Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz is being pressed to take a firmer stance on Israel as members of his coalition call on the Berlin government to endorse Monday’s statement by dozens of Western nations condemning the “inhumane killing” of Palestinians.
Although the leader of the centre-right CDU party has been increasingly critical of Israel, Germany was not a signatory to the joint statement issued earlier this week by the EU Crisis Management Commissioner and 28 Western countries, including Britain and France, calling on Israel to end the war immediately.
Condemning the “drip feeding of aid” to Palestinians in Gaza, the statement declared the killing of more than 800 civilians while seeking aid there as “horrifying”.
Reem Alabali Radovan, Germany’s International Development Minister and a member of the centre-left SPD, junior partner in the country’s governing coalition, voiced her disapproval that Berlin was not among those signing the statement. Merz’s response was to point out that the European Council had already issued a joint declaration that was “practically identical” in content.
“I was one of the first to say very clearly — even in Germany — that the situation there is no longer acceptable,” Merz said, denying that there was a rift within the coalition on this issue. He noted that he had told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “very clearly and very explicitly that we do not share the Israeli government’s policy on Gaza” a week ago.
But the decision to withhold Germany’s signature from the declaration follows many months in which Germany has taken particular care in public to restrain its criticism of Israeli actions.
German officials say their relations with Israel fall in the context of the Staatsraison, a policy linked directly to the legacy of the Nazi Holocaust, which they believe allows them to achieve more through the use of diplomatic back channels than via the medium of public statements.
Merz is among the few European leaders to publicly offer to host Prime Minister Netanyahu, and not arrest him on a warrant for suspected war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Israel rejects the charges against Netanyahu, which it claims are politically motivated. According to the ICC, signatories of the court’s founding statute, which include all 27 EU members, are obliged to arrest Netanyahu should he enter their territory.
Critics of Merz’s approach, including some among the SPD coalition partnership, insist that the post-Holocaust motto of “never again” should apply to Gaza today. Two senior SPD lawmakers, foreign policy spokesperson Adis Ahmetovic and rapporteur for the Middle East Rolf Mützenich, have demanded that Berlin sign the joint declaration, noting that the Gaza situation “is catastrophic and represents a humanitarian abyss.”
Israel, they say, should be subject to “clear and immediate consequences”, including the suspension of a pact governing EU-Israeli relations and an end to the exportation of weapons to Israel that are used in violation of international law.
