Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher received a delegation of high-ranking Israelis at his office here Thursday to discuss expanded economic relations, even as the Bonn government tries to overcome the anti-German emotions rampant among Israelis.
The Israeli group was headed by the ambassador to Bonn, Benjamin Navon, and Ya’acov Cohen, a deputy foreign minister in charge of economic cooperation.
In Jerusalem, the German ambassador to Israel, Otto van der Gablentz, admitted Wednesday that his country had not done enough to stem the flow of weapons to Iraq.
He said that was especially true with respect to the sale of chemicals, which in the past seemed “benign.”
Germany has already airlifted anti-missile and anti-aircraft defenses to Israel and plans a major military assistance program.
But anti-German feelings are running high in Israel since the disclosure that German firms helped Saddam Hussein build the Iraqi war machine, including improved Scud missiles and the potential for chemical warfare.
Thursday’s meeting was the first of a series of consultations agreed to when Genscher was in Jerusalem last month shortly after the first Scud attack on Israel.
It concentrated on ways to encourage Germans to invest in Israel in such areas as finance, research and agriculture.
No figures were mentioned, but it is understood Bonn will make available to Israel sufficient credit to help it through its current economic crisis, which was worsened by the Gulf war.
Another idea raised at the meeting here Thursday was German help to Israel to absorb the mass immigration of Soviet Jews. German and Israeli officials reportedly have discussed material or financial aid packages to help Israel cope with the wave of new immigrants.
The German envoy to Israel, appearing at the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, confirmed that Israeli authorities and German security services cooperated in the past to obtain information about the transfer of German arms and technology to Iraq.
Ambassador von der Gablentz said the strong anti-war movement in Germany today was a result of the Nazi past.
The peace demonstrators are products of a peaceful environment that has existed in Europe for almost two generations, he explained.
The envoy dismissed neo-Nazis in Germany as a “minor problem” compared to neo-Nazis in the United States and France.
(JTA correspondent Gil Sedan in Jerusalem contributed to this report.)
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