CONSUL GENERALS Rolf Schuette (Germany) and David Akov (Israel) with Arden Shenker.

Consuls review German-Israel bond

By Paul Haist

The six decades of partnership that have bound Germany and Israel may seem improbable to some in the aftermath of the Holocaust, but to Germans and Israelis it has been a relationship essential to both. Diplomats from both countries made that point recently in Portland.

Rolf Schuette is Germany’s Los Angeles-based consul general for the western United States. He joined David Akov, his San Francisco-based counterpart for Israel, Feb. 20 at Portland State University to shed light on their two nations’ partnership, which Schuette suggested is not well understood by Americans, including American Jews.

The occasion of the two diplomats’ appearance here was the first event in Portland’s Israel at 60 celebration, marking 60 years since the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

The event at PSU’s Native American Center was moderated by Jewish community leader Arden Shenker. The evening was a joint presentation of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Committee and the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at PSU.

Schuette said, “American Jews know a lot about the world … but they know little about German-Israeli relations, thinking those relations are only lukewarm.

Schuette, who has a penchant for citing extensive and detailed poll data without having to consult notes, said, “Only 13 percent of Americans think Germany is a strong ally of Israel.” He contrasted that with the 67 percent of Israelis who see Germany as a close friend of their country.

“The current German-Israeli relationship is not understandable apart from the Holocaust,” said Schuette who spoke first that evening, occasionally reprising remarks he made before an American Jewish Committee luncheon last April at Portland’s Governor Hotel.

Calling his country’s ties with Israel “one of the fundamental cornerstones” of Germany’s foreign policy, Shuette added that “one of the consequences of (Germany) facing the past (the Holocaust) is its interest in the safety of the Jewish state.”

“The past will always be present in this relationship,” he said, allowing that “there is no way to make good again” for the crimes committed against the Jewish people by Germany, but that those crimes created “a moral imperative” for Germany to accept responsibility for its past and to make amends to the extent that is possible.

Akov reiterated from an Israeli perspective the significance of Israel’s link to Germany.

“Germany’s ties to Israel are a strategic asset (for Israel) second only to the United States,” he said.

He cast the evolution of ties between the two countries in the postwar world into three periods of about 20 years each.

He said in the first 20 years, the 1950s and 1960s, “Israel and Germany were just starting to learn how to relate to one another after a horrible trauma.” These times were characterized, he added, by the debate over reparations by Germany to Israel.

In Israel the debate, which he said was highly emotional, was over whether to accept reparations.

The faction opposing reparations characterized their acceptance as “selling the memory of the dead.”

Those favoring the acceptance of reparations “were trying to develop something with Germany to help those (survivors) who came to Israel.”

Akov said, “In the early days the biggest help that came to Israel came from (West) Germany, not from the United States.”

Schuette had noted in his remarks that there have been both government and private streams for German reparations paid to Israel. As of 2006, he said, German government reparations amounted to approximately $100 billion. “About 40 percent of those payments went to people living in Israel…in recognition of the fact…that Israel had a very heavy burden caring for survivors.”

The second 20-year period in the evolution of German-Israeli relations encompassed the 1970s and 1980s. This was a period, he said, in which both countries were beginning to come to terms with the information coming out of the Holocaust and “coming to terms with how relations can work for both countries.”

It was also a time of conflict in the Middle East.

“Whenever Israel was involved in military conflict that might involve an outside country, that was very difficult for Germany,” he said, referring to Germany’s reluctance to become involved in conflict again.

“But they were helpful in other ways,” Akov said without elaborating. “We learned…where the boundaries are.”

The third 20-year period included the 1990s and the first eight years of the 21st century.

Akov called the present period, especially the 1990s, “the time of great acceleration, beginning with the re-unification of Germany.”

The first challenge, he said, was the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq and the resulting U.S. invasion of Kuwait to drive out the Iraqis.

“This was very difficult for Israel because it was attacked (by Iraq) but pressured by the United States not to react.”

Israel, said Akov, “was very grateful to Germany for sending Patriot missiles to Israel to defend against the attacks, even though the Patriots proved to be largely ineffective against Iraq’s Scud missiles.

“The perception was that Germany came to the aid of Israel in a time of trouble,” said Akov. “This gesture by Germany was very well accepted” in Israel.

Akov pointed to a subsequent deal between Germany and Israel that he said helped Israel to finance submarines built in Germany for Israel.

This, he said, “took the relationship still higher.”

Akov pointed to other important cultural and scientific ties between the two countries including the Minerva Program in which scientists from Israel’s prestigious Weizman Institute and Germany’s equally prestigious Max Planck Institute have cooperated for more than 40 years on research projects that are recognized, apart from their intrinsic scientific merit, for their role in reconciling the two countries.

A question-and-answer period followed the diplomats’ remarks.