Deutsche Welle, 7 December 2012
The Czech
Republic was the only European country to vote against Palestinian statehood at
the UN General Assembly. This cements the friendship Prague enjoys with Israel.
DW takes a look at the relationship.
By a margin
of 138 to nine (with 41 abstentions) the United Nations General Assembly voted
overwhelmingly last week to upgrade Palestinian status to that of a
"non-member observer state."
While the
vote was met with thunderous applause inside the assembly, a few very notable
pairs of hands were not clapping. Both Israel and America strongly opposed the
decision, saying it would push the peace process backwards. Also dissenting
were Canada, a handful of tiny states including Micronesia and Palau, and
finally - alone in Europe - the Czech Republic.
Israel's
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a special visit to the Czech Republic
this week to personally thank the Czechs for voting against the Palestinian
statehood. Netanyahu called the Czech Republic "Israel's best friend in
Europe," and believes their relationship goes even deeper.
 |
| Israel supporters gave Netanyahu a warm welcome in Prague, blowing religiously symbolic 'shofars' |
A shared history?
The special
relationship between Czechs and Israelis goes back decades, Netanyahu believes,
to the beginning of the state of Israel and beyond. "I think the people of
Israel and I personally admire the Czech Republic and the history of the Czech
people," Netanyahu said.
"We're
familiar with it, and we feel a natural kinship to it. Not only because you too
were surrounded by forces that were hostile to freedom, and you went through
your own struggle, but you have emerged from a period of darkness, restored
liberty, built up your society and you're quickly catching up on the years that
were lost. For us, for the Jewish people, we lost thousands of years."
In the
early years WWII Czechoslovakia was a strong supporter of Israel, supplying
weapons, aircraft and training to the nascent Jewish state even after the
communist takeover of Prague in 1948. Ezer Weizman, onetime commander of the
Israeli Air Force and Israel's seventh president, learned to fly fighter planes
at an airfield in southern Czechoslovakia and within weeks was taking part in
Israel's first fighter mission of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Understanding
this relationship, says Tomas Kraus, executive director of the Federation of
Czech Jewish Communities, is key to understanding why Czechs tend to sympathize
with Israel.
"They
say - look what the Israelis are doing. If we had been fighting in 1938, after
the so-called Munich Agreement, or appeasement, maybe there would have been no
World War Two."
Against the
grain
The
decision to vote contrary to European thinking on Palestine - 14 EU countries
voted in favor of upgrading Palestinian membership - cemented the Czechs'
reputation as a lone staunch supporter of Israel in Europe.
 |
| Netanyahu (left) met Necas in Prague on Thursday |
That
sympathy has often gotten Czech politicians into trouble. In 2002, former Prime
Minister Milos Zeman famously compared Palestinians to the Sudeten Germans -
Germans living in Czech territories prior to World War Two - and even suggested
there were similarities between Yasser Arafat and Hitler. He said he was
misquoted, but his government was forced to apologize for the remarks.
More
recently, the Czech presidency of the European Union was embroiled in
controversy within days of taking over the EU in January 2009, when a
government spokesman described Israel's bombardment of Gaza as a ‘defensive'
action. European partners were outraged. The Czech government was quickly
forced to clarify the remarks.
Verbal
blunders aside, few now doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu is right to
describe the Czech Republic as Israel's best friend in Europe. Unafraid of the
ire of their EU partners or global public opinion, Czechs appear determined to
support Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.
Related Article:
NO voters:
US
Israel
Panama
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Naura
Palau
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