Two photos in an Insta story from the State Department are causing a stir. The recordings posted during Annalena Baerbock’s visit to Israel have now been deleted.
Berlin – A visit to Yad Vashem is an essential part of every trip to Israel by German politicians. The visit by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) to the Holocaust memorial now has an aftermath – because of an insensitive post on Instagram.
A State Department Insta story showed the Green politician and a man, believed to be Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, near a beach in Tel Aviv. “I am still deeply touched by my visit to Yad Vashem,” Baerbock is quoted as saying under the photo. A second shot shows breaking waves – along with the sentence “But now the sun is finally coming out again.”
The Social Democrat Mattheus Berg had shared a screenshot of the two recordings on Twitter, with the incredulous note: “But then the sun will finally come out again???” The Foreign Office has since deleted the photos. “The images and language we used in an Insta story slide do not capture the impressions,” the ministry wrote under Berg’s post. “We apologize for that. We therefore deleted the slide.”
Baerbock visited Yad Vashem at the beginning of her three-day trip to the Middle East and was deeply moved. “As a mother of two daughters, my breath catches when I think of the millions of Jewish children who were murdered, torn from their parents, left alone, full of fear of the unknown,” said the Foreign Minister afterwards. “The thought of the pain of every single child, every single mother, every single father is hard to bear.” So that such a crime against humanity is never repeated.”
Annalena Baerbock: “Israel’s security is a German reason of state”
After her visit to the Holocaust memorial, Baerbock assured Israeli Prime Minister Jair Lapid of the federal government’s solidarity. “The security of Israel is and will remain a German reason of state,” stressed Baerbock. At the same time, she criticized the Israeli settlement policy as “harmful” and incompatible with international law. Baerbock also backed the two-state solution, which she described as the “best option” for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
Following her meeting with Lapid, Baerbock traveled to Ramallah to meet with her Palestinian counterpart Riad Malki and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. After the meeting with Malki, Baerbock said that Germany was prepared to support the Palestinian and Israeli sides in possible peace efforts. She promised Abbas that Germany would “remain a reliable partner”: “You can be sure: the situation of the Palestinian people is at the top of our agenda.”
On Friday, Baerbock continued her trip to the Middle East in Jordan, where she visited a refugee settlement, among other things. This will be followed by a meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Aiman al-Safadi in Amman. Baerbock will continue to Egypt on Saturday. (sh)
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