Berlin: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday slammed Germany’s foreign minister as “insensitive” over refusing to cancel meetings with rights groups critical of Israel’s government, amid rising tensions between the two allies.
Netanyahu had scrapped talks with Sigmar Gabriel at the last minute, after Germany’s top diplomat pressed on with plans to meet with Israeli rights groups Breaking The Silence and B’Tselem.
Netanyahu said he tried to telephone Germany’s foreign minister to clear the air after cancelling talks during Gabriel’s visit to Israel but the German minister would not take the call.
“I wanted to telephone Foreign Minister Gabriel to explain my position and to clear things up, but he would not take the call,” Netanyahu told German mass-selling daily Bild.
“I hope Gabriel meets me on his next trip to Israel rather than a radical fringe group that undermines Israel’s security.”
In an interview with Germany’s biggest selling Bild daily, Netanyahu defended his decision.
“Foreign diplomats are welcome to meet with civil society activists and members of the opposition and anyone else they’d like,” he said.
“But my red line is that I will not meet diplomats who come to Israel and lend legitimacy to fringe radical groups that falsely accuse our soldiers of war crimes and undermine Israeli security,” he added.
Pointing out that the meetings with the activist groups were held on a day when Israel was commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, Netanyahu said that “it was a particularly insensitive time to seek a meeting like this”.
“These are the days we mourn the murdered members of our people in the Holocaust and our fallen soldiers. The Israeli army is the one force that keeps our people safe today,” he said.
Netanyahu’s decision to cancel the meeting with Gabriel was a rare step, but in line with the current right-wing government’s stance against groups it accuses of having political agendas and unfairly tarnishing Israel.
Due to its historical responsibility as the perpetrator of the Holocaust that killed six million Jews, Germany has not only been Israel’s staunch ally but has also been cautious in its public criticism of the Jewish state.
However, tensions have grown as Netanyahu has irked Berlin by pressing on with colony building in the Palestinian territories despite repeated warnings from world powers that it would harm any prospects for peace.
