Although in the seven months Friedrich Merz has been in office as German Chancellor, he has spoken quite a lot about Israel, what his position is and what he thinks on the topic remains unclear and the general impression one gets in trying to make sense of all his contradictory statements is diplomatic confusion.
While, according to him, “There has been no fundamental change in Germany’s policy toward Israel. Germany will continue to stand by the state of Israel in the future. This is also a historical obligation”, some things are changing.
In October 2023 he said that Germany would not grant asylum to Palestinians because, “Germany already has too many antisemites”. The day after he got elected, Merz received a call by Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he invited for an official visit to Germany, despite the arrest warrant issued against Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court (ICC). States have the legal obligation to enforce the ICC decisions, but Merz said that under his leadership “the Israeli prime minister will be able to travel to Germany unhindered. I will find ways and means to make this possible”. Later, he added: “He is a democratically elected prime minister of the only democracy in the entire region. This prime minister must fundamentally be able to travel to Germany”.
In many ways he does not break German history of foreign relations with Israel: “Germany’s commitment to the existence and security of the state of Israel is a non-negotiable part of our country’s normative foundations”. One year after the 7th of October, he criticised Olaf Scholz, his predecessor, for halting all arms exports as a betrayal of German “Staatsräson” obligations to Israel: “Our solidarity must not be allowed to crack when Israel does what is necessary to restore its security. But these cracks in solidarity now exist, and they are becoming more numerous”. Not even a year later, he annouced the decision of halting any German arms exports that could be used in Gaza he stated “in a conflict that is being attempted to be resolved exclusively by military means, which could claim hundreds of thousands of civilian victims and requires the evacuation of the entirety of Gaza City, we cannot supply weapons. Where are these people supposed to go? We cannot do that. We are not doing that, and I will not do that.” For Benjamin Netanyahu, this move amounted to “rewarding Hamas terrorism”.
Three months later, the suspension of military export to Israel was lifted, citing the ceasefire reached on October 10th. Al-Jazeera reports that in the time between that day and the 6th of December, more than 350 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, as well as three Israeli soldiers.
Nonetheless, at the sametime he is also vey clear in affirming that “Israel must also remain a country that lives up to its humanitarian obligations, even where – especially when this terrible war is now raging in the Gaza Strip – this confrontation with the Hamas terrorists is necessarily taking place”. He has also been vocal in criticizing Israeli attacks on Gaza: “To harm the civilian population to such an extent, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism”.
So “humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip must be ensured”, but as the 12-day-war with Iran was ongoing this June, he declared “this is dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us.”
With all these contradictory statements in mind, on December 7th Friedrich Merz travelled to Jerusalem and met Benjamin Netanyahu. On this occasion, Merz has supported the creation of a Palestinian state: “Our conviction is that the prospective establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel presumably offers the best prospect for this future”. However, he added that “the German federal government remains of the opinion that recognition of a Palestinian state should come at the end – not the beginning – of such a process (peace negotiations)”, and so, his government would not recignize a Palestinian state for “the forseeable future”.
Netanyahu’s response to this headache situation? “The purpose of a Palestinian state is to destroy the Jewish state. They already had a state in Gaza, a defective state, and it was used to try to destroy the one and only Jewish state”, with no further comment.
Benjamin Netanyahu did have something more to say about the recently signed $4.5bn deal for an Israeli-made missile defence shield, reportedly the largest arms export agreement in Israeli history: “Not only does Germany work in the defence of Israel, but Israel, the Jewish state, 80 years after the Holocaust, works for the defence of Germany”. For him, this deal reflect a “historical change” in Israel’s relationship with Germany. Because, in contrast to the past “we have changed Jewish history in the sense that those who vilify us can no longer annihilate us. Because when they come to do that, as they did on October 7, we roll them back”, and the above mentioned $4.5bn deal with Germnay goes in that direction.
All of sudden, Merz’s historical obligation has been trasformed in a historical change. Going back to beginning, then, the “unique — no ifs or buts”, in Merz’word, relations with Israel, their “unique, precious friendship”, seem to be wavering, evolving. Most crucially, for the political leader it boils down to navigating a media landscape in which on one side a study by Körber-Stiftung finds that 70% of Germans do not want Germany to provide military assistance to Israel, while Channel 12 cites an Israeli internal Foreign Ministry survey reporting that in October the positive sentiment toward Israel in German discourse rose from 39% in September to 71% in October. In an already confused situation, also the political space to make decisions in regard to Israel is contested. In this context, moral, legal and historical obligations mix and contrast each other, with the Chancellor stuck in the middle having to interact with and respond to an Israeli Prime Minister who is holding on to past guilt to secure support for his cause.
