- Angela Merkel Benjamin Netanyahu
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not scheduled to meet with Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu during her farewell visit to Israel at the beginning the oath Come – this is what Walla learned today (Thursday)! On previous visits to Israel, Merkel met with the opposition leader, such as Tzipi Livni in 2011. Three years later, she met with the opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog when he visited Berlin.
The relationship between Merkel and Netanyahu was charged and very cool. Merkel lost faith in Netanyahu at an early stage after returning to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009. There were several clashes between the two over the Chancellor’s dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s handling of the Palestinian issue, but more so because of her sense that time and time again he had not kept his word on various issues – and in some cases distorted passages from their talks. Things reached a climax in 2017, when Merkel canceled a joint summit between the governments of Israel and Germany against the background of the passage of the law that allows the expropriation of private land of Palestinians.