Power Suits 2 June 2020
Katharina von Schnurbein has made false allegations against the Palestine solidarity movement.
Sven SimonKatharina von Schnurbein, the European Union’s coordinator against anti-Semitism, has risen to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 lockdown.
Unable to schmooze with pro-Israel lobbyists face-to-face, she has instead been keeping in touch with them online.
Von Schnurbein appears to have been entertaining Israel’s advocates ever since she was appointed to her current post in December 2015. But does she – supposedly a public servant – have a mandate to do so?
After a long battle, I have finally gotten hold of the job description drawn up for von Schnurbein by the EU’s administration.
That document – outlining her core tasks and responsibilities – does not refer to Israel even once.
The omission is curious as there are strong reasons to suspect that von Schnurbein’s post was created with the sole – or at least the primary – objective of pleasing Israel and its supporters.
The very idea of the EU appointing a coordinator against anti-Semitism was proposed at an event hosted by Israel’s foreign ministry earlier in 2015.
Warped thinking
Von Schnurbein’s job description – published below – commits her to “liaise closely with the Jewish community” and to alert EU policy makers of that community’s concerns.
The phrase “Jewish community” is not a synonym for Israel.
Indeed, treating “Jewish community” as a synonym for Israel would be anti-Semitic. It would hold Jews in Europe responsible for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
And if the Brussels bureaucracy is actually using the terms “Jewish community” and “Israel” interchangeably, then it is guilty of the same warped thinking which pervades the US elite.
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have suggested that Jews in the US are indistinguishable from Israel.
Jewish communities are not monolithic on either side of the Atlantic.
Jews in Europe hold a variety of different views about Israel yet von Schnurbein and her colleagues have sought to distort that reality. Jews critical of Israel and its state ideology Zionism have been excluded from the EU’s deliberations on anti-Semitism.
Von Schnurbein works in the justice department of the European Commission – the EU’s executive. Its work is supposedly guided by a charter of rights.
That charter upholds the right to hold and express opinions and ideas “without interference by public authority.”
Far from respecting that right, von Schnurbein has tried to police opinions critical of Israel.
Outrageous lie
She has made false and malicious allegations against Palestine solidarity activists, especially those urging boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Last year, she spoke at the Brussels launch of an Israeli government “study” on the BDS movement.
During her comments, she accused BDS campaigners of criticizing the singer Matisyahu because he is Jewish. That was an outrageous lie.
The truth is that Matisyahu has been condemned by activists because he has raised funds for Israel’s military and applauded an attack on a flotilla sailing toward Gaza – not because of his religion or ethnicity.
And in 2018, von Schnurbein disregarded the political neutrality required of EU civil servants, to regurgitate Israel lobby talking points smearing an elected member of the European Parliament as anti-Semitic.
The lawmaker had hosted an event with a Palestinian speaker in spite of objections from Israel lobby groups.
The EU’s staff regulations forbid its officials from following instructions issued by external governments.
By parroting lies concocted by Israel and its support network, von Schnurbein is breaking those rules.
How does she get away with it? The most plausible explanation is that she enjoys support from the EU hierarchy.
For most of the past five years, von Schnurbein has been answerable to Vera Jourova, the Czech member of the European Commission. Jourova has smeared the Palestine solidarity movement, using extremely similar, if not identical, terms to von Schnurbein.
I have been trying to obtain von Schnurbein’s job description since 2018. When I made my initial freedom of information request, the European Commission refused to release the document.
Eventually, however, it agreed to do so – after I took the matter to the EU’s ombudsman, nominally a citizen’s watchdog.
I had argued that the job description should be made available in order to assess if von Schnurbein had been formally tasked with pursuing a pro-Israel agenda.
The response from the European Commission to that argument displays a contempt for democracy.
Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission’s president, replied that it was the job of the EU hierarchy to scrutinize von Schnurbein’s work. The general public, von der Leyen implied, did not need to worry about such matters.
Tellingly, the European Commission did not try to deny that von Schnurbein is acting in Israel’s perceived interests.
Could the evidence be so strong that nobody can refute it?
Comments
Schnurbein as Israel/EU Top Thought-Police
Permalink Paul Dva replied on
Schnurbein's job description as: "Liasoning with the Jewish Community"? In Germany they have CLOSED bank accounts of Jews who support #BDS (Jewish Voice for Peace, see : https://tinyurl.com/y7vpysv5 ) , banned them from public events, including Jewish musicians who are suspected of supporting BDS.
Jewish Israelis have been brutalized + charged for criticizing #Racism in Israel. That kind of "liasoning"?
Schnurbein violates the EU self-ascribed "values" of freedom-of-speech and anti-discrimination. All with EU tax-Euros, serving simply the Israeli agenda. Absolutely disgraceful.
The public
Permalink Frank Dallas replied on
The comment about the public gives the game away. The EU has little concern for democracy. Its support for Israel is consonant with its capitalist, corporate nature. The essential point, of course, is that if Palestinians win their rights, a serious and possibly fatal blow is dealt to the ruling conception of progress: the superior people must advance at the cost of the inferior. This has been the doctrine for centuries. It is the essence of colonialism. If it is defeated, the risk to the rich and powerful is the move towards a world built on universal equal rights. The terrible truth is that the Palestinians are to be sacrificed to keep this version of progress alive. The sanctimonious rhetoric of Western leaders notwithstanding, BDS, an obviously principled campaign whose equally obvious purpose is justice, is attacked as illegitimate. Why? Because Israel is passed off as a modern, advanced, productive, wealthy, hi-tech country. By implication it is so because it is superior, and the Palestinians suffer because they are inferior. Injustice is the order of the day. What matters are money and power. Hence the nice suits and the clean-cut image, the lip-service to democracy and the appearance of competence. What the American poet Kenneth Rexroth called "a clean and prosperous evil." Or as Shakespeare said: "Robes and furred gowns hide all." Not a single European leader is up in arms about possible annexation. Not one tells the truth about the oppression of the Palestinians. A welter of misinformation and dissembling conceals the abhorrent facts. A clean and properous evil indeed.
great journalism
Permalink Carl Zaisser replied on
Mr. Cronin's piece is an intelligent example of real investigative journalism. His logic exposing the abuses of anti-Jewishness (anti-Semitism, if you prefer), are unassailable.