East Germany–Palestine relations refer to foreign relations that existed between East Germany and the State of Palestine. East Germany never established diplomatic ties with Israel and opposed Holocaust repatriation payment from West Germany to Israel.[1]
History
East Germany opposed the state of Israel and supported Arab states in their conflict with Israel.[2] It condemned and opposed Zionism.[3] West Germany on the other hand was pro-Israel, providing it with financial and military support.[4]
Since the end of the 1950s the attitude of the GDR leadership toward the Middle East conflict and the Palestinian question had become more and more pro-Arab and anti-Israeli. This shift became especially clear during the Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War and the Lebanon War. After the Six-Day War all countries of the Eastern Bloc with the exception of Romania broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. Their position strongly influenced the approach of the East German government toward Israel. The GDR condemned the "imperialist aggression of Israel" and accused "the United States and West Germany of being accomplices to the aggressor". Resolutions from SED meetings and communiqués signed by East German officials stressed the "GDR's firm solidarity with the Arab states in the anti-imperialist struggle, especially in repelling Israeli aggression and overcoming its consequences". In 1968, Simon Wiesenthal stated that East Germany's news service was far more anti-Israeli than that of other communist countries. On 14 July 1967, a cartoon appeared in the Berliner Zeitung, depicting a flying Moshe Dayan, with his hands stretched out toward Gaza and Jerusalem. Next to him stood Adolf Hitler in an advanced state of decomposition. He encouraged Dayan with the words: "Carry on, colleague Dayan!"[5] In March 1968, the GDR spoke out in favor of "regaining the legitimate rights of the Arab-Palestinian people," advocating such positions well ahead of its ideological allies from Moscow.[6]
Since the early 1970s, East Germany cooperated with Arab countries and the Palestine Liberation Organization at a military level. Military and security advisers were especially active in Libya, Syria and South Yemen. The PLO played an important role in all East German political strategies concerning the Middle East. The first official agreement between the SED and the PLO was signed during Yasser Arafat's visit to East Berlin in August 1973. The agreement included the opening of a PLO office in East Berlin - its first office in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the supply of "non-civilian goods" to the PLO was arranged.[7] In September 1973, PLO leader Yasser Arafat was received by Erich Honecker in East Berlin, and a PLO representation was established in East Berlin, which was given the diplomatic rank of an embassy in 1982. In the GDR reading, the Palestinians were among the peoples oppressed by Western imperialism, who were waging an anti-colonialliberation struggle, a view also held by parts of the West German left.[6] In the 1980s, despite the friendship between Arafat and Honecker, a distancing from the PLO occurred when the GDR sided with the Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad, who was at odds with Arafat. The GDR supported the PLO and later other Palestinian groups financially as well as with weapons, and also trained fighters.[8]
The SED notion of Zionism was summed up in an internal document compiled by the State Secretariat for Church Affairs in 1972 as a "reactionary-nationalist ideology of the Jewish big bourgeosie".[9]
The close cooperation between East Germany and the PLO was one reason why Israel objected to the GDR becoming a member of the UN in 1973.[10] Israel's ambassador to the UN, Yosef Tekoah, stated in the General Assembly on September 18, 1973, that "Israel notes with regret and repugnance that the other German state (GDR) has ignored and continues to ignore Germany's historical responsibility for the Holocaust and the moral obligations arising from it. It has compounded the gravity of that attitude by giving support and practical assistance to the campaign of violence and murder waged against Israel and the Jewish people by Arab terror organizations".[11]
In 1975 East Germany voted in favour of U.N resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. This was propagated by the East German media, with the teachers' union Deutsche Lehrezeitung asserting that "there is a common ideological platform between Zionism and Fascism. It is racism".[13] and articles condemning "aggressive and chauvinist Zionism".[14]
On June 22, 1990, the first freely elected People's Chamber adopted a statement apologizing "in all form from the anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist policy practiced in this country for decades."[15]
East Germany stopped existing in 1990 with the German reunification.[16] The resultant Germany has a pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian foreign policy.[17][18][19] Germany told schools in Neukolln to distribute flyers calling the 1948 Nakba a myth.[20] By 2022, Germany had repatriated 82 billion euro to Israel.[21]
