The Goethe Institute, cultural arm of the German government, cancelled a speech on its premises this week by Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils after he had likened Israel to the Nazis.
Kasrils had to move to another venue at the last minute to deliver the speech in a seminar organised by the Ceasefire Campaign, the Centre for Policy Studies, (CPS) the South African Liaison Office, the Action Support Centre and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR).
The Goethe Institute objected to wording in the invitation which these organisations sent out to the seminar on the subject: Israel and Lebanon; Unpacking the source of the Middle East conflict.
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The invitation quoted from a recent article by Kasrils published in the Mail & Guardian, in which he said about the recent Israeli assault on Lebanon that, "we must call baby killers, 'baby killers', and declare that those using methods reminiscent of the Nazis be told that they are behaving like Nazis".
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies complained to the Goethe Institute about these remarks of Kasrils being included in the invitation, the board's head of communications, Charisse Zeifert said.
She said that the Goethe Institute's head of programmes, Nikolai Petersen, told her that the institute had "harshly" criticised the seminar invitation and had been told by the organisers that they would not send it out.
But Petersen told Zeifert that the organisers did send out the invitation out after all, and because of this "deception", the Goethe Institute had cancelled the use of its premises.
On Wednesday Richard Smith of the CSVR strongly denied that the organisers had deceived the Goethe Institute.
He said that by the time the institute had complained about the wording, some invitations had already been sent out.
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This article was originally published on page 6 of Cape Times on October 12, 2006
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