Herzog Asks Bonn Not to Sell Submarines to Saudis; ‘Special’ Relationship Noted

BONN — President Chaim Herzog of Israel entered a domestic political row here Thursday by speaking out against the possible sale of West German submarines to Saudi Arabia.

Herzog, the first Israeli head of state to visit West Germany, said that this country has a special responsibility not to supply arms to enemies of the Jewish state.

Also, just before paying a visit to the Berlin Wall, Herzog called on the Soviet Union to allow Jews who want to emigrate to Israel to do so.

Herzog’s remarks on the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia came in a West German television interview while his plane was en route from Bonn to West Berlin.

“I believe,” he said, “that the special relationship between us places a responsibility on the Federal Republic, which requires it not to help those who maintain that they are in a state of war with Israel or openly declare their hostility to Israel.”

Saudi Arabia, which is technically at war with Israel, has asked European firms to bid on an estimated $4-billion contract for submarines. A West German shipbuilder is among the companies seeking the contract.

Herzog, whose post is largely ceremonial, is on a state visit to West Germany. He became caught up in the West German dispute over the submarine contract as the result of remarks made by Hans Klein, the West German minister for development aid.

On Sunday, the day before Herzog’s arrival for a five-day visit, Klein was quoted in a newspaper as saying that the idea of weapons exports to Saudi Arabia is “on the whole reasonable and should be considered.”

Law Unclear on Sales

West German law prohibits the export of arms to areas of international tension, but it is left to the government to determine what degree of tension might preclude weapons shipments.

Like other Western nations, West Germany has a large and competitive arms industry, and several right-wing politicians, notably Bavarian state premier Franz Josef Strauss, would like to see it encouraged.

On Tuesday, Klein told Herzog that his remarks had been made more than a week earlier and that their timing had not been intended to embarrass Herzog, whose trip to West Germany has been criticized as unseemly by Israeli politicians.

Also on Tuesday, Friedhelm Ost, a spokesman for Chancellor Helmut Kohl, said that the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia is “not an issue” and that the subject has not come up in talks between Kohl and Herzog.

But on Wednesday the dispute intensified when the Bayernkurier, the newspaper of Strauss’ Christian Social Union, declared that West Germany should compete with the United States, France, Britain and Italy in selling weapons to the Saudis.

The paper said the Bonn government is actively considering approving such a sale if a contract is awarded and that Kohl had personally approved bidding on the submarine contract.

In Bonn, some members of the government, among them Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, have been pushing for more restrictions on the sale of West German arms abroad. The issue has become a source of friction within the governing coalition.

Timing Called Unfortunate

In West Berlin on Thursday, Heinz Galinski, the leader of the Jewish community of about 6,000 people--before World War II the community numbered about 180,000--called on the chancellor to make a clear statement of intent on the submarine contract, which is expected to be awarded by the Saudi government within the next few weeks.

Herzog, in the television interview, said he is acquainted with Strauss’ views on the sale of arms to Arab countries. He called the timing of the newspaper editorial unfortunate and a departure from diplomatic protocol, coming as it did during his state visit.

The row over weapons took the spotlight away from Herzog’s appeal to Moscow to release more Jews. This was delivered at a reception given by West Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen shortly before Herzog visited the Berlin Wall.

“For me,” Herzog said, “the wall represents more than a mere dividing line. For me it also represents those of my people in the Soviet Union and of other peoples, who long for freedom and who seek those basic freedoms which we take for granted but which are so absent in some lands.

“It represents those who ask for nothing more than the right to practice their religion, to study and teach the language of the Bible, Hebrew, and to exercise their intrinsic rights as human beings to emigrate--those who wish to do so--and join their brothers and sisters in the homeland of the Jewish people.”

In Washington later Wednesday, a U.S. government commission announced that the Soviets have approved 137 emigration cases--most of them Jews who want to go to Israel--that had been pressed by Washington.

‘Responsibility Ignored’

In his address, Herzog referred to the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. He declared that while West Germans “had the courage to face up to the unspeakable horrors of the past and to try and make amends to the survivors,” the East German regime had not.

“On the other side of this wall,” he said, “responsibility for this past was and continues to be often ignored. It is a silence pregnant with significance and reflects, therefore, more clearly than is in the power of words to enunciate.”

Earlier, accompanied by Mayor Diepgen and President Richard von Weizsaecker, Herzog visited the Ploetzensee Memorial, which commemorates the Berlin prison where anti-Nazi Germans were tried and executed, including those military men involved in the July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.

Herzog, who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and entered Berlin in July, 1945, as an officer in the British army, said that reconstructed Berlin is “testimony to the values which a modern free society can draw from the inner strength which freedom inspires.”

He added, “In those days after the fall of Nazism, as people emerged from the ruins and wandered through them dazed and without direction, who could have dreamt of the Berlin that I see today?”

Herzog is scheduled to return to Israel today.