German Foreign Minister called for dialogue in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict | News from Germany about world events

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met with colleagues from Israel and the Palestinian Authority during her visit to Tel Aviv and the West Bank on Thursday, February 10.

The German Foreign Minister noted that maintaining the status quo in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “over and over again leads to a new escalation with horrific consequences for both sides.” In this regard, it is necessary that the parties build confidence on the way to a solution to the conflict based on the coexistence of two states.

Burbock criticized the rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, as well as the construction of Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River. “We believe that this is harmful and inconsistent with international law,” the German minister said in Tel Aviv. In the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the German Foreign Minister promised that Berlin would do everything to ensure that “Israeli and Palestinian representatives again sat down at the negotiating table.”

Burbock named four main themes in relations between Germany and Israel

During her visit to Israel, Annalena Burbock expressed her solidarity with that country. “The security of Israel has been and remains a fundamental state issue for Germany,” she said. The most important topics of German-Israeli relations, according to the German Foreign Minister, are the fight against anti-Semitism, the development of exchanges between countries, the promotion of the peace process in the Middle East and cooperation in the field of climate policy.

Burbock also visited the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. “It is impossible to comprehend the horror that my country has created in the world, and in particular with the more than six million murdered Jews in Europe,” the German Foreign Minister said.

See also:

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Jerusalem, the city of David
According to the Old Testament, around 1000 B.C. King David – the ruler of Israel and Judea – conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites and proclaimed the city the capital and religious center of the state. Subsequently, the son of David, King Solomon, built the First Jerusalem Temple there, dedicated to the god of the people of Israel, Yahweh.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Babylonian captivity
The Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Jerusalem twice – in 597 and 586 BC. He took the king and all the nobles captive and sent them to Babylon as slaves, and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. After Babylon was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus II, the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Domination of the Romans and Byzantines
From 63 AD Jerusalem was under the rule of the Roman Empire. In 66 AD e. an uprising broke out here: a four-year Jewish war began, which after 4 years ended with the victory of the Romans and the repeated destruction of the Jerusalem temple. The dominance of the Romans and then the Byzantines in Palestine continued for about seven hundred years.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Arab conquest
During the Muslim Arab conquests of most of Greater Syria, their troops reached Palestine. In 637, the army of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab laid siege to Jerusalem and eventually took it. For several centuries, several Muslim rulers competed for control of Jerusalem: the owners of the city often changed.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders
At the end of the 11th century, the Christian world in the East was increasingly threatened by the nomadic Seljuk Turks. Pope Urban II called on Christians to crusade. For 200 years, Europeans undertook five crusades in order to reclaim Jerusalem and liberate the Holy Sepulcher. The crusaders managed to take Jerusalem, but they could not hold it. In 1244, the city was again captured by the Muslims.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Ottomans and British
In 1535, after the capture of Egypt and the Arab countries by the Ottoman Turks, Jerusalem became part of the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, after the victory of British troops over the Ottomans in 1917, the city located in Palestine came under British control.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
divided city
After World War II, the British abandoned the Mandate for Palestine. The UN General Assembly voted to divide Palestine in two to create a new homeland for Jewish Holocaust survivors. After Israel’s independence, a number of Arab countries declared war on Israel. Jerusalem was divided into an eastern part controlled by Jordan and a western part controlled by Israel.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Fight for East Jerusalem
In 1967, Israel, after winning the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria, captured the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. For the first time since 1949, Israelis have had free access to the Western Wall. Formally, East Jerusalem was not annexed, but became an integral part of the State of Israel.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Islamic shrines
Since then, Israel has not restricted Muslims’ access to their holy places. Muslims can climb the Temple Mount and enter the Dome of the Rock shrine located there, as well as pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is considered the third sanctuary of Islam after the mosques in Mecca and Medina.

Ancient Jerusalem – bone of contention
Uncertain status
Jerusalem to this day remains a stumbling block on the path to peace between Israel and Palestine. In 1980, Israel declared the ancient city to be its “eternal and indivisible capital”. After Jordan renounced its claims to the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1988, the Palestinians adopted a declaration of independence while at the same time declaring East Jerusalem their capital.
Author: Ines Eisele, Alexandra Elkina