BERLIN — Chancellor Merkel of Germany arrives in Israel yesterday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the country’s founding out of the ashes of World War II, in a trip designed to cement relations between the two nations. Mrs. Merkel, who grew up in former East Germany, which never recognized the state of Israel, is traveling at the invitation of Prime Minister Olmert. She’s the first world leader to visit Jerusalem to mark this year’s jubilee, and will become the first German chancellor to address the Knesset chamber. The Knesset, which can normally only be addressed by heads of state, changed its statute to allow Mrs. Merkel to speak on March 18.

The three-day trip is “the most important German government visit in many, many years,” Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Yoram Ben-Zeev, said at a conference in Berlin March 12. Her address to Knesset members, in German, “is a symbolic gesture of great significance.”

Mrs. Merkel, who received an award March 11 honoring her commitment to Israel from B’nai B’rith Europe, a Jewish humanitarian organization based in Brussels, faces calls from within her coalition government to take a harder line with her hosts on their commitment to the Middle East peace process.

Israel “has done practically nothing” to comply with internationally agreed terms such as removing road blocks, while expansion of settlements “has fueled tensions” with the Palestinians, Ruprecht Polenz, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said in a March 14 interview.

“The settlement policy is definitely very disturbing,” Mr. Polenz said, who last visited Israel in November 2007. “I thoroughly expect Merkel to address the matter in talks with Olmert. We need a reliable moratorium that no settlement plans will be pushed for as long as peace efforts continue.”