Germany’s Merz criticizes Israeli offensive in Gaza

“Frankly speaking, I no longer understand what the goal of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip is,” Merz said in an interview aired on public television. “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,” News.Az reports citing Politico.

Germany is one of Israel’s closest European backers, and the country’s leaders, due to the Nazi past, consider Israel’s security to be a Staatsräson, or “reason of state.” German leaders, particularly Merz’s conservatives, have been reluctant to openly criticize Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

“Germany must exercise greater restraint than any other country in the world in giving public advice to Israel,” Merz said. “But when borders are crossed, when international humanitarian law is really being violated, the German chancellor must also say something about it.”

Merz suggested he will discuss Israel’s renewed offensive in a scheduled call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this week. “We have a great interest in remaining at Israel’s side,” Merz added. “But the Israeli government must not do anything that its best friends are no longer prepared to accept.”

Merz’s comments come as debate grows in Germany over the government’s military backing for Israel. Some lawmakers from the center-left Social Democratic Party — Merz’s junior coalition partner — are calling for an end to the country’s weapons exports to Israel. “German weapons must not be used to spread humanitarian catastrophes and to violate international law,” Adis Ahmetovic, foreign policy spokesperson for the SPD group in the Bundestag, said in an interview with German magazine Stern. 

The German government’s commissioner for combatting antisemitism, Felix Klein, also sparked a debate in Germany in calling for a “more honest discussion” of how Germans interpret their Staatsräson with regard to Israel.

“We must do everything in our power to preserve the security of Israel and Jews worldwide,” Klein said in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily paper. “But we must also be clear that this is no justification for everything. Starving the Palestinians and deliberately making the humanitarian situation dramatically worse has nothing to do with safeguarding Israel’s right to exist. And it cannot be the German reason of state either.”