The following is adapted from remarks of Mathias Doepfner, chairman of Axel Springer AG, on being awarded the Leo Baeck Medal by the Leo Baeck Institute on November 14 in New York:

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What is the lesson that Leo Baeck himself gave us? A rabbi from Berlin who believed in the power of thoughts and words, and continued to believe in that even in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt, where he gave lectures about Plato, Maimonides, Spinoza, Kant, and Mendelsohn.

Baeck was a humanist. He believed in the principle of respect for people of other convictions, nations and religions. He was a man of dialogue. He was a symbol of tolerance. But his tolerance came to an end when tolerance started to tolerate intolerance. When the intolerant abused the tolerance of others to achieve their brutal goals.

Baeck was not a man of appeasement. He was a fighter for freedom. Shortly before his death he wrote in his last book, “This People Israel,” “Responsibility in which freedom turns to freedom is so much harder.” This means: unconditional freedom. I am convinced; this freedom can only be defended in a joint American-European effort.

The great conflict of the present and the future is the confrontation between the modern Western world’s model of a free society and the pre-modern collectivist world’s model in parts of the Orient. Just as the Jewish-Christian culture stands for the freedom of the individual, Islamic fundamentalism or any kind of radicalism stands for intolerance. Its mindset is anti-individualistic, anti-capitalistic, anti-American, and anti-Semitic.

However one describes the causes of this conflict, Israel is in the middle of it. That does not mean that the conflict, the aggression is confined to Israel. On the contrary. If President Ahmadinejad had achieved his goal of destroying Israel, this would only have been the first step. He would have felt encouraged. It would have been an invitation to dance. Because the real enemy is the West, is our lifestyle, is the “responsibility in which freedom turns to freedom.”

That’s why the entire Western world will have to face the challenge of forming an opinion on Israel, the Middle East, and the question of how threatened freedom really is. We must say where we stand. That means first of all, on a political level, a commitment to a
strong joint Israeli-American-European partnership, in short, a real Western alliance. This alliance has a clear objective: to put utmost pressure on the acceptance of the rule of law and to fight any kind of terrorism, whether it’s Palestinian or Iranian, from Hamas or Hezbollah.

Will the radicals or will the moderates succeed? And will the moderates have the power of will in this asymmetrical conflict? This is the big question. Everything is at stake here. What we need is an alliance of Western values. I hope, and I am convinced, that the American leadership of all parties will show more continuity with regard to its Middle East policy than a lot of people think at the moment. I hope, and I believe, that Europe will understand that any separation from the United States will only strengthen those forces who want to undermine our values, the fundaments of Western societies, the life we like and want to live.

If Europe — and in an ideal world Europe and Russia, whether that is realistic or not — took up a clear position behind Israel, which is after all the only real democracy in the Middle East, I am convinced this would be a key to long term peace, and if not peace, stability and security. Then Palestinians and Iranian leaders would no longer be able to play America and Europe off against each other like a kid who turns to his father after failing to get what he wants from his mother.

We need no equidistance in that conflict, we need a clear standpoint. And that is, to defend democracy — by all means. Of course we should do everything to avoid a military option. And an important part of this is not to exclude a military option. And in that strategy even more important is an international or at least American-European, solidarity for consequent sanctions. That is the minimum option.

I don’t understand how somebody can be against sanctions, if he or she wants to avoid a military option. We are talking about sanctions against a system which officially declares that it is a government objective to destroy another state. Unfortunately the implementation of sanctions is very unpopular in parts of Europe. What else do we need? Are we really going to wait until they have the nuclear bomb? It will be too late then.

Since the Second World War, after the Holocaust, there has been a strong pacifist sentiment in Europe and Germany — for understandable reasons. The consensus is: no more war, never again. I think the real lesson that particularly Germany should have learned from its history is: never ever dictatorship, never ever racism, never ever genocide, never ever tolerance of intolerance. And that means: never ever appeasement towards any kind of anti-Semitism.

A strong role for Germany in the positioning of Europe in that conflict would not be a compensation for what happened 60 years ago. But it would be a strong sign that history’s lesson has been learned, that the desire for reconciliation is serious. And it would be a move not only in the interests of Israel, but in our very own interests — democracy, freedom, and, yes, the pursuit of happiness.