Germany never criticizes Israel. It has no standing, evidently. That may be changing. Spiegel online, commentator Christoph Schult:
[German Development Minister Dirk] Niebel, currently on a trip to the Middle East, was prevented by Israeli authorities from entering the Gaza Strip to check up on the progress of a sewage treatment plant being funded by Germany…
German-Israeli relations are in a state of crisis. The arrogance of the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame. Via his security advisors, he let Merkel know that she was not to say anything publicly about the Israeli settlements policy during Netanyahu’s visit to Berlin. He represented a critical telephone call as a positive chat. And he declined a prisoner exchange that had been put together by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, which could have brought captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit home from the Gaza Strip. Israeli Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, interviewed in the current issue of SPIEGEL, described the latter as “a mistake.”
…Israel has not just denied a visit by a German minister. For months it has also been blocking the entry of building materials necessary for the construction of the German waste water treatment plant.
