German-Israeli security forum focuses on forests over Iranian nuke threat

The stark shadow of the past could be felt at the office, situated across from Hitler's bunker and not far from Germany's Holocaust memorial.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT IN BERLIN
Merkel 248.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
Merkel 248.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
The "past, present and future of the German-Israeli security relationship" was the subject of a panel discussion at the State of Thuringia's representative office in the heart of Berlin's government district on Thursday evening. The stark shadow of the past could be felt at the office, situated across from Hitler's bunker and not far from Germany's Holocaust memorial. Yet Reinhold Robbe, military commissioner of the German parliament, omitted mention of Iran and its nuclear weapons program in his two-and-a-half page greeting. Instead, he highlighted the delivery of trees to Israel following the destruction of 750,000 trees during the Second Lebanon War. "This gesture documents the close alliance with the State of Israel, and expresses the desire for peace and life in the region," Robbe wrote in his keynote message. Critics of Germany's Iran policy argue that sections of Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration are torpedoing Britain and France's efforts to deter Iran and to secure stability in the Middle East. While Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell and massive French oil company Total S.A. are declining to invest in the Islamic Republic, Hartmut Schauerte, state secretary in the German Economics Ministry, used his influence earlier this year to secure approval for a €100 million-plus liquefied natural gas deal between German firm Steiner Prematechnik Gastec and Iran. The security panel turned into a freewheeling discussion dealing with such issues as anti-Semitism within the German military; the inability and the unwillingness of Merkel's administration to rein in firms that are providing important technology to the Iranian regime; and anti-Israel poll results among Germans. When The Jerusalem Post asked Karl Mathias Klause, director of the Middle-East department in the Chancellery (Merkel's office) about Germany's strong export relationship with Iran and its refusal to implement unilateral sanctions restricting its private sector business activity, Klause said "that sanctions are taking place in the United Nations," adding, "Sometimes we wish we could enact laws in the Chancellery." He declined to comment on the Steiner gas deal. Klause said there were "many voices in Germany" seeking a "reversal in the Iran policy," whose stated purpose was to penalize Teheran for refusing to suspend its nuclear enrichment program. Ilan Mor, charge d'affaires at the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, said Gert Weisskirchen, Social Democratic Party MP, had introduced a formal parliamentary question regarding the legality of the Steiner gas deal. Weisskirchen, who said the gas contract should be rescinded, could not be reached for comment over the weekend. Mor voiced frustration with the pace of German and European pressure on Iran. "The clocks tick differently in Israel than in Germany," he said. "Something must be done today," he said, asking when the Europeans would recognize that the on-again, off-again talks with Teheran had collapsed. Dr. Johannes Gerster, president of the German-Israeli Friendship Society and a former Christian Democratic Union MP, said, "The German government must become determined and active" in straightening out the growing business deals with Iran. Mor said conducting business with Iran could lead to "illegal cash" transactions, suggesting that German firms should "conduct no business activity with this state." The "German public has hardly any understanding of why Iran is so vicious," he said, citing a 2003 European Union poll showing Germans viewing Israel as a greater danger to global peace than the Islamic Republic. But a new survey from US Democratic Party pollster Stanley Greenberg identified a sizable number of Germans favoring economic sanctions against Iran. German opposition to war, according to Greenberg, helped to explain the result, rather than pro-Israel sentiments among Germans.