Days after Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was one of the first Western leaders to arrive in Tel Aviv. Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that Germany had “only one place, and that is with Israel.”
For Germany, Israel's second-largest arms supplier and a nation whose leaders consider aid to the country as a means of atonement for the Holocaust as “national survival,” or the state's raison d'être, the place is now It's becoming increasingly uncomfortable.
Last week, as Israel's deadly offensive continued in Gaza, the prime minister stood next to Netanyahu again in Tel Aviv and struck a different tone. “No matter how important the goal, can you justify such a prohibitively high cost?” he asked.
As international outrage mounts over the death toll, which Gaza health authorities say has surpassed 32,000 and the prospect of famine in the enclave, German authorities are beginning to question whether their aid is going too far. .
“What has changed for Germany is that unconditional support for Israel cannot be maintained,” said Torsten Benner, director of the Institute for Global Public Policy in Berlin. “By clinging to this concept of state government, they gave the false impression that Germany had actually made a carte blanche offer to Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
Berlin's hardening of its stance is in part a response to concerns about Israel's continued insistence that it must enter Rafah to go after Hamas operatives in the southern city of Gaza. This change in position reflects the position of the United States, Germany's most important ally, which has shown increasing displeasure with Israel's actions, including abstaining in the UN Security Council vote that allowed the cease-fire resolution to be passed. It is in line with the evolution of
The change in Germany's position began to be felt within weeks.
In January, just months after a Hamas-led attack that Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people, Germany intervened in Israel's defense against South Africa's genocide charges at the International Court of Justice. The party cited Germany's history, positioned itself as a kind of moral authority in supporting the Genocide Convention, and defended Israel against growing criticism of its handling of the war.
As recently as last month, Scholz resisted answering questions at the Munich Security Conference about whether Israel had violated international humanitarian law.
But this week, German Foreign Minister Annalena Verbock said Germany would send a delegation to Israel because, as a party to the Geneva Conventions, Germany “has an obligation to remind all parties of their obligation to comply with international humanitarian law.”
During his sixth visit to the region since the attack, Barbock described the situation in Gaza as “hell” and insisted there should not be a major attack on Rafah, where more than a million people have fled.
“One cannot disappear into thin air,” she said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Bourbock's criticism in a statement on social media, saying: “We hope that our friends will continue to support Israel in this difficult time and will not weaken it against the terrorist organization Hamas. “I am doing so,” he said.
Berlin, like the United States, is trying to position itself as a concerned friend, seeking to ensure Israel's long-term security by not allowing Israel to further lose international support. But the risks are high for Germany as well.
Whether Europe is signing a deal with Egypt to curb immigration or seeking support for measures to support Ukraine against Russia, the country is seeking friendly relations around the world to pursue its own interests. need to be maintained. Foreign policy experts say that by maintaining strong support for Israel, Germany has also undermined its ability to credibly criticize authoritarian regimes like Russian President Vladimir V. Putin for human rights abuses. .
The sense of declining credibility for human rights is particularly strong in developing and underdeveloped countries, sometimes referred to as the Global South, and this was hammered home by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during his visit to Berlin this month.
“We stand against colonialism, against apartheid, against ethnic cleansing, against the dispossession of any country, whether it's Ukraine or Gaza,” Anwar told reporters, standing next to Scholz. “Where have we left our humanity? Why this hypocrisy?”
Until recently, public opinion in Germany appeared to firmly support the government's support for Israel's military operations. But public opinion polls in recent weeks have shown that nearly 70% of Germans surveyed feel that Israel's military action is unjustified. Just a few weeks ago, that number was about 50%.
The issue has become inevitable for Scholz during town hall sessions with voters.
“I think Germany's foreign policy is contradictory and even hypocritical,” one woman told Scholz earlier this week in the town of Brandenburg an der Havel on the outskirts of Berlin.
Meanwhile, Germany is calling on Israel not to invade Rafah, she said. Meanwhile, Germany remained one of Israel's largest arms suppliers. “We really have to do something to protect these people,” she said.
Berlin's hardline stance on the war is unlikely to signal a broader attitude toward Israel. The Interior Ministry announced this week that its latest citizenship test would include questions about Israel, reflecting how strongly Germany views support for Israel as part of its identity.
And policymakers say there is little chance that Berlin will do anything less symbolic than a change in tone unless the U.S. takes tougher measures. In a written response to MP Sevim Dagdelen's question on whether Germany would suspend arms deliveries, the government said it would consider it on a “case by case” basis.
Jürgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for the centre-right Christian Democrats in parliament, said the most important decision was to restore funding to UNRWA, the UN's main agency supporting the Palestinians. Germany announced it would suspend funding after allegations that some of the agency's employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack or its aftermath. (UN officials announced they had fired 10 of the 12 staff members originally accused, ordered a UN investigation, and asked countries that had suspended aid payments to reconsider.)
Germany now appears to be changing its position. Germany announced this week that it would once again fund the agency in areas where it operates outside the Gaza Strip.
Weeks earlier, German diplomats had called for UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to be fired as a precondition for restoring funding, according to German and European Union officials familiar with the situation.
But the officials said they had observed a marked softening of Germany's stance since then, and that Germany appeared to have given up on demands for Lazzarini's removal. EU and German officials said Germany is likely to release funding for the Gaza operation by May.
“It could be a small gesture,” said Benner, the foreign policy analyst. “But I think the damage has already been done in terms of Germany's credibility. Now it's a damage control mission.”
Matina Stevis-Gridnev Contributed to the report from Brussels.