The New Jewish and German Questions and the Transatlantic Alliance

The French Foreign minister, Vedrine, once stated that Germans continue to answer questions that nobody asked of them. Since the end of WWII, Germany engaged in processes of self-binding and self-limiting in focusing on its economic prowess, while actively inhibiting its military development and encouraging the evolution of a pacifist society. According to Leo Stern, the historical triangle that has defined post-WWII German policy-German, Jewish, and American relations-originated in the displaced person camps (DPs) in the aftermath of the war. The titles make clear the Jews' own ambiguous position: these were not organizations of German Jews, but rather of Jews in Germany. Since the 1950s, Jewish community life and relations with German authorities was carried on quietly and as far away from public scrutiny as possible (the "invisible ghetto"). VI The Six Day War transformed world Jewry by putting Israel on the top of their agenda, and ended the European Israeli honeymoon by replacing Europe with the United States as Israel's main alliance partner. Since 1967, European foreign policy in Middle Eastern affairs grew in opposition to stated American foreign policy, especially with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.