Re “Berlin conference didn’t lump Islamophobia with anti-Semitism” (Right of Reply, Yehuda Bauer, March 5):

I am very grateful that Elie Wiesel took a position in The Jerusalem Post on the dispute about the Berlin Center for Anti-Semitism Research. He spoke carefully, in the conditional: “If indeed the Berlin Center downplays the Iranian anti-Semitic threat, it surely is deplorable.”

The Berlin Center is an important public institution with an international reputation. It should, especially in Germany, be addressing Iran’s anti-Semitic threat energetically, so that politicians and industry understand why the increase in German exports to Iran in 2008 is inexcusable.

In this area, the center has failed. To date, it has not published a single public statement on Iran’s anti-Semitic threat. Whenever its director, Prof. Wolfgang Benz, distances himself from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he does so in general terms that do not address his anti-Semitism.

To this day, the Iranian threat has not appeared in the center’s numerous projects and classes. The terms “Ahmadinejad,” “Hizbullah” and “Hamas” are not mentioned on the center’s home page - as if their policies had nothing to do with the educational work of a “Center for Anti-Semitism Research.” This is comparable to a group of earthquake researchers purposely ignoring an impending earthquake.

Does the center intend to change any of this? The answer that Prof. Benz gave to this question when I asked him on December 8, 2008 was not very encouraging: He saw no need for justification nor change.

MATTHIAS KUENTZEL
Hamburg
(The writer is author of ‘Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the roots of 9/11’ (also published in Hebrew last year by Koren) and on the board of directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237114834063&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull