Desperate to appease Israel, Germany goes out of its way

Since October 2023 and the Palestinian Resistance’s daring attack on Israel, Germany – not any other European country – emerged as the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, second only to the United States. The Swedish Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), estimated that, while the US provided 69 per cent of Israeli arms imports, Germany delivered 30 per cent of the apartheid state’s arms requirements—more than the supplies from United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain combined.

Looking at the staggering numbers of lethal weapons the US provides to Israel one can, somewhat; understand why the US is doing this, while millions of civilians across Palestine suffer. Israel, in the view of outgoing President Joe Biden, is not just a strategic ally, but an outpost of the US and arms depot in the region. Mr. Biden, while a Senator in 1986 and again as President in 2023, said “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.” He hasfrequently used the term “ironclad” to describe the US’ commitment to Israel.

In the background, US politics is hostage to money. Israel, in fact, controls the US politics and its Middle East agenda, both at the executive and legislative levels simply because of the cash its many lobbying American friends provide to anyone wishing to run for president or member of congress, on one condition: to support Israel. That is a brief summary of the unbreakable US-Israeli bond as many US politicians often call this relationship, in which the tail wags the dog and not the other way around.

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The case with Germany is not that different either, except for one thing: the Nazi history of that country. In dealing with Israel at any level, German officials are always aware of their country’s history and its criminal record against the Jews of Europe before and during the Nazi era. It is as if modern Germany is still, and it indeed does, anguishing under the sheer weight of its sins committed against the Jews. However, only this but not the same sins committed against others, including minorities, homosexuals and the Herero and Nam people in modern day Namibia.

However, this German conscience-awakening finds ways to reconcile the two scandalously conflicting ideas: one being very pained by Nazi crimes against Jews but, at the same time, helping Israel commit the same crimes against the Palestinians with German generous weapons supplies. On top of arms supplies, German still to this day pays “survivors” of the Holocaust reparations amounting to more than $500 million annually.

This German position towards Israel, as the sole claimant and heir to misfortunes of the Jews throughout history, is not only confined or limited to issues of war and peace but is found across the board, from the media all the way to citizenship and medical care offered free of charge to Holocaust survivors. In September 2022, DW, the German international broadcaster, updated its code of conduct making it compulsory for employees and opinion writers to support “Israel’s right to exist” because of Germany’s “special obligation toward Israel”, the document says. DW’s previous code does not mention Israel at all. Anyone found to have violated the code, the document said, could be investigated and his/her contract terminated. This is happening despite the fact that Germany has always prided itself of being a haven for free press. In reality, the broadcaster is only following the policy of the Federal German government, particularly after the Bundestag, parliament, adopted the controversial definition of anti-Semitism. The new definition equates any criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism, which is a dangerous label and a seriously punishable crime across Western Europe. Using the now very commonly used terms describing Israel as “apartheid” is a red line in DW, despite the fact that international rights groups like Human Rights Watch do frequently use the term when commenting on Israeli polices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. After Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, were indicted by the International Criminal Court, DW walked a very fine line in reporting the news, with the minimum analysis and background details.

To further restrict the overall freedom of speech and free opinion, the German government made it a prerequisite for citizenship applicants to recognise Israel’s right to exist. The change to the law went into effect as soon as it was made last June, on the heels of weekly demonstrations across Germany condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is not clear how this law will be enforced or what if an applicant changes his position on Israel after obtaining the citizenship?

Many believe Germany has gone too far in shielding Israel from any criticism. Human Rights Watch advised the German authority not to criminalise Palestinian symbols because it is “discriminatory and disproportionate” response to the overwhelming anti-Israeli protests against the war in Gaza. This kind of crackdown on pro-Palestinian opinions and demonstrations not only singles out a particular group but also make almost all Muslims in German suspects. To add to this policy of discrimination, Berlin’s police chief, Barbara Slowik, told Germany’s Berliner Zeitung daily newspaper, that people “wearing kippah [skullcap] or are openly homosexual or lesbians to be more attentive” when they go to Arab majority city neighbourhoods. This further ostracises Arabs and Palestinians in the country where Palestinian-Germans alone are estimated to be around 300,000 people and the overall more than 5 million German-Muslims usually sympathise with Palestine.

The German federal authority usually justifies such intensely pro-Israel policy regardless of what it does, by saying that it is “reason of state” that Berlin supports Israel, no matter what. “Reason of state” is actually not a legal term but a vague term; however, it is defined to mean “a motive for governmental action” based on assumed needs or “requirements of a political state regardless of possible transgressions of the rights or the moral codes of individual persons.” The term also implies that Israel’s right to exist and protecting it are reasons for the very existence of Germany itself—how more politically absurd could it get than this. States do not exist because of the existence of other states but because they have the right to exist and this right is not unique to Israel nor is it a reason for Germany to exist.

This kind of logic leads us back to the idea of the heavy burden of guilt the German political elite have not been able to shake off nor reconcile with the country’s Nazi past, victimising not only Jews but others, too, including European minorities and African victims of German genocide.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.