Posted on 11/19/2018 5:28:11 AM PST by SJackson
Germany refuses to say if Jerusalem is Israel's capital.
NEW YORK – In an effort to stop Romania’s government from relocating its embassy to Jerusalem, German chancellor Angela Merkel called Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis in April, urging him to stop Bucharest’s declared announcement to move its diplomatic building to Israel’s capital.
A Western source told The Jerusalem Post that Merkel lobbied the Romanian president to put a halt on the relocation of its embassy to Jerusalem. It is believed that Merkel called other European politicians as part of a campaign to block the relocation of European embassies to Jerusalem.
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The president of Romania’s Chamber of Deputies and a member of Romania’s governing party, the social democratic politician Liviu Dragnea, told the television station Antena 3 in April that the “government adopted a memorandum deciding to start the procedure to effectively move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
The dramatic and apparent anti-Israel intervention by Merkel, who proclaimed in a Knesset speech in 2008 that Israel’s security interests are “non-negotiable” and part of Germany’s raison d’être, was not denied by the governments of Romania and the Federal Republic.
A spokesperson for the Romanian ministry of foreign affairs wrote the Post on Friday by email that “Regarding your question, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot comment on alleged discussions between Angela Merkel and the Romanian President. We would advise you to contact the Presidential Administration should you need to have further information.” Iohannis’s office did not immediately respond to a Post query.
A spokeswoman for the Merkel administration wrote the Post on Thursday “We cannot report from confidential talks.” When asked if Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the Merkel administration spokeswoman declined to answer directly. She said that the “status of Jerusalem should, in the framework of an agreement, be clarified.” The spokeswoman said a solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis can take place with an agreed upon two-state solution, adding “Until a such an agreement is reached, all sides should avoid steps that sharpen the existing tensions and complicate a peaceful solution of the conflict.”
Shir Gideon, a spokeswoman for Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, wrote the Post by email: “We have no comment on this issue.” In April, Romania’s president called on Romania’s pro-Israel prime minister Viorica Dancila to resign because of the government’s approval to relocate the embassy in April. It is unclear if Merkel’s call to Iohannis played a role in his decision to urge Dancila’s ouster.
The US relocated its embassy to Jerusalem in May. Guatemala followed the US lead, and now has its embassy there. Brazil’s newly-elected president Jair Bolsonaro has stated he will move his country’s embassy to Israel’s capital. Similarly, in April Honduras’s National Congress supported a resolution supporting the relocation of its embassy to Jerusalem.
In addition to waging an ostensible campaign to stop the relocation of European embassies to Jerusalem, Merkel rebuffed President Reuven Rivlin’s request last month during her visit to Jerusalem to join US sanctions against Iran’s regime. The US state department considers the Iranian regime to be the top international state-sponsor of terrorism.
Dang Nazis.
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Interesting this is such an important issue to Germany to cause them to pressure their former ally. I wonder how many other Embassy locations Germany ponders.
“YOU VILL LISTEN OR WE WILL INVADE POLAND AND THEN ROMANIA!!!
WE ALREADY HAVE PLANS DRAWN UP TO INVADE ENGLAND!!
BREXIT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!
HITLER DID HAVE A FEW GOOD IDEAS AND HE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD!!”
In response to Merkel, perhaps PDJT should move the US to Bonn from Berlin.
No wonder the people of Germany are tiring of this woman.
Germany interfering in another sovereign nation’s decision regarding Israel? I’ve heard this song before.
Move it to Poland.
I smell John Kerry and Obama...nuff hate to go around for everyone.
Did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?
Hey Merkel...why don’t you turn over the German Government to Muslims...oh wait, you already did.
One of the guys in the office building where I work is a civil engineer who emigrated from Romania maybe 20 years ago. We were outside smoking awhile back and I asked him how many muslims lived in Romania. He smiled and said “maybe a hundred”.
At what point do they realize that doing the same thing over and over again leads to no progress. It’s going to take bold moves if any kind of peace will ever come. Dealing with the Palestinian leadership would be comical if it wasn’t so deadly.
They have to step up and solve their own problems at some point. And while at the UN, the non-voting Palestinian delegation pushes (lightly) for “independence” for some reason they don’t declare it themselves. No country that I know of was created by other people. They have to create it for themselves. There are plenty of countries that have border disputes and the status of the border is not a reason to delay peace. Indeed if they could enforce peace the rest of the pieces would more quickly fall into place. Merkel is wrong to expect the world, and Israel, to wait for the Palestinians to get themselves together. Merkel is still on the playbook from the 1990s. It hasn’t and doesn’t work. Though in one aspect the framework was correct - the Palestinians need leadership - the problem is they are not really one people of one mind, they are a people led by a kleptocracy who benefit from conflict, not from peace.
The status quo, factual but particularly ideological, is hard to break with. So it happens too rarely. For what it's worth, I understand Romania will not move their Embassy. The importance of that, for Romania, Germany or even Israel eludes me.
Merkel can fix that. Romania should take her advice, open the borders to refugees. Eastern Europe seems to have a better recognition of the risks than western/northern Europe. Experience perhaps. Spain and Italy should remember as well.
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