{"id":513309,"date":"2025-10-20T02:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/513309\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T02:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:26:11","slug":"merz-changes-germanys-stance-towards-israel-security-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/513309\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz changes Germany\u2019s stance towards Israel security \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

German chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> has changed Berlin\u2019s stance towards Israel<\/a> since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks, insisting Germany\u2019s<\/a> sense of historical responsibility for Israel applies to the state and not its government.<\/p>\n

Mr Merz told the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that Israel\u2019s security \u201cwas and would remain\u201d an important part of German foreign policy.<\/p>\n

However, it was up to each German government \u201cto reassess, in light of the situation in the Middle East, how we can best live up to this responsibility\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is often summarised in the term \u201cStaatsr\u00e4son\u201d or reason of state, first used in this context in 2007\/2008 by former chancellor Angela Merkel<\/a> to make explicit postwar Germany\u2019s implicit sense of responsibility for Israel\u2019s continued security and survival. <\/p>\n

Since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in 2023, Staatsr\u00e4son has re-entered daily political debate, though its ambiguous meaning and contested consequences have created tensions that Merz acknowledged on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always had my difficulties with this term because it has never been spelt out in all its consequences,\u201d he said. Exactly a year ago, as opposition leader, Merz denounced the Scholz administration for halting all arms exports as a betrayal of German Staatsr\u00e4son obligations to Israel, \u201cin this, its most precarious hour\u201d. <\/p>\n

On the election trail earlier this year, Merz promised he would, as chancellor, invite Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the chancellery in defiance of an international arrest warrant on him for suspected genocide.<\/p>\n

Since taking office in May, however, the deteriorating situation in Gaza saw the new chancellor bury that invitation and begin a discreet policy pivot. Mr Merz criticised ongoing IDF military policy in Gaza and its human cost and imposed a limited arms export freeze to Israel, attracting considerable criticism from Middle East hawks even in his own party.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Merz\u2019s absence from UN General Assembly is noted as criticism grows over Gaza stanceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"Berlin’sBerlin\u2019s policy on Israel-Gaza has, in the past two years, attracted huge criticism at international level. Photograph: Alex Kolomoisky\/ AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The final tipping point came last month when the head of Germany\u2019s official Jewish community urged Berlin not to make its support for the state of Israel dependent on the decisions of Israeli politicians. <\/p>\n

Prof Josef Schuster, head of the Central Committee of Jews in Germany, said in a speech marking the 75th anniversary of his organisation, that not even he understood \u2013 or supported \u2013 all decisions of the Netanyahu government.<\/p>\n

With Mr Merz in the front row, Schuster said support for the Israeli state \u2013 and Jews in Germany \u2013 did not oblige blanket support for the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a good reason why it is called reason of state and not reason of government,\u201d said Mr Schuster to applause, adding: \u201cGermany has to stand for the security of Israel, regardless of which government it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Schuster speech was motivated by a growing fear that the Staatsr\u00e4son link was generating a growing backlash against Jews in Germany. A first indication of the latest policy shift came with German foreign minister Johann Wadephul\u2019s Bundestag address to mark the second anniversary of the October 7th attacks. <\/p>\n

After criticising the Netanyahu government\u2019s foreign policy as \u201cunwise\u201d, he told MPs Germany\u2019s Holocaust past created a \u201cresponsibility for the security of Jews in our country and the existence and security of the state of Israel \u2013 regardless of the respective government\u2019s policies\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Israel carries out air strikes on Gaza, says its troops came under fireOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Berlin\u2019s policy on Israel-Gaza has, in the past two years, attracted huge criticism at international level, from German opposition parties and even inside Berlin government ministries.<\/p>\n

A common line of criticism was that Berlin had, in its post-October 7th shock, let the country \u2013 and the term Staatsr\u00e4son \u2013 become beholden to the Netanyahu government\u2019s most extreme members.<\/p>\n

\u201cMerz has seen this term is so limitless that he has seen it brings more difficulty than clarity,\u201d said Peter Lintl, Middle East analyst at the SWP think tank. \u201cIt\u2019s also a Merkel term and he has a tense relationship with her, so he is now distancing himself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German chancellor Friedrich Merz has changed Berlin\u2019s stance towards Israel since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks, insisting Germany\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1945,1824,837,20418],"class_list":{"0":"post-513309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-friedrich-merz","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115404130571581125","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}