COLOGNE, Germany (CNS): Remarks made by German bishops during a recent visit to the West Bank have caused a storm of reaction from Jewish leaders in Germany.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli Embassy responded angrily to comments by Bishop Gregor Hanke of Eichstaett, who compared the situation of Palestinians in Ramallah with that of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland during World War II.
For his part, Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg described the Israel-Palestinian situation as “almost racism”.
The bishops were on a week-long pilgrimage, which ended on March 4 with a visit to Ramallah in the West Bank.
The bishops toured Israel and met with Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as with Rabbi Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and local bishops and priests. They also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
Bishop Hanke later distanced himself from his comments and said in a statement that “comparisons between the events of the Holocaust and the current situation in Palestine are not acceptable and were not intended”.
Charlotte Knobloch, who is head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said Bishop Hanke had “either demonstrated an alarming lack of knowledge about history, or he was trying to make the Holocaust victims and the children into the guilty parties and turn himself into their therapist”.
The Israeli ambassador in Berlin, Shimon Stein, said that anyone who made such comparisons had “either forgotten everything, learned nothing or failed morally”.
