Britain has been the main European hub for groups advocating a boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) strategy against the Jewish state. Germany, however, has enacted policies which now make it a stark rival for the UK's hardcore anti-Israel movement.
Consider the reports last week that the German government asked Deutsche Bahn (DB) to pull the plug on its long-planned Israeli rapid-rail project from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because the line will traverse a small section of disputed West Bank territory.
German Transport Minister and Christian Social Union MP Peter Ramsauer offered the following reason for terminating the project: "Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad Al-Malki, members of the German Parliament and media have criticised a project in which DB International is acting as adviser to Israel's state-run railway."
One of the German MPs who wrote to him was the Left Party's Inge Höger. Last month, she propagated a wild conspiracy theory that the Israeli government murdered two pro-Palestinian activists because their deaths could deal a "serious blow" to the - slated - second flotilla to Gaza.
