In his important article in Haaretz (October 16), Amir Tibon speaks with experts who explain how the war in Gaza is stirring up Germany, undermining the long-standing consensus on military exports to Israel, and sparking unprecedented public and political debate.

Alongside the US, Germany, the leader of the European Union, is the only ally with which Israel has full and unconditional relations. Over the years, Israel's relations with most countries in the world have been severed and renewed, managed openly and secretly, cooled and warmed, but Israel relied on two anchors: the US and Germany.

The Israeli public tends to take relations with Germany for granted, thinking that they are eternal and based solely on a German "moral debt" due to the Holocaust of European Jews, which will never be repaid. But relations with Germany have always been complex and have involved interests.

Foreign Ministry telegrams in the State Archives in Jerusalem, which were opened to the public in the past two years, show that in the first decades of relations with West Germany, Israel's importance stemmed, among other things, from it being the "quick ride" to Germany's return to the "Western civilization" after the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

Relations with Israel served to allay concerns about the "new Germany." This can be learned, for example, from the telegram sent on October 3, 1965, by the chief assistant in the Western European Department at the Foreign Ministry, David Efrati, to the director of the department, Ze'ev Shek.

Efrati reported that the West German deputy ambassador to Israel, Dr. Alexander Török, visited him and described West Germany's ultimate political goal as a unification with East Germany. Dr. Török claimed that the State of Israel had a special role in removing international concerns about unification due to "the influence of the Jews in the enlightened world, and their moral standing in the world in everything related to Germany." Dr. Török further explained that despite the compensation and reparations to Jews and the State of Israel, Western countries still tend to "draw conclusions about the nature of the new Germany based on its attitude towards the State of Israel."

Of course, with the passage of time since the Holocaust, in light of the transformation of the unified Germany into a European superpower and the deterioration of the State of Israel's image in the world due to the continuation of the occupation and even more so the war in Gaza, the considerations that Dr. Török mentioned in 1965 are less relevant in 2024.

As the experts explained to Tivon, Germany is a democratic country that has an interest in adhering to its domestic and international law, in addition to the fact that it is currently focused on Russia's war in Ukraine and European stability.

If Prime Minister Netanyahu is planning to scold German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Twitter for the freeze or delays in arms shipments, as he has already done against the leaders of the US, Britain and France, it probably will not help him. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol also had only partial success in this matter, as arms shipments to Israel hindered West Germany's efforts to gain international support for its reunification with East Germany.

After details about the arms shipments from West Germany to Israel were leaked to the media in the second half of October 1964, and Arab countries pressed it stop them, on November 4, 1964, Chancellor Ludwig Erhard first proposed to the head of the Israeli "reparations delegation" in Cologne, Eliezer Shinar, that Israel would agree to receive "money instead of weapons."

On February 8, 1965, the Israeli government decided to refuse the offer. On February 11, 1965, Chancellor Erhard wrote in a telegram to Eshkol that "continuing the supply could lead to the recognition of Egypt and other Arab countries in the Soviet occupation zone [East Germany], and thus our positions in the Near East would be compromised [...] Due to vital interests, the Federal Government is obliged to bring the supply of weapons to an end and is strongly committed to reaching an agreement with Israel on this matter."

The policy change was leaked to the German media. On February 12, 1965, Chancellor Erhard officially declared at a press conference his government's decision "to refrain in the future from supplying weapons to areas of tension, but with regard to existing agreements, a way will be found for their fulfillment or conversion."

In response, Israel chose to raise the tone. In a telegram sent on February 14, 1965, by the director of the Western European Department at the Foreign Ministry, Ze'ev Shek, to the Israeli envoy in Ankara (Turkey), he detailed the motive for this: "From a practical point of view, we need both weapons and financial assistance from Germany. The Germans know this and are pressing us against the wall." Shek explained that Israel was concerned about "the political side of the German statements: imposing an embargo on arms shipments to Israel and declaring the area a zone of tension."

Three days earlier, on February 11, 1965, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem sent an "urgent" telegram to Israeli missions around the world, calling on them to brief journalists and Jewish and non-Jewish organizations on a list of points, including that "the German government, which acts in this way and shamelessly sacrifices, twenty years after Hitler, a vital Israeli interest, cannot expect understanding from the Jewish people and the world. Such a government calls into question its right to unify Germany."

On February 15, 1965, the Knesset passed a resolution expressing "astonishment and outrage" and defining West Germany's decision as "capitulation to the Egyptian ruler's policy of hostility toward Israel."

According to a summary of a meeting held on March 8, 1965, between Chancellor Erhard's envoy, Dr. Kurt Birnbach, and Prime Minister Eshkol, Dr. Birnbach said that "the German government appeals to the Israeli government and asks it to take its problems into account as well and to think of a way out of the mess. Germany will never forget Israel if it helps find a desirable solution."

A summary prepared by the Foreign Ministry on February 14, 1966, stated that the global Israeli campaign to lift the German embargo had failed, and in talks with Dr. Birnbach, "an agreement was reached on the cessation and conversion of German military aid to Israel, while receiving promises of future economic aid." In 1965 alone, the amount involved was $35 million.

In August 1965, the West German embassy opened in Tel Aviv, leading to sanctions against it by some Arab countries. Two months later, on October 28, director Shek reported in a telegram to the Israeli ambassador to Germany, Asher Ben-Natan, about his meeting with the German ambassador to Israel, Dr. Rolf Pauls.

According to Shek, the German ambassador told the Israeli representative that "a new generation is growing up in Germany that does not understand our [Israel] approach and is hurt by the generalizations. These young people are asking themselves what they did wrong and why they deserve such treatment from us [...] He is under the impression that we believe that the more we press and demand, the softer their position will be, and we will get more out of them. This is a mistake. This policy will lead to serious consequences. Understanding their position on the one hand and softening our position on the other will lead to relationship of trust and understanding, and then we will achieve more as well." Ambassador Pauls added that "Germany does not intend to forget the past" and that "in his opinion, there is no such thing as correcting the crimes of the Nazis" since they cannot truly be corrected. These things are certainly true in 2024.

The arms shipment affair and its cessation have already been exposed by Israeli journalists and historians, including journalist Ronen Bergman and Professor Roni Stauber, but it is important to remember it precisely at this moment.

For many years, and especially since October 7, Germany has stood up in defense of the State of Israel, not only in declarations but also in actions, with massive military and diplomatic assistance. The German commitment was to protect Israeli against external enemies. Germany has never declared that it also intends to prevent the Israelis and their leaders from committing an internal "collective suicide" from a diplomatic, security, economic, and social perspective.

There is no chance that if an arms embargo is imposed on Israel now, Germany will transfer money to the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir government so that it can purchase it itself, as was done in the 1960s.

The deterioration of democratic institutions in Israel, the abandonment of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, the racist, violent and destructive policies that the Netanyahu government is implementing towards Palestinian civilians in the entire area between the sea and the Jordan river, the UNRWA laws and Netanyahu's refusal to end the war, are turning the State of Israel from a "advantage" into an internal and international "burden" on the German government.

For relations between the two countries to be sound, they must be based on the present and the future, not just on the painful past. Israel must also consider Germany's interests. Netanyahu doesn't care, but the Israeli public must not take Germany's support for granted.

Once the watershed line in relations with Germany is crossed, it will be very difficult to restore them, and this is while the State of Israel has no other serious alternative. Every day that passes that Israel does not end the war and reach a ceasefire increases the risk that this line will be crossed.