature to those of his colleagues from France, Great Britain, Spain and 10 additional European foreign ministers, who wrote to Ashton in April 2013 that they had decided it was time to label settlement products to ensure that the consumers in their countries “are not being misled by false information.”
The right-wing representatives in the Knesset treated Schulz to a demonstration of disrespect for the Holocaust. They were not moved by the guest’s confession that it was the crimes of the Nazis that motivated him to go into politics, and that he bears responsibility in the name of his people and his country for the unforgivable suffering caused to the Jewish people. What does Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett care about the statement of the senior European that “Iran must not have nuclear weapons”? What does the settler Knesset member Motti Yogev care about Schulz’s public disavowal of an economic boycott of Israel and his commitment that “the European Union will always stand at the side of the State of Israel”?
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