German Far-Right Leader Skeptical Of ‘Special Relationship’ With Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu and Germany?s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in meeting in Jerusalem. Image by Haaretz

By Daniel J. Solomon September 26, 2017

After the far-right German “Alternative fur Deutschland” party ran up an impressive score in the country’s federal elections, a party leader is questioning the alliance between Germany and Israel – arguing that Israel’s existence should not be understood as a “national interest.”

“If Israel’s existence is part of the German national interest,” said Alexander Gauland at a party conference, “then we would have to be prepared to send German soldiers to defend the Jewish state.”

He continued: “It’s clear that Israel’s existence is an important point for us. But to turn it into a national interest it sounds so simple but there is a continuous war in Israel. The implications of ‘national interest’ is that we would need to be really prepared to sacrifice our lives for the State of Israel.”

The AfD party contains some elements thought to be allied with neo-Nazis and gained most of its support – 13% of votes in the election – on anti-immigrant appeals. Israel and Germany have had a close relationship since the Holocaust – with Israel receiving direct reparations for the Holocaust and with Germany trading with the Jewish state on favorable terms.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO