Gaza War | Criticism without consequences

For days , calls for the German government to increase pressure on Israel because of the situation in the Gaza Strip have been growing louder . The demands range from a halt to arms deliveries to the suspension of the EU Association Agreement with Israel. The Security Cabinet made no decisions on this on Monday. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) subsequently stated, however, that the German government reserves the right to take such steps – and has dispatched his foreign minister to the Middle East.

Johann Wadephul (CDU) is traveling to Israel for the second time. His predecessor visited more than ten times after the start of the Gaza war, but achieved virtually nothing. Could Wadephul have better luck? At the end of May, he even did not rule out a partial halt to arms deliveries to Israel, making this dependent on the situation in the Gaza Strip. But then he backtracked. The German Foreign Minister, too, is clearly firmly committed to German raison d'état, which places Israel's security above all else.

After talks in Jerusalem with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Isaac Herzog, Wadephul stated that "a fundamental improvement in the situation for the people in the Gaza Strip " was necessary. He expressed this to his interlocutors. "I have the impression that this was understood today," he concluded to journalists after the talks.

He wanted to avoid a "gap opening between the European Union and Israel" due to the announcement by several states of their unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state – something Germany, as is well known, wants nothing to do with – the minister emphasized. "This danger exists," he said, adding that both sides must "work together to ensure this does not happen." "But it is also clear that both sides must do something to achieve this." His mission was to tell the Israeli side "that they must act now and not at some point in the future."

The German government does not want to support sanctions against Israeli government officials, as demanded by the Green Party, among others. Wadephul has only spoken out against the violence of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. During a visit to a Palestinian Christian village in the West Bank, the German Foreign Minister sharply condemned the violence of extremist Jewish settlers in the Palestinian Territories. "These are not isolated incidents. Such acts are becoming increasingly more frequent," the CDU politician said on Friday after residents of the village of Taibe described such attacks to him. "I want to make it very clear here: Such acts are crimes. They are terrorism. And they must finally be prosecuted by the police."

The German Foreign Minister also visited the Palestinian Authority. At a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Friday, Wadephul reaffirmed Germany's stance on the recognition of a Palestinian state and backed the Palestinian Authority by warning the Israeli government against taking possession of the West Bank, as some politicians in the Netanyahu government are demanding. "We clearly reject any annexation fantasies, be they for Gaza or the West Bank, which are also being expressed by parts of the Israeli government," said the CDU politician. "They would not be recognized by Germany."

He announced an additional five million euros for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. "This will support, among other things, bakeries and soup kitchens," he said. He also called for the UN to distribute supplies again during the daily temporary ceasefires established by Israel in parts of the Gaza Strip.

According to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the German government will soon decide on how to proceed in the Gaza conflict. He now expects a report from Wadephul on Saturday, Merz said in Saarbrücken when asked whether the German government could imagine participating in sanctions against Israel. "We will await this report and make all further decisions," the Chancellor said. The government had already discussed in the Security Cabinet last Monday "how we might proceed together with our European partners."

Until then, Germany, with its wait-and - see attitude, is isolating itself further and further from a global community that sees in Israel's warfare in the Gaza Strip at least traces of a genocidal annihilation of the Palestinian people.