Opposition to a Trump Appointee, But…

Col Douglas Macgregor, Trump nominee for ambassador to Germany

I received an email from a frequent commentator that I have a lot of respect for despite the fact that we have substantial disagreements on some issues. He is a very bright and caring individual albeit a bit caustic in his retorts here. He expressed disgust at the President’s nomination of retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor as US ambassador to Germany. Referencing a CNN article with a title that reads:

 Jewish advocacy groups slam Trump's pick for German ambassador for bigoted comments.

CNN reporters, Caroline Kelly and Andrew Kaczynski tell us why The American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, J Street, the StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism and B'nai B'rith are so appalled at this: 

Macgregor, among other comments, criticized Germany for giving "millions of unwanted Muslim invaders" welfare benefits rather than providing more funding for its armed services, and downplayed the country's Nazi history. He described the German cultural concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which seeks to "cope with the past" and confront the atrocities the country committed in World War II, as a "sick mentality."

"There's sort of a sick mentality that says that generations after generations must atone sins of what happened in 13 years of German history and ignore the other 1,500 years of Germany," Macgregor said in 2018. "And Germany played a critical role in central Europe in terms of defending the serving Western civilization. So I think that's, that's the problem."

For someone like me, the child of Holocaust survivors, it is particularly upsetting to see someone that thinks that Germany ought to stop obsessing over its past, not compensate survivors for the unimaginable horrors they lived through at the hand of Germany’s leaders… and just move on. 

That is indeed a pretty disgusting attitude. No country that has that kind of blood on their hands has the right to just move on. Even decades after the fact. They must confront their past – even though the current leadership had nothing to do with it. They are culpable as a country. They know it. And they are facing it. To suggest that they move on and forget about it is about as insensitive a comment anyone could ever make to the people that – at the hands of that country - experienced the loss millions of its members - along with untold tortures experienced by survivors. 

So I too am appalled by Macgregor’s nomination for that post. That being said, I have to wonder why those that protested this so vehemently did not include other mainline Jewish advocacy groups (e.g. AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents, the OU, the RCA, and Agudah, among others.) 

I have to conclude that there is more to the story - considering that the groups articulating this condemnation are among the the President’s harshest critics. I have to suspect ulterior motives since they do not represent a united Jewish front.These are people that want to see the end of the Trump Presidency and are doing everything they can to make him look as bad as possible. They want Trump defeated at the polls next November. Which will usher in a Biden Presidency. More about that later. 

In any case - as opposed as I am to this nomination, it doesn't concern me that much. I don’t see a US ambassador undermining the policies of the President that appointed him. There is no a doubt in my mind that his policies with respect to Israel and religious freedom are things we ought to appreciate and be grateful for regardless about how we feel about him personally. 

There is not that much an ambassador can do to implement his own polices. Nor do I believe for a moment that the German government as now constructed would reverse a decades old policy trying to atone for its Nazi past. (Which it can never do, anyway. There is no way to atone for genocide. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have an obligation to try.) 

If I am right about the ulterior motives of this particular group of Jewish organizations, I am much more concerned that a Biden win will a return the US to the Obama era foreign policy with a stupid deal that implicitly green-lighted Iranian export of terrorism...  and a return to  a policy that had become increasingly hostile to Israel - demonstrated by the fact that for first time we abstained on a UN Security Council vote to condemn Israeli settlements... 

US opposition to settlements at that time involved even normal expansion by growing families living in border line cities established long ago . Cities that would almost certainly become part of Israel in any kind of two state solution. Which was already agreed upon at Oslo during negotiations more than 20 years ago by Palestinians in exchange for some land swaps. I am not opposed at all to ‘settlement’ activity like that. 

It is true that I am not a fan of settlements. But that mostly applies to ‘trailer park’ type settlements deep into the West Bank for purposes of antagonizing local Palestinians. I have no problem with a growing family living in border town Maale Adumim needing to add a room.  

If Biden wins, it will once again be our policy to condemn such things. And frankly that appalls me a heck of a lot more than appointing an ambassador to Germany that doesn't think they ought to dwell on their Nazi  past.