For Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first path in the Holy Land does not lead to the head of state, not to the prime minister, nor to the architect of the new government. The Federal President’s first trip takes him to close friends. People who think and feel like him in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; Israelis fighting for reconciliation and longing for a peaceful future. No sooner have you landed at Tel Aviv airport than you go to the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation.
Located directly on the sea in Jaffa, which is mostly inhabited by Arab Israelis, the center founded by former President Shimon Peres is a reminder of the peace initiative that sparked a very brief phase of great hope in the early 1990s. A good place to arrive, which also takes care of rapprochement and understanding between Palestinians and Israelis in the here and now. No wonder that Steinmeier is drawn here, especially on this evening when the soft red sun sinks all too picturesque into the calm sea. Whether as foreign minister or federal president – he has always promoted these goals among the Israelis, even if that became increasingly hopeless under the previous Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Steinmeier will try to find out whether it will change with the new government until departure on Friday evening. Before that, however, he set himself this appointment. In the rooms of the Peres Center he would like to honor four Israelis. Two women and two men who have served him as personal role models for years. In a short address, he acknowledged their importance. “It is good people like you who lead us back to good things when we stumble and lose our way,” enthuses Steinmeier. All four are dedicated to the memory of the Shoah; but all four have long since become warners for the Federal President in the present. A present with anti-Semites, right-wing extremists and an at least partially right-wing party in Germany. “Work like yours is our pledge not to be forgotten.”
“I thank God that your voice is there”
First there is Regina Steinitz, now over ninety years old. After her father escaped and her mother died, she survived the war and persecution with her twin sister Ruth, was always lucky in numerous hiding places – and at the age of seventy she decided to speak publicly about her story. In schools, at universities, at public appearances. “In my life,” says Steinmeier, turning to her, “hardly anything has been as great an honor for me as your friendship. I thank God that your voice is there.”
There is also Avner Shalev, the longtime director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Born in Jerusalem in 1939, he joined the Israeli army when he was seventeen. He later moved to the Ministry of Culture and Education, and became chairman of the national cultural committee – until he became head of Yad Vashem in 1993. “I am here to thank you for your many years of work,” says Steinmeier, “and for your many gestures of kindness, friendship and reconciliation”.
Then there is the artist Michal Rovner, born in Tel Aviv in 1957. She works primarily with video installations, but also with photographs, sculptures and illustrations. Her installation “I Still See Their Eyes” in Yad Vashem became famous. Your installations would give the murdered a voice and a face, says Steinmeier. Through her work, the painful memories that bind Israel and Germany together have been given “space and form”. “We are deeply grateful to you for this.”
And finally the writer David Grossman. Steinmeier met him again and again over the years. “In bad times, in good times, even in times that are very painful for you,” as the Federal President reported. With his writings, Grossman, who lost his own son in a military operation in Lebanon, “opened many windows into the soul of Israel”. With everything he does artistically, he opposes “that a gloomy past forces us into an equally gloomy future”.
In the end, all four stand together with Steinmeier to have themselves photographed. Old and proud and upright.
How the near future of Israel will go on, whether the new eight-party coalition will last longer than many here do not know, nobody knows. Steinmeier will try, however, to at least begin to sense this in the next few days. To this end, he will meet the new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett; he will speak to the alliance’s architect, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. And he will talk to the new President-elect Isaac Herzog.
But his actual host will be at least as important to him as these talks: Reuven Rivlin, the outgoing President of Israel. In just over a week, Rivlin will be leaving office. Seen in this way, Steinmeier just managed to accept the invitation to a state visit that had been open for a year and a half. He will visit the grave of Theodor Herzl as well as the kibbutz in the Negev where David Ben-Gurion lived. And he’ll be spending a lot of time with Rivlin before saying goodbye to him.
So a lot of the past, a lot of the present, and a farewell.