Berlin - Germany may boycott a UN conference on racism, over concerns that a preparatory document is singularly critical of Israel, daily Berliner Zeitung reported Saturday.

At the same time, a German organisation promoting ties with the Jewish state is appealing for Germans to moderate their criticism of Israel's role in the Middle-East conflict.

"Germany should not yield to a UN conference that wants to accuse Israel unilaterally," German Human Rights commissioner Guenther Nooke said of the anti-racism talks, due to take place late April in Geneva.

"We should initially try everything to change the text of the final document," Nooke told the newspaper. "But there will be no participation at all cost," he added.

Several countries have criticised the fact the preparatory document specifically accuses Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories.

Other misdeeds, such as the atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict, are not specifically named.

Meanwhile, the President of the German-Israeli Society Johannes Gerster has appealed for Germans to show greater solidarity towards Israel, in the face of the continuing Mid-East crisis.

"Many seem to think, if we commemorate the past, we need not worry in the present about Israel's right to exist," the former politician told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Gerster said Israel's Jews still faced dangers emanating from Iran and other extremist governments in the region.

"Crudely formulated, the motto seems to be: dead Jews were good Jews and the living ones are not so good," Gerster said in the interview. "I resist that with vehemence," he added.

Gerster said there was an increasing "carelessness" in Germany over the country's history. Nevertheless, he said German political support for Israel was "very widely spread," and was honestly felt.

The Geneva conference on racism, scheduled April 20, is the successor to UN talks held in the South African city of Durban in 2001. At the time, criticism of Israel had already been a bone of contention.

In February, the US joined Israel, Canada and Italy in boycotting April's conference in Geneva. (dpa)