Germany honors Israeli 'Israel hater'

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL JPOST CORRESPONDENT IN BERLIN
Berlin - Horst Köhler, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, issued on Thursday the 'Federal Cross of Merit, first class,' the most prestigious award in Germany, to Israeli attorney Felicia Langer, a vociferous critic of Israel, who lives in the city of Tübingen in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg. Langer frequently compares Israel with apartheid in South Africa, and praised the anti-Semitic speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva at the Durban II UN conference on racism. When asked about the award and her comparison between Israel and South African apartheid, she told the Jerusalem Post that the Federal Cross of Merit is a "recognition of my work," and "what Israel is practicing in the occupied territories is apartheid." In an interview with the junge Welt, a radical anti-Zionist Germany daily, she termed Israel, "the apartheid of the present" and refers to the Jewish state as "the Israeli regime." Asked about her interview with the anti-Israeli website Muslim Markt, in which she argued that Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as well as other leading Israeli politicians and generals, should be charged and convicted with war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Langer told the Post that she considers Israeli officials "war criminals" and stands by her comments. She said the "official translation" of Ahmadinejad's threat to "wipe Israel off the map" did not contain a statement seeking the obliteration of Israel.
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