The day DW interviewed Israel’s Ambassador Ron Prosor in Berlin coincided with Israel’s Day of Remembrance on April 21, when the country honors fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Prosor opened by noting the heavy security at the Israeli embassy in Berlin and saying it underscored how Israeli diplomats must operate abroad. He recalled that since Israel’s founding in 1948 the country has been nearly constantly at war.
Prosor warned that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel and a wider danger to Europe. He said years of negotiations had not stopped Iran’s nuclear program and that Iran’s ballistic missiles had been transferred to Moscow and used in Russia’s war in Ukraine, thereby threatening Europe. He accused the mullahs and ayatollahs of pursuing a policy to “annihilate the state of Israel,” and said that the same lethal ideology could be seen in Hamas and Hezbollah.
Asked whether the military operations since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, incursion had made Israel safer, Prosor replied that the region already looks different: he pointed to a Lebanese government without Hezbollah influence, to Bashar al-Assad aligning with Moscow, and said Iran and its proxies had been weakened. He argued there is now an opportunity to change the region.
Prosor acknowledged tensions with Germany, noting that the last full German-Israeli government consultations were eight years ago and that Berlin has criticized Israeli actions in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. Still, he highlighted the high-level German visits to Israel after October 7 — including the president, the foreign minister, the chancellor and other senior officials — saying those gestures were unmatched by other European countries.
On the two-state solution, Prosor criticized some politicians for repeating the formula like parrots. He recalled his role as head of Israel’s Foreign Service during Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and said he had believed then that it could lead to peace. But after the October 7 massacre, his view changed. He said Israel will reach out to anyone who genuinely wants peace while keeping “the Shield of David” — a metaphor for safeguarding the country — very close, because “only a strong Israel, a very strong Israel can achieve peace in this region.”
Finally, Prosor addressed a controversy between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. After Merz warned of a possible “de-facto annexation of the West Bank,” Smotrich posted that the days when Germans dictated to Jews where they may live are over. Prosor defended Merz as a friend of Israel and criticized the timing of his comments — made on Holocaust Memorial Day — urging greater tact, using the German term “Fingerspitzengefühl” to describe the needed sensitivity.
This article was originally published in German.