German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle during his recent state visit to Israel.
Guido Westerwelle, Germany's new foreign minister and the leader of Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), wrapped up his two-day trip to Israel on Tuesday. He had been under close scrutiny by both his hosts and the public back home in Germany.
While there, he met with a number of top Israeli politicians, including President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Westerwelle spoke to them about a two-state solution, Israeli settlement policies and how to respond to the threat presented by Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions. He also made a trip to Ramallah in the West Bank, where he met with Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, and spoke about Germany's commitment to helping with development and security.
What made Westerwelle's appearance in Israel tense were events from 2002 surrounding the so-called Möllemann affair. At that time, fellow party member Jürgen Möllemann was forced to resign from his position as head of the FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia after he fiercely criticized Israel's then-prime minister, Ariel Sharon, for his actions against the Palestinians, as well as attacking Michel Friedman, a Jewish-German talk show host, for endorsing those actions. Möllemann's comments were widely condemned as anti-Semitic, and Westerwelle was severely criticized for remaining silent about the scandal for too long. When he met Sharon in Israel in 2002, he was given a very cold shoulder.
In Wednesday's newspapers, German commentators write that, while the visit wasn't a complete failure, it wasn't a success either. They feel that Westerwelle is too cautious because he is doubly hamstrung -- by Germany's past and his own -- and that the more popular Chancellor Angela Merkel will have to do the heavy lifting when it comes to German foreign policy in the Middle East.
The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:
"Germany's new foreign minister can take a big sigh of relief. Things went all right in the Middle East, which is about as good as can be expected. … And the exasperating Möllemann affair played no role in his visit."
"There is no question that recent German history imposes rather tight restrictions on its foreign policy toward Israel. Every German government must, of course, make sure that Israel's right to exist remains protected. Still, that doesn't mean that the foreign minister can't sharpen his tone when it comes to denouncing settlement policies that threaten to cause the Middle East peace process to collapse."
"Westerwelle is hardly suited to be a driving force (in this process) since Germany doesn't have nearly enough influence in the region. However, if he were to team up with US President Barack Obama, they could succeed in increasing the pressure. Since Angela Merkel became chancellor, German opinions have carried more weight in Jerusalem. If Westerwelle acts like a team player, on his next visit, he might be able to be a bit more assertive than he was now."
The Financial Times Deutschland writes:
"Israel is a minefield for any German politician -- and especially for someone who is a novice at foreign policy. In the light of history, everything that is said -- and everything that is not said -- is given much weight. Indeed, threats by Iran and radical Palestinian groups to annihilate Israel have their roots in the Nazis' extermination policies."
"But that's not Westerwelle's only problem. The FDP head has already failed in one crisis situation (the 2002 Möllemann affair). … But Möllemann himself wasn't the real problem. Every party has its Möllemann. The problem was that Westerwelle, as the head of his party, did not take action -- either because he knew what he was doing or because he didn't. Both alternatives are equally serious. … In any case, the new foreign minister deserves the mistrust that he encounters in Israel, the Jewish world and elsewhere."
"Westerwelle's visit to Israel is like when someone sends you a friend request on Facebook that you can't completely ignore, but that you also don't want to accept. You wait and see if that person sends you a persuasive message, while in the meantime you stick to your existing friendships. Israel believes in Chancellor Merkel as a credible friend of the Jewish state. It appreciates her unambiguous statements and loves her humble demeanor. Her support for Israel is regarded as authentic rather than something that is required for her political office, given that a German chancellor is obliged to like Israel. That's what distinguishes her from Westerwelle."
"As long as Merkel is chancellor, she'll be calling the shots when it comes to the more significant aspects of Germany's policies toward Israel and Iran. As long as the Middle East remains a crucial political issue, people in Israel will not pay much attention to Westerwelle, even if they are friendly toward him."
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"As the head of the FDP, Westerwelle cannot ignore the fact that people remember Jürgen Möllemann and his anti-Semitic actions, which he permitted to go on for too long at the time. It is from this period, in which Westerwelle was even suspected of having allowed his colleagues in the FDP to drift too far to the populist right, that Westerwelle earned his reputation for being unscrupulous."
"It was on the night of the 2005 elections, at the latest, that Westerwelle decided to gear his political activities toward the goal of dissolving this image. At the time, he refused to enter into a coalition with the Social Democrats and the Greens in order to show that principles were more important to him than power. He followed the same tact in the 2009 elections, risking all and winning much. Over the last few years, Guido Westerwelle, who had the reputation for being an opportunist, had a lot of good things happen to him because he stuck to his principles. That's what got him his current spot in the Foreign Ministry. Still, Westerwelle will still have a hard time convincing skeptics who think that this is all just one more tactical, opportunistic move."
"Accordingly, it's hardly a surprise that he is now trying to make a reputation for himself as foreign minister. Even if Westerwelle doesn't feel he has done anything wrong, even if he believes he does not need to make a break with the past, he still senses that he is at least expected to dispel lingering doubts about the issue. And that's why you saw Westerwelle invite Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, to accompany him on his trip to Israel, which ended with him giving her a big hug at Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem."
-- Josh Ward
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