By staff writer
TEHRAN - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Israel for the first time since taking office in May. Merz’s visit comes just days after Germany decided to lift a three-month suspension on arms exports to Israel.
Regrettably, Germany has left a bad legacy of itself during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Merz’s predecessor Olaf Scholz visited Israel on October 17, 2023, just ten days after the October 7 attack. He was among the very first Western leaders to visit Israel.
Both Scholz and Merz have said Israel have the “right to defend itself” but UN experts say that Israel, as an occupying power, cannot invoke the “right to defend itself” against Palestinians.
Germany is second-largest arms supplier to Israel after the United States. The flow of arms to Israel was taking place despite that fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordered arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2019 and 2023, the U.S. was the largest supplier of arms to Israel, providing 69 percent of military equipment, while Germany was the second-largest, supplying about 30 percent. Together, these two countries account for 99 percent of Israel’s arms imports.
In 2023, according to al Jazeera, Germany authorized 308 military export licenses to Israel, worth 326.5 million euros ($380m), a tenfold increase from 32.3 million euros ($38m) in 2022. Since 2003, Germany has sold 3.3 billion euros’ ($3.8bn) worth of arms to Israel, the news channel said.
Additionally, Germany has remained an ardent backer of Israel which its crimes have shocked the world. However, Merz has said he does not consider Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.
Merz’s denial of genocide stands in stark contrast to the UN Commission of Inquiry, which on June 12, 2024, reported that Israeli authorities had committed war crimes. The commission also found Hamas guilty of war crimes on October 7. The crucial distinction, however, is that Israel has continued committing war crimes from October 7 through to the present.
On August 8, Merz moved to halt the issuance of weapons export licenses to Israel—a step widely regarded as a major shift in Germany’s defense policy. He stressed that Germany could no longer turn a blind eye to the mounting civilian toll in Gaza. On November 24, Germany lifted its weapons export restrictions, citing Gaza’s “stabilization” after the ceasefire, while stressing that the move depended on the ceasefire’s continuation and the broad delivery of humanitarian aid.
However, Israel’s genocide has persisted despite the October 10 ceasefire. Since then, Israeli assaults have killed at least 360 Palestinians and wounded 922. Gaza’s Government Media Office has also recorded 591 separate ceasefire violations by Israel. Aid remains strangled, with only 20 percent of the required trucks permitted to enter Gaza.
Although Britain, which laid the groundwork for Israel’s creation through the 1917 Balfour Declaration on Palestinian lands, has become less supportive and joined nine other Western states in backing recognition of a Palestinian state, Germany has declared that it does not intend to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Germany’s refusal to support a Palestinian state—even as the United States, under both Democrats and Republicans (except during Trump’s second term), endorsed Palestinian statehood—underscores that Germany has lost its way and now stands on the wrong side of history regarding the Palestinian issue.
Germany has suppressed domestic voices sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and has cracked down on protests against Israel’s actions in the coastal enclave.
Germany says it feels sorry for the sufferings of Jews at the hands of Nazis during the Second Word War, an event known as the Holocaust, but the policy that Germany is following is a replication of the Holocaust with the difference that this time it is happening at the hands of those who claim are descendants of Holocaust survivors.
Of course, German leaders are not that much stupid not to understand that an important percentage of the Israeli population are children of those who have immigrated to Israel from countries whose families were not subjected to the Holocaust, and that ultra-hardliners like Bezalel Smotrich and Itmar Ben Gvir want to fully clear up Palestine from its own original inhabitants.
Merz must deeply think about this statement by Netanyahu who on August 12, 2025 said he feels he is on a “historic and spiritual mission” to extend Israel’s borders, something that is called “Greater Israel” vision.
Germany in general and Merz in particular must realize that Berlin’s policies, like that of the U.S, have only emboldened hardliners in Israel and made peace in the Middle East elusive. Merz must recognize that appeasing war criminals will further tarnish Germany’s reputation and drive the already volatile Middle East toward deeper bloodshed and chaos.
No comments:
Post a Comment