German Foreign Ministry Hires Hijab-Wearing Muslima Who Defends Israel’s Destruction

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Angela Merkel promised to make Israel’s security the centerpiece of her policy. But that was then. And this is now.

The newest appointee to Germany’s Foreign Office is a Muslim woman, Nurhan Soykan, who is not just a Muslim, but a fanatical antisemite who supports the al-Quds Day rally in Germany, supported by Iran, which call for the destruction of Israel. Her story is here.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Foreign Ministry has been plunged into a devastating new antisemitism scandal for the hiring of a radical Islamist who defends the annual Iranian regime-sponsored rally al-Quds Day calling for the obliteration of Israel.

“Andreas Görgen, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s department for culture and communication, welcomed the Islamist Nurhan Soykan on Monday on his Twitter feed, writing that Soykan will be on “our team Religion and Foreign Policy” at the Foreign Ministry.

How exactly will this Al-Quds Day supporter, and visceral hater of Israel, fit into what Andreas Görgen fulsomely calls “our team” at the Foreign Ministry? Will she do outreach to Muslims in Germany? Is her task to represent Germany to the Muslim world, or is it, rather, to represent the Muslim world to Germany? Will she try to convince the German government to rethink its imposition of a ban on the “political wing” of Hezbollah? Will she urge the German government to win the support of the Muslim world by allowing in still more millions of Muslim immigrants? Will she urge Germany to support a weapons embargo on Israel if it refuses to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines? Or, in the alternative, will she urge Berlin to support the “one-state solution” that some Arabs now favor, that is, a country consisting of present-day Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, which due to demography would mean the end of the Jewish state? There are so many possibilities for the malevolent Nurhan Soykan, now burrowing deep within the German state.

And among the many millions of Muslims now in Germany, why did Andreas Görgen appoint this particular Islamist? Were there no “cultural Muslims” to be found? Not a single Muslim could be located in all of Germany who did not wish so ardently for the destruction of the state of Israel? Did Andreas Görgen try and fail to find them, or more likely, did he, whose support for the academic Achille Mbembe (see below) shows he is not troubled by antisemitism, deliberately want such an Islamist on his “team,” as a true representative of the faith?

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post that the “German government bemoans antisemitism, then appoints secretary-general of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Nurhan Soykan, as a consultant for the Foreign Ministry’s Religion and Foreign Policy team. So she can promote more antisemitic al-Quds marches and justify hatred of Jewish state.”

In her defense of the antisemitic al-Quds rally, Soykan told German radio station Deutschlandfunk in 2014 that opponents of Israeli politics “who want to show their anger sometimes” must be given the opportunity “to clear the air in the way of a demonstration.”

A “demonstration” is one thing. A rally where participants ceaselessly scream antisemitic slogans, call for the mass murder of Israelis, and demand the total destruction of the Jewish state, is quite another. Yet that is what Soykan supports. Did her interviewer at Deutschlandfunk not think to make the distinction for her?

German politicians and Jewish organizations have called for the al-Quds rally to be banned.

But now a supporter of that very rally has become part of the German government.

The Post first revealed in April that Görgen sent out at least seven tweets in support of an alleged antisemitic academic, Achille Mbembe, who has trivialized the Holocaust and supported Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) activity against Israel.

This Foreign Office functionary, Andreas Görgen, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Culture and Communication, is clearly a moral idiot. His tireless support for Achille Mbembe, as profound an antisemite as Louis Farrakhan or Hassan Nasrallah, should have cost Andreas Görgen his job. Here’s a small sample of Achille Mbembe’s “discourse” on Israel: “The occupation of Palestine is the biggest moral scandal of our times, one of the most dehumanizing ordeals of the century we have just entered, and the biggest act of cowardice of the last half-century. And since all they [the Jews] are willing to offer is a fight to the finish, since what they are willing to do is to go all the way—carnage, destruction, incremental extermination—the time has come for global isolation.” When people objected to Mbembe’s appearance as a main speaker at the music and cultural festival (in the end it was cancelled because of the coronavirus) Ruhrtriennale, Andreas Görgen stoutly defended him. That ought to have been more than enough for Merkel to rid her government of Görgen. She did not. Here’s a rule for Merkel to remember: a stout defender of a vicious antisemite is himself an antisemite. She did not rid her regime of him, and Görgen remained, not merely unapologetic but downright proud that he has now appointed, as a consultant on Islam to the German Foreign Office, the celebrator-of-genocide Nurhan Soykan.

When asked about the criticism of Soykan, the Germany Foreign Ministry told the Post that “The Federal Foreign Office has been supplementing its classic foreign policy between states for many years with a foreign policy of societies, since 2016 specifically also in the field of religion and foreign policy. Over 80% of the world’s population profess a religion.”

The German Foreign Ministry did not reply to the complaints about Nurhan Soykan. It simply answered with a vague announcement about how the Federal Foreign Office now includes representatives of various religions to supplement its “foreign policy between states” with a “foreign policy of societies.” No doubt that “foreign policy of societies” will provide “in-depth” and “holistic” studies of how best for Germany to be friends with the world’s Muslims. Let me guess what Nurhan Soykam will propose: “It’s long past time for Germany to stop being blackmailed by Israel, with those Zionists instrumentalizing the so-called ‘Holocaust’ for their own nefarious purposes. It’s time to recognize that whatever the Nazis did to the Jews – and there are many versions of that story — the Jews are now doing worse things to the Palestinians. Let’s not be afraid to say it. It’s time to recognize that Palestinians, too, have rights – why should they be made to pay for what happened to Jews in Europe? And in any case, whatever happened in Europe has been greatly exaggerated by the Jews to make the world feel sorry for them and overlook the crimes of their colonial-settler state. It’s Palestinian land that the Zionists stole, first in 1922, then still more in 1948, and still more in 1967, and now they propose to formally annex more of the land they have already stolen. And they will continue to expand inexorably, until they attain their dream, which is to rule an empire from the Nile to the Euphrates, unless they are stopped by the civilized world. That means Europe and the Muslims acting together. Germany can play a key role in persuading other European nations to join such a coalition. And that is what I intend to say and to repeat, to the other members of ‘our team’ working under Dr. Andreas Görgen in the Department for Culture and Communication at the German Foreign Office, where I am now proud to serve, as the first Muslim woman – and there will be many more, I’m sure — appointed to fulfill such a solemn task.”

First published in Jihad Watch.