Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
appealed on Thursday to Israel to respond 'constructively' to Arab
League efforts for a halt in the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
He telephoned Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to voice 'his
great concern about the continuation of the fighting,' his office
said in Berlin.
He told her the fighting endangered progress to date in the Middle
East peace process and undermined the stance of those Arabs who were
willing to engage with Israel.
But he also said the pre-condition for a truce had to be the
cessation of missile attacks against Israel by the radical Hamas
authorities in the Gaza Strip.
Foreign Ministry aides said he also spoke with Amr Mussa,
secretary general of the Arab League, and Egyptian Foreign Minister
Ahmed Abul Gheit by phone so he could hear about the outcome of
Wednesday's Arab League meeting.
A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile rejected
criticism of her forthright support for Israel during the conflict
with Hamas.
Merkel's assessment, offered during her New Year address, matched
that of the European Union foreign ministers, the spokesman said.
She had made it clear that she too desired a truce in the fighting
as soon as possible, he added.
'However conditions have to be met, and the most important
condition in the view of the chancellor is that Israel's security
must be secured,' said the spokesman at her office.
Merkel and Steinmeier are political rivals who are set to go head
to head at this year's German general election. Steinmeier is seeking
the chancellorship as nomineed of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Merkel accused Hamas of terrorism in her New Year address. On
Monday, her deputy spokesman Thomas Steg had said 'the cause and
effect' of this week's fighting should not be muddled with one
another or ignored.
The International League for Human Rights, a pacifist organization
active in Germany, had accused Merkel of 'encouraging Israel to
continue war crimes in the Gaza Strip' and demanded she pressure
Israel into a ceasefire.
'If she does not, she will be guilty of increasing the spiral of
violence,' the group charged.
Rolf Muetzenich, an SPD deputy, also criticized her,
saying, 'It is not the right thing at the current time to discuss who
is to blame.' He said the priority should be a truce.
But Muetzenich said he accepted that Israel was right to defend
itself against Hamas attacks.
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