Asher Ben Nathan, Israel’s first Ambassador to West Germany, said here today that he had “grounds for believing that the new West German Government will reveal understanding of the problems mutual to Israel and Germany.” The ambassador arrived here for a short visit and for a discussion with Israeli officials of the new Government headed by Kurt Georg Kiesinger which took office in West Germany today.
Shimon Peres, secretary of David Ben-Gurion’s dissident Israel Worker’s Party, Rafi, said: “We will judge Kiesinger and his government on the merit of its deeds not their past record.” He added that in some cases, the origin of records about Germans during the Nazi era was dubious. The new Chancellor has been criticized for his membership in the Nazi Party.
Mr. Peres also expressed the opinion that more attention should be given to the fact that 92 percent of West Germans did not vote for the extremist National Democratic Party in the elections this month in the West German states of Hesse and Bavaria, where the NDP won Parliamentary seats for the first time. The Rafi official, a former Deputy Defense Minister, said that the German majority should be encouraged against the neo-Nazis.
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