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JEWS UPSET
Ceremony for German war dead postponed following Israeli protests
German
embassy puts off TEL AVIV—The German embassy has postponed a memorial ceremony for German soldiers killed during two world wars—including SS and Wehrmacht units in the army of the Third Reich—after Sunday's report about it in Ha'aretz drew angry reactions. The Tel Aviv embassy's spokesman Reinhard Weimar told Ha'aretz the event was being postponed because "we understood that in the present context it leads to a public discourse in Israel that we want to avoid." As Ha'aretz reported, invitations to the ceremony at the cemetery for World War I soldiers in Nazareth were sent to senior reserve officers researching World War I, and they assumed the event was in the context of that war. To their astonishment they discovered they were being invited to honor the memory of "the fallen and missing servicemen in both world wars" who had served in German armies. The Ha'aretz report drew angry protests that led to the embassy deciding to put off the event. The spokesman said: "We still intend to hold the ceremony itself. We understood that the text on the invitation about commemorating soldiers killed or missing in both world wars aroused anger in Israel. Perhaps it will be dedicated, as it was a few times in the past, to the memory of World War I soldiers, but we still have to discuss the framework and nature of the ceremony. In any case, it is postponed for now."
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