Culture minister warns visiting Merkel not to interfere over Palestinian village

Culture Minister Miri Regev on Wednesday warned  visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel against bringing up the fate of Khan al-Ahmar, a Palestinian village slated for demolition.

“I advise her to deal with internal problems of her own country,” Regev said.

“We respect Mrs Merkel and we are pleased with the cooperation between our two countries, but with all due respect, regarding our internal problems, I expect that foreign leaders who come here don’t interfere,” said Regev.

Residents of the West Bank hamlet were bracing for the demolition of their homes after the passing of an Israeli-imposed deadline of the beginning of the month for Khan al-Ahmar’s inhabitants to evacuate before forced removal.

The deadline followed a ruling from the High Court of Justice that rejected a final appeal from Khan al-Ahmar residents to prevent the demolition of their village in a case that has drawn international condemnation of Israel.

The state says the structures, mostly makeshift shacks and tents, were built without permits and pose a threat to the village residents because of their proximity to a highway.

The villagers — who have lived at the site, then controlled by Jordan, since the 1950s, after the state evicted them from their Negev homes — argue that they had little alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits, as such permits are almost never issued to Palestinians for building in parts of the West Bank, such as where Khan al-Ahmar lies, where Israel exerts full control over civilian affairs.

Opponents of the demolition also argue that it is part of an effort to enable the expansion of the nearby settlement of Kfar Adumim, and to create a region of contiguous Israeli control from Jerusalem almost to the Dead Sea, a move critics say will bisect the West Bank, making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

Merkel arrived Wednesday evening in Israel, where she immediately headed to Jerusalem for dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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She is not expected to enter the Palestinian territories, but her visit to Israel has prompted calls for the German chancellor to urge Israel to stop its planned demolition of Khan al-Ahmar.

Merkel was greeted at Ben Gurion Airport by Minister Tzachi Hanegbi and Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel’s ambassador to Berlin.

Hanegbi posted a video to Twitter of himself welcoming Merkel and wrote that the “strong ties between our countries will continue to get stronger.”

Route 1 was closed to traffic as Merkel rode to Jerusalem, and there was tight security at the King David Hotel — where world leaders stay on visits to the city — with streets closed off, police manning barricades and a helicopter circling overhead.

At the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, Merkel was greeted by Netanyahu and his wife Sara.

Merkel’s two-day visit is centered around a one-on-one meeting with Netanyahu and a joint session of the Israeli and German cabinets.

The visit highlights Israel and Germany’s historically close partnership, but may also lay bare deep policy disagreements between the two countries.

In Jerusalem, in addition to her meeting with Netanyahu, the German leader will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial for the third time and receive her third honorary doctorate from an Israeli university.

“Germany and Israel are connected with a unique relationship. Out of the heritage of our history, out of the break of civilization that was the Holocaust, we Germans have a special responsibility for the relationship with Israel,” Merkel said Friday in a video for her weekly podcast.

“We can be very thankful that today we’re close partners and friends,” she stressed.

Merkel and Netanyahu last met in June in Berlin and agreed that the next round of German-Israeli government consultations — which have been taking place for the last ten years — would focus on the economy, innovation and technology, the Chancellery said Tuesday, citing Israel as “one of the world market leaders” in information technology and cybersecurity.

“We can learn a lot in many areas,” said Merkel, who is accompanied on her visit by a delegation of leading German businesspeople.

But the two leaders are also expected to discuss geopolitical issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the US administration’s increasingly tough policies vis-à-vis Ramallah, and the Iran nuclear deal and European efforts to salvage the pact and continue trading with the Islamic Republic.