been important historically thomas how would you describe ties today. ties today are still good but there is potential to me there have been certain issues between germany and israel that have created tensions whether it is israel's settlement policy or when a former foreign minister gabriele also met with organizations that are critical of the israeli government those were lemons that created tensions between the two countries but in general political relations are strong in fact israel has been one of the countries with which germany has governmental consultation and germany only has intergovernmental consultations with a handful of countries so that explains also how the relationship is strong even though as we have stressed they have been instances of tension between the two countries one point of tension thomas has been to both countries have expressed concern about growing anti-semitism in germany including in some arabic communities here the attack on tuesday evening on a young man wearing