Michael Mann has a history of hanging out with pro-Israel zealots.
Xinhua
Solemnity is regularly mixed with cynicism at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.
When “dignitaries” pay a visit, they bow their heads to remember the millions of Jews annihilated by Germany during its Nazi era. If they bothered to do a little research, the distinguished guests would realize that Yad Vashem is a bizarre location for making “never again” gestures.
Yad Vashem is an institution which often implies – in a perverse and ahistorical manner – that Israel’s cruelty toward Palestinians is vengeance for the crimes of Adolf Hitler.
Michael Mann has already been photographed laying a wreath at Yad Vashem since his recent appointment as the EU’s ambassador to Tel Aviv. The museum’s staff – who are led by Dani Dayan, a prominent apologist for Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank – took Mann to see its fancy new archival center.
When the center was opened last year, Yad Vashem marked it by arranging a concert.
One of the musicians playing at the show was a soldier who had been injured during Israel’s current genocidal offensive on Gaza. Before the event, the museum announced that the violin used by the soldier for the performance had belonged to a Jewish child who had witnessed the murder of his family and then fought against the Nazis.
By inferring that Israel’s troops are the successors of World War II resistance fighters, Yad Vashem was invoking the Holocaust to “justify” a 21st century holocaust in Gaza.
As Mann marveled at what he called the “state-of-the-art conservation facility” for Holocaust artifacts in Yad Vashem, Gaza City was being razed to the ground.
High-rise buildings, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, universities, schools, shops, farmland, water facilities, churches, even tents where displaced people have sought the most rudimentary shelter, have all been bombed by Israel over the past two years.
Decent people everywhere are right to be outraged by the images of death and starvation we have seen. We should be outraged, too, by the deliberate efforts to wipe out a people’s culture.
The buildings threatened with attack by Israel last week included one holding Gaza’s largest collection of antiquities. As the Israeli government has subsequently gloated about how Gaza is burning, Palestinian heritage will inevitably suffer immense harm in the inferno.
Beyond mouthing some platitudes about hoping that the “conflict” – his word – would end, Mann has been silent about the destruction of Gaza in his latest role.
On Tuesday, the day Israel launched a major ground invasion of Gaza City and a United Nations commission of inquiry declared that Israel is committing a genocide, Mann presented his credentials to Isaac Herzog. There is no indication that Mann scolded Herzog, Israel’s president, for displaying genocidal intent in October 2023 by proclaiming that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.
Unconvincing
Mann wasn’t exactly outspoken in his previous job either.
In September 2022, Mann became head of the division in the EU’s diplomatic service handling the “Middle East peace process.”
He held that post until he became the EU’s ambassador to Israel a few weeks ago.
I contacted Mann asking when he applied for the ambassador’s job. An official at the EU’s embassy in Tel Aviv replied that Mann’s application was submitted in September 2024.
He was then appointed in May this year, with the job starting in September.
I also asked Mann what steps he had taken in his previous role to ensure that his work on Gaza would not be influenced by the knowledge he would soon be in charge of managing the EU’s relations with Israel. And I asked him if he supported Zionism, Israel’s state ideology.
An official at the Tel Aviv embassy replied that “as a seasoned diplomat, Ambassador Mann has always maintained the highest level of professionalism and objectivity in his work.” The official claimed, too, that Mann’s “personal views are not relevant to his official duties.”
Such claims are unconvincing.
Mann has worked closely with Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, during the Gaza genocide, sometimes answering letters on her behalf.
In late July, Mann signed a reply to a group which had complained about the EU’s stance on Gaza. His response referred to a deal which the EU and Israel had clinched earlier that month on allowing aid deliveries.
“As a result of our frank and principled dialogue, Israel agreed to take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Mann wrote. “We can already see some positive developments and we will continue to monitor the situation carefully.”
Positive developments? Just over two weeks after Mann signed that letter, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed that the level of hunger and malnutrition in Gaza was so acute that the technical criteria for a famine had been met.
The EU belongs to the alliance of organizations making up the IPC. So why was an EU representative like Michael Mann putting a cheerful spin on a crisis when conditions on the ground were getting demonstrably worse?
Echoing propaganda
Under a code of conduct applying to EU diplomats, Mann is obligated to act with impartiality. Yet it is often hard to distinguish his comments from the propaganda circulated by the pro-Israel lobbyists with whom he has spent a considerable amount of time.
In November last year, Mann took part in a conference hosted by the European Coalition for Israel, a Christian Zionist group. Mann told the event that future EU assistance to the Palestinian Authority would be conditional on educational reforms involving the “removal of hateful content in school textbooks, as well as other funding mechanisms which do not comply with a peaceful coexistence with Israel.”
That warning was really a capitulation to demands made by Israel’s supporters for about 25 years, if not longer. The objective of the demands is either to halt or drastically reduce EU financing for Palestinian education.
Contrary to what Mann argued, Palestinian textbooks do not preach hate or intolerance. But his chums in the lobby would obviously prefer that he pins the blame for the absence of “peaceful coexistence” on a school curriculum rather than on how Israel dehumanizes Palestinians and is constantly stealing their homeland.
Mann has an especially strong relationship with the pro-Israel group calling itself the European Leadership Network (Elnet).
On his first trip to Israel after taking up his “peace process” job in 2022, Mann attended a “forum of strategic dialogue” hosted jointly by the EU and Elnet.
He must have impressed Elnet enough to get invited for further gatherings. One of those gatherings concluded with a call for the EU to boost its weapons trade with Israel.
There is no hint that Mann has raised any objections to such calls. Based on his record, he would appear favorably disposed toward them.
His introductory note on the website of the EU’s embassy in Tel Aviv suggests that Mann is an extremist.
While the Brussels bureaucracy is finally recommending that sanctions be imposed on Israel, Mann has pledged that he will “work tirelessly to further strengthen our relations.”
With that promise, Michael Mann has incriminated himself.
Diplomats promoting closer ties with Israel at the moment are making themselves complicit in genocide. Under international law, complicity in genocide is a punishable offense.