Germany Turns a Blind Eye to Radical Islam

Yet she used her recent visit to Lebanon, where Hezbollah plays a decisive role in shaping Lebanon's policies in the Middle East, to blast Israel for building apartments in an east Jerusalem neighborhood. “Why is Merkel suddenly criticizing Israel so harshly?” asked a Bild newspaper headline during Chancellor Merkel's visit to Lebanon last March.

Chancellor Merkel did little to reassure Israel of their so-called “special relationship.” In fact, she might very well have contributed to ratcheting up the jingoism of Hezbollah in the region, which already triggered a war against Israel in the Summer of 2006.

Will Germany clamp down on its homegrown political Islamists and ban Hezbollah, or choose to lay the groundwork, following the 9/11 lead of Mohamed Atta and his Hamburg cell, for new terror attacks against the West and Israel?

Benjamin Weinthal is a journalist based in Berlin and currently a fellow at the Iran Energy Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.