YAKOV HADAS-HANDELSMAN, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, was a little boy when Germany and Israel opened diplomatic relations 50 years ago. He remembers the first German ambassador being greeted with howls of outrage and rotten tomatoes. The “past is always there and should always be there,” he says. But today it connects the countries: “Generally, Germany is Israel’s closest ally in Europe.”European leaders marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz this week. They might have also pondered new polls. One, by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a think-tank named after the chancellor who negotiated with Israel’s David Ben-Gurion, found that 70% of Israelis see Germany positively. That makes Germany their favorite country in Europe, as thousands of Israelis in Berlin would agree. But a poll by the Bertelsmann Foundation, another think-tank, found Germans more sceptical toward Israel, mainly because of its treatment of Palestinians: 36% have a positive opinion, but 48% are critical. Among young adults, it is more than half. More striking is the difference in how Germans and Israelis view the Holocaust. Bertelsmann found that 81% of Germans want to “leave it behind” and 58% want to “draw a line” under it. The vast majority of Israelis see this as impossible.Germans and Israelis have drawn different lessons from the Holocaust, says Stephan Vopel of Bertelsmann. The…
The Economist: Europe
