Rau and Dreßler or... two ways of dealing with Israel

GOOOD Morning dear Reader,




This week there was one special event! A ceremony in honor of Johannes Rau, organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Israel in commemoration of his speech in front of the Knesset. The speech, which was the first speech of a German politician to be held in German in front of the Knesset marked the height of Johannes Raus relationship to the state of Israel.
Johannes Rau died on the 27th of January last year. His widow, Christina Rau and daughter Anna Rau were also at the ceremony.
One part of the ceremony was a workshop for young Germans and Israelis. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation had tried to gather a variety of participants and we ended up with settlers, leftwings, and Arab Israelis on one side and volunteers, political active youth and students with migration background from Germany.
The idea was, that the Israeli and the German group would discuss with each other they view towards the Israel-German relation and come up with ideas of how to further work on the relations.
Through the variety within the groups themselves a lot of time was spend arguing within the groups, how one should look at such events as the War of Independence in 1948. This created a very interesting atmosphere that is usually hard to accomplish in such workshops. I have to say that the workshop did not come up with any useful product, but the contact within the group proved to be very vital. Especially the Germans with emigrational background from Arabic countries said afterwards, that their view on Israel had changes a lot after they went to Israel and had heard this variety of opinions in this country.
Rau in his speech emphasized the need for meetings between young Israelis and Germans and this meeting proved him right.


After the workshop, the official program started. The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (which is the political foundation of the Social Democratic Party!) had organized everything together with the Jerusalem Foundation and the event took place in the Konrad Adenauer Conference Center (Konrad Adenauer is the great Christian Democratic Politician and thus the total opposite of Friedrich Ebert!). This caused some confusion as to the political cooperation of the two mayor german parties.
Peter Struck was among the invited guests as was the ambassador of Germany to Israel, Dr. Kindermann. Also the entire old guard was invited, former ambassadors Avi Primor and Rudolf Dreßler. Also present were three other members of the German parliament and the president of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Jerusalem Foundation. Unfortunately the Israeli side was not very well presented. No one from the government was present, nor was the mayor of Jerusalem.
What followed were two rounds of discussions, led by David Witzthum, an editor for Israels Channel one. The first discussion was with Dov Ben Meir, former vice-president of the Knesset, who did not contribute with two many words, with Moshe Zimmermann and last but not least Rudolf Dreßler. Now, he really saved the evening. Mr. Dreßler was ambassador to Israel from 2000 to 2005. It was his first and last appearance in the German Diplomatic Corps.
The discussion started with a brief statement from each of the participants. Moshe Zimmermann talked about the state of normality and that such a thing does not exist, while Ben Meir just told small funny stories, out of his life. Then Mr. Dreßler saved the day. First of, he commented on the German position within the European Union. This was so hilarious, that I had to write it down. Mr. Dreßler had the opinion, that “Germany will never be a leader within the European Union and this is not questionable”. Now, Moshe Zimmermann dared to ask, why that is so and Mr. Dreßler answered “You must be joking, everyone who thinks more then 5 seconds about this realizes, that it is never going to happen!”.
Well, I tried to think more then 5 seconds, but for some reason I am unable to see, what Mr. Dreßler was talking about, to bad he did not explain.
But, Mr. Dreßler went unhindered on and commented on the relations between Germany and Israel. The audience nearly cracked into laughter, when he told us about, “the Second Iraq war, when Israel ask Germany for Scud missiles and we then gave them to them.” He kept going about the German Scud missiles and had to be stopped by Witzthum, who reminded him, that Germany supplied Israel with Patriot Missiles against Iraqi Scud missiles. But this is just a minor detail I think. Who cares about those military details? He then provided us with the information, that the Israelis did not even bother to ask the Americans, because they are unable to supply Israel with such an advanced Weapon System as the Patriot System. He held his speech in a clear and strong German voice, which suits a politician. Unfortunately Mr. Dreßler did not learn Hebrew while living in Israel for 5 years!
You want to learn about the Israeli-German relationship? I always sought that the German Ambassador to Israel should be someone with experience, with understanding of politics and military, turns out Germany just sends, whoever signs up for the job, or at least it seems that way.


After this nice debate, there was a little bit of food and lots of free wine and beer for all the VIP Guests and the participants of the Workshop. Is it not great what the German taxpayers money is spend on? Well, I took my share and made some pictures with all those famous people. The person up on that picture is Anna Rau, the daughter of former German President, Johannes Rau.
Well entertained and drunk I walked home late at night and thought about, that, despite my former concerns, maybe I should sign up to become an ambassador, or minister or president. The possibilities are infinite…