BERLIN – Rising criticism from prominent German- Iranians, NGOs and the federal
commissioner for culture and media prompted an elite cultural foundation on
Tuesday to eject Iran’s acting Deputy Foreign Minister Mostafa Dolatyar from its
board of trustees because he called for the destruction of
Israel.
According to a report in Iran’s Mahan News in 2010, Dolatyar
said, “We hope that the prophecy of the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]
regarding the downfall of this regime [Israel] will occur very soon and that we
will witness it.”
A spokesman for Bernd Neumann, Germany’s federal
culture commissioner, told
The Jerusalem Post that one of the reasons Neumann
resigned from the board of the Schloss Neuhardenberg Foundation last week was
Dolatyar’s presence on it.
The Berlin daily
Tagesspiegel wrote on Tuesday
that Dolatyar was ejected because of his previous “anti-Semitic, aggressive
anti-Israeli statement.”
Spokesman Jörg Kronsbein told the
Post that the
foundation was unaware of the anti-Israel statement from Dolatyar. The
foundation has been immersed in criticism because of it close ties with Iran’s
regime.
According to the foundation’s website, the institution seeks “to
deepen relations” and is a “place of meeting” for different cultures.
In
October, the foundation planned a discussion panel with Iran’s Ambassador to
Germany Ali Reza Seikh Attar and German philosopher Rüdiger Safranski to talk
about Iran’s 14th-century national poet Hafez. Anti-Iranian regime groups and
Iranian dissident mounted protests, triggering the cancellation of the event.
The foundation continued to defend its strategy of dialogue with Tehran and
blamed the advocates of democracy in Iran for not allowing for a conflict-free
discussion.
In an telephone interview with the
Post on Tuesday, Dr.
Shimon Samuels, from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said dropping Dolatyar was a
“signal to all German banks and corporations and their easy-going policy toward
Iran.”
Speaking from Paris, Samuels added that "if a deputy Iranian foreign minister is an untouchable," business contacts with Iran should be untouchable for bankers and corporations and all mid-level businesses in the Federal Republic. He said Neumann "should be highly commended and is a man who stands by his convictions."
In an e-mail to the
Post, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, wrote, "The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomes the Foundation's action in evicting an anti-Semite representing an anti-Semitic regime in Tehran, off its board. We hope other leaders in Germany, the European Community and the US will begin to hold accountable other prominent individuals and groups in the Muslim and Arab world who pay no price in the international community for their promotion of genocidal hatred of the Jewish people."
Dr. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, an authority on German-Iranian relations, who discovered Dolatyar's quote in the Persian-language article, told the Post on Wednesday that " Germany should show solidarity with England and recall its Ambassador and diplomats from Tehran." He said the "German government should better control and restrict trade relations with Iran because Iran is dependent on its imports. German firms should abandon their exports to Iran. The economic relationships primarily helps the totalitarian dictator in Iran."