‘The Most Difficult Journey of All’: Willy Brandt's Trip to Israel in June 1973
2014; Routledge; Volume: 37; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/07075332.2014.933745
ISSN1949-6540
Autores Tópico(s)Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies
ResumoIn June 1973 Willy Brandt became the first West German Chancellor to visit Israel, four years after launching his Ostpolitik and attempting to mend the Federal Republic's ties with the Arab world. Brandt faced a wary Israeli audience: a government and press incensed over his behaviour during and after the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in September 1972, and an Israeli population still unready to welcome a German leader. For Brandt, this long-delayed visit was the climax of his earlier ‘pilgrimages of expiation’ that had taken him to Erfurt, Moscow, and Warsaw. But while showing an affable demeanour, the Chancellor was firm: refusing to characterise the German-Israeli bond as a ‘special’ one, rebuffing requests for additional restitution payments, and declining to act as a middle man in negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbours. With the Chancellor's refusal to remain a prisoner of the German–Jewish past, Brandt's visit signalled an altered relationship between Bonn and Jerusalem.
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