Selon les Israéliens, « le lait a tourné » entre Israël et l’Allemagne
Israel and Germany, milk that has soured - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz
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The Prime Minister’s Office has tried hard to imbue the German-Israeli summit that began Monday evening with a festive atmosphere. But the 15 German ministers who accompanied Chancellor Angela Merkel to Jerusalem — like the flags, ceremonies and red carpets — are nothing but a dusting of makeup over the scars Benjamin Netanyahu’s five years in office have left on the bilateral relationship.
Shortly after landing, in a brief statement before meeting Netanyahu for dinner, Merkel said she and her ministers came because “we wanted to show you in this way that this is indeed a very strong friendship.” The visit, she added, will focus on Germany’s efforts “to secure the future of the state of Israel,” which requires “the two-state solution … a Jewish state of Israel and alongside it a Palestinian state.”
The first German-Israeli joint cabinet meeting took place in 2007. Merkel began the tradition with then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whom she considered a personal friend. Afterward, she said she hoped to visit Israel at least once a year. But it’s been more than three years since she last set foot here.
Her last visit, in January 2011, was tense, due to deep-seated differences with Netanyahu on both the Palestinian issue and the Egyptian revolution. She expressed her view of Netanyahu’s policies in a candid speech at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies.
Since then, the divisions and distrust between the two have only grown. Almost every meeting or phone call in recent years has involved tension, confrontations, sometimes even shouting. Merkel appeared to feel that Netanyahu was at best not keeping his promises on the Palestinian issue and at worst simply lying to her.
Merkel, Israel’s best friend in Europe, whose love of Israel and the Jews is gut-deep and who has defined Israel’s security as part of Germany’s raison d’etre, simply no longer believes a word Netanyahu says. The only European leader who publicly and repeatedly says that Israel is a Jewish state and the Palestinians must recognize this sees Netanyahu’s settlement policy as sabotaging the survival of that state.