Germany and Israel: White Washing and State Building by Daniel Marwecki

Abstract

Reviewed by: Germany and Israel: White Washing and State Building by Daniel Marwecki Lorena De Vita Germany and Israel: White Washing and State Building. By Daniel Marwecki. London: Hurst, 2020. Pp. vii + 274. Cloth £30.00. ISBN 9781787383180. "Germany stands unconditionally by our friendship with Israel," declared German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on May 20, 2021. "And," he added, "our support for the Palestinians, too, has always been dependable, even in challenging times." With these words, Maas set off for his visit to the region at a time in which Israel and Hamas were engaged in the heaviest round of fighting in the past few years. But the 2021 events were not just a matter of foreign policy concern for Germany, and the conflict quickly found an echo in German streets, too. In Bonn and Münster, protesters burnt Israeli flags in the street. Others, in Gelsenkirchen, chanted antisemitic slogans while heading towards the local synagogue. "Our democracy will not tolerate antisemitic protests," stressed Angela Merkel's spokesperson, while condemning Hamas' rockets against Israel "in the strongest possible terms." In this context, a book that offers a critical reinterpretation of seven decades of relations between Germany and Israel is particularly timely. Daniel Marwecki's Germany and Israel: White Washing and State Building argues that "the history of German economic, financial, military and political support to Israel is highly underappreciated" (4) and aims to provide a corrective of sorts. The book analyzes German policy vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians by drawing from files of the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) as well as "cabinet protocols, parliamentary debates and interviews with experts" (8). The book, which stems from a PhD thesis defended at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, is inspired by but also critical of two main strands of literature: on the one hand, the historiography analyzing "specific periods of German-Israeli relations" and, on the other, "works [written] from a political science perspective" (6). The work is articulated in thirteen chapters divided into four parts. Part 1 focuses on the reparations (Wiedergutmachung/Shilumim) agreement signed in September 1952 between the then very young Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel. Part 2 ("The Military Alliance"), covering the years from 1956 to 1967, focuses on the expanding security ties between the two countries. Part 3 ("Normalisation and the Palestinian Question in Germany's Israel Policy") takes a step back to 1965, examining the metamorphosis of German-Israeli relations after the two countries exchanged diplomatic relations. This section also considers how the relationship held as tension in the Middle East escalated further, mapping how Germany attempted to handle the difficulties that followed, including the 1972 Black September terror attack against the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Part 4 ("New Commitments and Failing Prospects") examines the years after German unification, mapping Germany's support for the Oslo Agreements. The final section also investigates the implications of Angela Merkel's 2008 declaration, in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) [End Page 190] that "Germany's special historical responsibility for Israel's security … is part of my country's raison d'être" and examines whether and to what extent Germany is involved in "perpetuating the occupation" of the Palestinian Territories by financing Palestinian state-building efforts (205). It is clear that Germany has long been a key player in the region, and this book makes a convincing case for the importance of focusing on actors other than the United States when analyzing the international relations of the Middle East. Marwecki also rightly points out the enduring relevance of the early history of the GermanIsraeli relationship—those distant decades left enduring marks that are not yet fully understood. The attempt to shed further light on the complex, intertwined dynamics of German-Israeli and German-Palestinian relations is an important feature of this book, one that has not yet been fully explored in the existing literature. The book's main argument revolves around the claim that the repeated German material support for Israeli or Palestinian state-building was, in fact, connected to the "whitewashing" of Germany's dark past. It is not completely clear, however, to what extent the two...