German MP blames Israel for Mer, Arrigoni deaths

 Jerusalem Post

Inge Höger was aboard the Mavi Marmara last May; attributed murders of Italian activist and Arab-Israeil actor to Israeli government. 

BERLIN – Inge Höger, a Left Party member of the Bundestag who was aboard the Mavi Marmara when it tried to break the blockade of Gaza last May, had reportedly attributed the recent murders by Palestinians of pro- Palestinian Israeli filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis and Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni to Israel’s government.

“Inge Höger’s wild conspiracy theory is pure speculation, without any concrete factual basis,” Volker Beck, a leading German Green Party MP and spokesman for the party on human rights, said last week.

Writing on her Left Party website, Höger asked: “The question one must pose is: Who profits from this terrible crime? First of all, now two of the activists most ‘dangerous’ for Israel, because they were the most engaged, wellknown and noted, are eliminated.

The murders of Vittorio and Juliano could also be a means of dealing a serious blow to the international solidarity movement – especially given the upcoming second flotilla and the fact that international activists still won’t let themselves be prevented from going to Palestine.”

She continued, “In the past there have been many documented false flag attacks (for example, the Lavon Affair [in 1954]), and in the Palestinian territories there are constantly cases of collaboration by Palestinians with Israel in the murder of Palestinians – for money, for a new ID card, for travel permits.”

The German daily Die Welt on Friday called Höger a “flawless anti-Semite” because of her anti-Israel and anti-Jewish comments.

While the Hamas authorities arrested radical Salafists for the murder of Arrigoni in the Gaza Strip on April 15, the killers of Mer-Khamis, who was murdered in Jenin on April 4, have not been apprehended.

Höger reportedly used German taxpayer funds to travel on the Mavi Marmara last year and agreed to be lodged in the segregated women’s deck aboard the vessel. Critics have longed charged her with spending the bulk of her time as a member of parliament bashing Israel and stoking anti- Jewish state sentiments in the Federal Republic.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Germany’s representative on the UN Security Council, Peter Witting, urged the organizers of the Gaza protest flotilla slated for next month to avoid rekindling tensions.

“We call on the organizations involved to find other ways to deliver aid to the people of Gaza,” he said.

Udo Steinbach, the former head of the German Orient Institute in Hamburg, is the patron of the German delegation helping to organize the second Gaza flotilla. Steinbach’s anti-Israel views are frequently cited in the major media in the Federal Republic.

He compares Palestinian “resistance” against Israel to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Germans in 1943.

He appeared at a pro-Iranian regime event with Iran’s ambassador to Germany.

“The Israelis are massacring the Palestinians,” Steinbach has said.

Reinhold Robbe, the head of the Germany-Israeli friendship society, slammed Steinbach and the German press earlier this month. “Whenever he [Steinbach] has a chance to formulate hatred of Israel, he is available,” Robbe said. He called for news organizations, publicly funded organizations, and political foundations in Germany to cease working with Steinbach. Robbe cited a quote in which Steinbach said, “Hamas is a men’s choir with different voices.”