Germany's Celebration of Israel at Sixty:
A Skillful Blend of Old and New
By Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman

Chancellor Merkel's trip to Israel in mid-March was novel in several respects, but was also a "consolidation" of habits of preference and remembrance that have constituted a special relationship between Germany and Israel over the last six decades.

Symbolism: Another "First"
Angela Merkel was the first German chancellor to address the Israeli Knesset, and the first head of government from any country to speak before Israel's parliament (an honor normally reserved for heads of state and monarchs). She was not the first German leader to appear before the Knesset; that honor was accepted by President Johannes Rau in February 2000. Rau and his successor Horst Köhler (February 2005), like Merkel, spoke in German. In all three cases, a minority of Knesset members stayed away to demonstrate their difficulty in dealing with contemporary Germany after the Holocaust. Yet Merkel's address, as those of Rau and Köhler, proceeded without incident in stark contrast to the physical attacks on the Knesset, led by Menachem Begin, when the parliament debated the Israeli government's decision to negotiate directly with Germany over reparations in January 1952.

In her speech, Merkel emphasized the "special relationship" between Germany and Israel. The special quality has a dual character of darkness and light, for it derives in the first instance from the reality of the Holocaust, but additionally from the remarkable connection forged over the abyss of that "rupture of civilization" (Zivilisationsbruch). Like visiting German and Israeli officials before her (starting with Foreign Minister Abba Eban in 1970 and Foreign Minister Walter Scheel in 1971), Merkel found a careful balance between history and the future when she spoke. Yet, Angela Merkel is the first East German politician to speak on behalf of all Germans to the Knesset, filling a lacuna in Germany's confrontation with the past (Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit). Beyond the identification of history's indelible import and of the common values that bind Germany and Israel, Merkel also addressed the focal point of the German-Israeli government consultations: hard interests.

Fact: Common Interests
Chancellor Merkel was accompanied by seven German cabinet members, and she and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert chaired a joint session of the two cabinets, a first in the German-Israeli relationship. These government consultations will take place annually. Such a joint session was completely novel for Israel's foreign policy, and is restricted to a limited number in the case of Germany (with France, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Russia), again demonstrating the "special" nature of the relationship. The communiqué resulting from the joint consultations also reflected a blend of old and new: departures in some areas of policy and consolidation or expansion of existing ties in other areas. Either way the consultations represented commitment to a high degree of institutionalization that is a hallmark of relations of reconciliation. By profiling the partnership publicly the communiqué itself was a novelty: in the past much of German-Israeli policy relations have been conducted out of public view.

In the area of diplomacy, Germany and Israel will expand their regular exchanges, which started in the early 1970s, and will create an annual Diplomatic Summer School for diplomats of the two countries. They also agreed to intensify their close cooperation on international terrorism. In the military sphere, where relations date back to the mid-1950s, Germany and Israel broadened significantly their existing programs for the exchange of officers and for field training.

Since the 1960s, Germany has constituted Israel's most important trading partner in Europe and is second only to the U.S. worldwide. As a result of the consultations, there was agreement for three new joint projects: a high-level German-Israeli business event; German-Israeli investment and venture capital events; and projects involving both German and Israeli companies devoted to energy efficiency. Environmental cooperation is not new to the relationship and Germany and Israel agreed to deepen their cooperation in climate change, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and waste and water treatment.

In the case of water management, where Israel has vast experience, there will be a new German Water Partnership, bringing together the public and private sectors, as well as research institutions and government ministries. Previously, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of German-Israeli diplomatic relations in 2005, officials committed the two countries to making the results of their common quests in critical policy areas beneficial to the rest of the international community. In the March joint consultations, the two sides went a step further by agreeing to jointly train African agricultural irrigation experts.

One of the spheres of closest German-Israeli cooperation and collaboration is in the field of science, dating back to the 1950s and the contacts between the Weizmann Institute and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. The communiqué notes that since this period, over 25,000 scientists from Germany and Israel have collaborated on various projects. Innovations in this field of cooperation include the German-Israeli Year of Science and Technology, beginning in April 2008, to promote and deepen ties even further, as well as a Young Scientist Prize.

Mutual learning through the cross-fertilization of knowledge so evident in all of the policy areas mentioned so far has extended to the area of justice, at least since the end of the 1980s. Now the two sides will intensify exchanges of lawyers and judges and promote joint seminars in all manner of legal issues. Germany and Israel will also expand the exchange program between the two ministries of justice.

In her address to the Knesset, Chancellor Merkel underscored the role of youth in the bilateral relationship, and youth exchange was a focus in the communiqué, including a commitment to higher funding. Private activity began in the 1950s, followed by German government involvement in the early 1960s and Israeli government participation by the early 1970s. Over 5, 000 young Germans and Israelis participate every year in non-school exchange programs. Including Germans doing volunteer work or alternatives to military service in Israel and school exchanges, the figure for participation is over 10,000. Realistic images and first-hand experiences, coupled with occasions for remembrance and learning from the past, are deemed essential for the future of the relationship when the Holocaust generation will have disappeared from the scene and there are no longer eyewitnesses. Promoting mutual understanding between young people in Germany and Israel, including understanding of differences, is also a government priority in light of highly negative images of Israel evident in German public opinion.

The Other Half of the Picture: German Public Opinion
On the eve of Chancellor Merkel's trip to Israel to celebrate the Jewish state's sixtieth birthday, the Emnid polling organization and the German television station Sat1/N24 published the results of a poll, indicating that 52 percent of respondents believe Germany today has no special responsibility toward Israel. In a poll Emnid undertook for the Bertelsmann Foundation a year earlier, the figure stood at 49 percent among German respondents and at 78 percent among Israelis answering the question. In the 2007 survey, 58 percent of German respondents believed Germany should leave the past behind (einen Schlussstrich unter die Vergangenheit ziehen) whereas 74 percent of Israeli respondents opposed this view. While these figures may be of concern to the German government, the discrepancy between official and public attitudes regarding the past is as old and consistent as the German-Israeli relationship itself, as demonstrated in the polls undertaken by the Institut für Demoskopie in Allensbach since 1947. The Allensbach polls also demonstrate no great German public sympathy for Israel over time. Concerning the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the 2007 Bertelsmann survey revealed only 28 percent of German respondents supported the Israeli side, but even fewer supported the Arab side - 14 percent. The Allensbach polls show a low figure for Israel starting as early as the 1980s; they also indicate consistently less sympathy for the Arab side.

Rather than seeing the negative attitudes of German public opinion as invalidating the connection between society and reconciliation with Israel, we should bear in mind the reality of long-term commitment to public action on the part of societal organizations such as the Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation; the Fritz Bauer Institute; Against Forgetting/For Democracy; Learning from History; and Action Reconciliation/Service for Peace. (1) Unlike general public opinion that is equivocal about the weight of the past, these societal institutions are propelled by its force. These organizations that confront history directly are complemented by a raft of German non-governmental organizations that work with Israeli society regarding the present and the future as an indirect way of honoring the past: from culture to economics, from science to trade unions, from sports encounters to religious organizations, from town pairings to youth exchange, from German political foundations to individual party ties, and from friendship associations to academic connections. The German-Israeli communiqué lauded the work of these non-governmental actors, and we should remember they are the ones who have shown solidarity with Israel at times of crisis, most often concerning the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Friendship Allows for Differences: German Policy Toward Palestine and Iran
Expressing solidarity with Israel in the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a regular feature of German foreign policy since 1949. In her speech to the Knesset, Angela Merkel made this point concretely by labeling the Hamas' Qassam attacks against Israel "acts of terror" and a "crime." Yet, as her predecessors (at least since the early 1970s) had before her, Merkel was careful also to support Palestinian self-determination, currently in the form of a state. She spoke to Palestinian Authority President Abbas by telephone right before her trip to Israel and promised to report on her visit. The Israeli government does not accept the EU/German view regarding Israeli settlements, the territorial content of a final peace, or the timing for the creation of a Palestinian state, but it does see Germany as an honest broker, for example in negotiations with Hezbollah over missing Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, and as a contributor to peace, for example the German navy's role in the UNIFIL force for Lebanon. Israel's ambassador to Germany, Joram Ben-Zeev, has called for increased German engagement in the Middle East peace process.

Israel welcomes Germany's role in the EU Three negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, but would prefer a stronger position on trade and on sanctions, as well as a clearer sense of what the West will do if Iran continues to refuse solutions. Israeli observers of Merkel's trip called for extreme measures from Germany: from severing diplomatic relations with Iran to the indictment of President Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide under the Genocide Convention, from an immediate cessation of government subsidies for trade with Iran to the advocacy of a European-wide trade ban (Jerusalem Post Online edition, March 16, 17, 2008). While eschewing such drastic measures, Merkel did recognize the impact of Iran's foreign policy and nuclear program on Israeli security. Yet, she seemed to view sanctions as a last resort, disappointing Israelis who feel Germany's role as Iran's largest importer gives it political and economic clout. On various occasions in the past, Germany's economic and political ties to the Middle East have interfered with the relationship to Israel, for example the opposition by some Bundestag members to the 1952 Reparations Agreement with Israel for fear of losing Arab markets; the presence in the 1960s of German scientists in Egypt helping Nasser build weapons against Israel; and German companies providing Iraq the means to attack Israel during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Germany's political and economic interests do not automatically coincide with Israel's.

Chancellor Merkel's performance in Jerusalem demonstrated that Germany's relationship with Israel is still "special." Israel steadfastly characterizes Germany as its second best friend after the U.S. The language and content of the German cabinet's visit revealed what both sides understand as a partnership based on trust, preference, remembrance, commitment, and a robust forum for the airing of inevitable differences.

Footnotes:
1. Gesellschaften für christlich-jüdische Zusammenarbeit; Fritz Bauer Institut; Gegen Vergessen/Für Demokratie; Lernen aus der Geschichte; Aktion Sühnezeichen/Friedensdienste.

Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman is a Senior Fellow in Residence at AICGS.

This essay appeared in the April 4, 2008, AICGS Advisor.