Human Rights Groups after Their Meeting with the German FM: We Don’t Take Orders from Netanyahu

Far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a scheduled meeting with Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Tuesday, April 25, after Gabriel planned meetings with representatives of Israeli human rights groups Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem. Netanyahu’s action is yet another manifestation of the continued rising intolerance in the Israeli government for any criticism targeting its occupation policy.

President Reuven Rivlin met Tuesday afternoon at his residence in Jerusalem with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, following the cancelation of the latter’s meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu

President Reuven Rivlin met Tuesday afternoon at his residence in Jerusalem with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, following the cancelation of the latter’s meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: GPO)

Gabriel met with human rights advocacy groups in Herzliya late Tuesday after defying the ultimatum by Netanyahu to cancel the meeting. Shortly after the meeting, one of the groups, B’Tselem, called on the international community to punish Israel for the continued occupation of the Palestinian West Bank. According to B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad: “Our message is the same message we delivered at the UN Security Council [in October 2016], the message we say to the Israeli public and won’t stop saying — the occupation must end and you can’t hide it, not from Israelis and not from the world.” El-Ad told Israel’s Channel 2 after the meeting: “That’s the truth and those are the facts and it’s not clear what the prime minister is so afraid of.”

 

After the meeting with the German foreign minister, Breaking the Silence chairperson, Yuli Novak, reflected on Netanyahu’s behavior, saying it was “so psychotic that a prime minister acts so unreasonably, by any standard. Calling him a diplomatic bull in a china shop would be a compliment.”

 

B’Tselem followed up the meeting by issuing an English-language press release calling on the international community to punish Israel for the continued occupation. “There must be a price to pay for continued military control of another people while thumbing one’s nose at basic moral values and international law,” the statement said. It claimed that “the Israeli prime minister and most of his colleagues in both the coalition and opposition parties have no intention of ending the occupation,” and added, “As long as it does not meet the minimum conditions of democracy, Israel cannot enjoy the privileges that go with being a card-carrying member of the club of democratic countries.”