JERUSALEM-BERLIN (EJP)---Israeli officials have expressed reservations regarding the leader of the liberal Free Democrats party, who won Sunday’s parliament election in Germany and who is likely to become the next Foreign Minister.
Israel on Monday congratulated German Chancellor Angela Merkel – one of its best allies in Europe- for her election victory.
Following the vote, Germany is likely to have a new centre-right and liberal coalition government. It will replace the current coalition of Merkel’s Christian-Democrats (CDU-CSU) with the Social Democrats (SPD) of Frank-Walter Steinmeir, who lost the election.
"Israel congratulates Angela Merkel on her victory in the general elections," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.
"During her first tenure she showed deep friendship to Israel, impressive sensitivity to the past, and devotion to the special relationship between the two people and two states."
Lieberman said Israeli-German relations went beyond coalition politics and were based on a remembrance of the tragic history shared by the two countries.
But according to The Jerusalem Post newspaper, some in Jerusalem are concerned about Guido Westerwelle replacing outgoing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
| Central Council of Jews in Germany |
Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said that he "would have liked to have seen a continuation of the grand coalition (between Christian-democrats and Social Democrats) because it is better way to smooth out problems" among diverse groups in Germany. He said the Central Council of Jews has strong ties to "all of the democratic parties" and does not see a "change between the federal government and the Jewish community." Kramer added that it was "very good" no neo-Nazi party entered the Bundestag, and that on the regional level, in the Eastern German state of Brandenburg, voters ejected the German People's Party (DVU), a neo-Nazi party, from parliament. 
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The conservatives won 33.8 percent of the vote, a loss of 1.4% from the 2005 election. Guido Westerwelle, the head of the Free Democrats, led his pro-business party to a 14.5% result, the best voter turnout in the history of the party.
The 47-year-old Westerwelle was born after the Holocaust and as a member of a new generation of Germans, he did not have the same reflexive sympathy for Israel that has characterized other German leaders from the across the political spectrum.
The ‘Mölleman affair’
He joined the FDP as a teenager in 1980, rising swiftly through the ranks to become chairman in 2001 at just 40, the youngest leader amongst the big five parties in Germany.
In 2002, a top FDP politician and head of the German-Arab society, Jürgen Möllemann, distributed flyers attacking former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Michel Friedmann, who at the time was vice president of the Central Council of Jews, the umbrella group of Jewish communities in the country.
He accused Friedmann of feulling the spread of anti-Semitism in germany, likened Sharon’s military assault on Palestinians to the practices of the Nazis and attempted to justify Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel.
Mölleman, considered as an anti-Semite, was accused of pandering to the extreme right to boost his party's chances in the elections.
As the party’s head, Guido Westerwelle, failed to immediately distance himself from Möllemann and only after rising public pressure did he express regret about his attacks.
Israeli officials also said that the FDP has been problematic regarding Iran, expressing opposition to sanctions against Teheran.
Germany is Iran's largest European trade partner.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Israeli officials also pointed out that in 2006, Westerwelle opposed the participation of German intelligence-gathering ships and naval personnel in preventing a rearming of Hizbullah as part of UN Security Council resolution 1701 that put an end to the Second Lebanon War.