On the surface, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has just completed a highly successful state visit to Israel. She enjoyed cordial relations with her Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert, completed customary activities including a highly symbolic visit to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, and became the first German Chancellor to address the Knesset.
Without doubt Merkel supports the existence of a Jewish state, and she has played a particularly significant role in attempting to re-ignite peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian leadership.
Indeed, Olmert describes Germany as a "strategic ally", praising Merkel's "unflinching support" for the state of Israel.
Israel and Germany already enjoy harmonious relations. Germany is Israel's largest trading partner in Europe, and this visit marked Merkel's third to Israel since taking office in 2005 (her predecessor Gerhard Schroder never visited), and in 2000, former German President Johannes Rau became the first German head of state to address the Knesset since the Holocaust.
'Strategic' is particularly apt in describing German-Israeli relations, as Iran became the hot topic of debate during Merkel's visit. Merkel has vowed before that she would support sanctions against Iran if it fails to come clean on its suspected nuclear program, and Olmert and Merkel plan to organise an international summit to properly deal with the situation.
With so much progress then, you may ask what more could have been expected from this important visit.
The concern lies not in what was discussed, but what wasn't. Not least the fact that anti-Semitism in Germany is rising once again, and has been for a number of years.
A much-publicised racial attack occurred in 2007 in Frankfurt, where an offender screaming racial expletives repeatedly stabbed a rabbi. But more disturbingly, well over 150 right-wing groups and organisations were functioning in Germany during 2006, a year after Merkel took office.
Similarly, and perhaps more ominously, in a recently published article, German Holocaust teacher Susanne Urban says that today in schools, one can hear teenagers 'cursing…'"You Jew!" or "You victim!"'
It would be grossly unmerited, however, to liken current German right-wing tendencies to those of the Nazis. But while anti-Semitism may not be as prevalent in Germany as in other parts of Europe or the world, any growth of German anti-Semitism inescapably carries the stigma of being linked to Nazism and the Holocaust.
Olmert drew on this historical aspect, as he articulated that German-Israeli relations "carry the weight of historical memory to which we are obligated. But this is why they contain power, sensitivity and substance that are unparalleled…in the international arena."
In her momentous speech to the Knesset, Merkel did pledge to clamp down on anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia in Germany, and spoke of Germany's great shame and guilt concerning the Holocaust. These sentiments, however, are not widely shared among Germans today. Many Germans try to suppress memories of the Holocaust, and some even liken Israel's current treatment of Palestinians as being tantamount to Holocaust atrocities.
Whilst the majority roundly applauded the speech, some right-wing parliamentarians boycotted it. One Likud member said: "I do not intend to forgive or forget. I do not take part in any ceremony that includes the participation of a German figure." Predictably, many Israelis will everlastingly carry antipathy towards the Germans, and they have every right to do so.
But as Olmert has rightly indicated, Germany is, and will remain, a "strategic ally" for Israel. But even as Merkel's three-day visit has certainly consolidated the already stable relations between the two states, much remains to be done in Germany to prevent further anti-Semitism from regenerating.
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