Chancellor Merz is visiting Israel, as he himself declared: “as a friend.” But his statements mark a turning point, after Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, which led his government to “a certain dilemma.” Merz continues to recognize his responsibility … Germany’s peculiar attitude towards Israel was recorded during his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, passing a photo of the piled-up corpses of more than 2,000 Jews in a concentration camp in Estonia. “I bow to the six million men, women and children who were murdered throughout Europe by the Germans because they were Jews,” he wrote in the guestbook, “we will keep alive the memory of the terrible crime of the Shoah, which the Germans committed against the Jewish people.”
Change of posture
However, some details reveal that Germany is changing its position towards Tel Aviv, starting with the fact that the chancellor’s inaugural visit takes place after seven months in office and continuing with the absence of certain standardized slogans that reflected the commitment to defense. In speeches made by Merz in Israel, the phrase “state question for Germany”, which until now defined Berlin’s view on Israeli security, disappeared. “This is part of the immutable essence of our relations, forever,” he recognized, but without defining this principle as a “state affair”.
Every German chancellor since Konrad Adenauer has had to find his own way of dealing with German responsibility, the reality of the region and the Israeli government. As opposition leader, Merz criticized “Traffic Lights Coalition” of Olaf Scholz for his faltering arms exports, and then, as chancellor, he stepped up his criticism of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. In August, it partially restricted German arms export licenses to that country and only relaxed them after the peace agreement was signed. However, he did not respect another of the traditions of this type of visit, by avoiding inviting his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, to visit Germany, against whom there is an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Netanyahu, for his part, puffed out his chest and boasted to Merz that “Israel, the Jewish state, is working to defend Germany 80 years after the Holocaust.” He was referring to last week’s deployment of the Israeli Arrow 3 missile defense system to Germany. He also assured that “very soon we will move to the second phase” of Trump’s peace plan, which provides for the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza, as well as the deployment of an international force in the Palestinian territory and the withdrawal of the Israeli army, thus revealing his boasting about the privileged relationship with the United States, which leaves Germany and the EU in a very secondary position.
Netanyahu responds to Merz
The choreography of Merz’s visit alone shows the growing distance between the two countries. Before his departure, Merz spoke by telephone with Palestinian President Abbas and asked him to make clear reforms to the Palestinian Authority, but he also promised him a “constructive role” in the post-war order. He also made a brief stop in Jordan to speak with King Abdullah II and demanded from there, with regard to the West Bank, that no annexation measures be taken to “keep the path open towards the creation of the Palestinian state.” “We will not create a state on our doorstep bent on our destruction,” Netanyahu clearly responded at the joint press conference.
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