Germany is getting itself more and more involved in attempts to devise solutions for the Middle East. That is why the German government sponsored the Third Transatlantic Conference in Berlin last week

This conference was supposed to address issues relating to Middle East peace. It degenerated from an attempt at peace to an attack on Israel due to inflammatory comments by former Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Muhammad Javad Ardashir Larijani—who actually was invited to Berlin by the German Foreign Office to give his advice.

When Larijani rose to speak, he said that “the Zionist project” should be canceled, because it “has failed miserably and has only caused terrible damage to the region.”

Representatives from Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia were quick to jump on Larijani’s bandwagon and voice their own anti-Israeli sentiments. This whole conference quickly became an echo chamber for anti-Semitic Iranian propaganda and a gigantic embarrassment to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The conference was presented by the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt and hosted by the Berlin Representation of the State of Hessen. According to the Peace Research Institute’s webpage, it was funded by the German government and the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (which is affiliated with the Social Democratic Party). Representatives of Germany’s foreign and economics ministries are now arguing over exactly who issued the money used to back the conference.

Regardless of which department of the government actually paid out, however, the fact that Larijani was at this conference at the request of the German Foreign Office has caused insightful critics to say that Steinmeier’s Iran policy is ignoring Israel’s security interests at a crucial period in German-Israeli relations. If Germany really is a “loyal partner and friend” of Israel as German Chancellor Angela Merkel says it is, why would its Foreign Office invite a man who denies Israel’s right to exist to a conference on how to solve the Middle East’s problems?

The truth is that while Merkel and a few other German leaders might pledge loyalty to Israel, a large portion of the German population are not of the same mind. A Bertelsmann Foundation poll in 2007 showed that 3 out of 10 Germans have no qualms about comparing Israel today to Hitler’s Germany. Another poll, conducted by Germany’s zdf television, showed that 53 percent of Germans think their nation has no “special responsibility” to Israel and only 13 percent think Germany should intervene militarily if Israel were attacked.

Israel is taking Germans like Angela Merkel at their word when they say they are its friend and is not considering that the masses are not nearly as friendly.

Those who organized this Transatlantic Conference, who had no problem seeking advice from a man who says Israel should be canceled, are apparently more in step with their countrymen than the chancellor is.

This scenario exhibits all the signs of a spectacular double cross in the making.

For more information on German-Israeli relations, read “Can Israel Trust Germany?”