How Germany's former foreign minister failed Gaza - then got a top UN job
As leader of its 80th session, Baerbock will oversee the work of the UN organ, which serves as a forum for all 193 member states to coordinate on international issues.
Her nomination was controversial from the outset, as she was accused of snatching the job away from seasoned German diplomat Helga Schmid, who played a key role in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Germany had initially nominated Schmid for the job, but later replaced her with Baerbock, who lost her cabinet position after the February election.
In her acceptance speech on Monday, Baerbock affirmed her respect for international humanitarian law and her commitment to safeguard 'a world in which every human can live in peace and dignity'.
A look at her performance as foreign minister, however, does not reveal a track record of upholding human rights, but rather an utter failure on this front, amid German state complicity in the Gaza genocide.
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Baerbock assumed office in 2021 with a self-proclaimed 'feminist foreign policy' as her guiding principle, vowing that her efforts as foreign minister would focus on the 'rights, representation and resources' of women and marginalised groups. Protecting women in armed conflict was among her 10 key guidelines.
Yet during her tenure as foreign minister, Israel waged its genocidal campaign in Gaza, now approaching its 20th month. More than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of whom were women and children, according to local health officials.
Amid this onslaught, Germany has continued to supply Israel with hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons. Between 7 October 2023 and mid-May 2025, the German government says it issued export licences for arms deliveries to Israel totalling 485.1 million euros ($554.3m), although the pace of exports was considerably higher in the first few months of the war, before international criticism began to mount.
Complicity in genocide
Under the banner of Germany's Staatsrason ('reason of state'), the controversial idea that Germany's national interest is contingent on Israel's security, former Chancellor Olaf Scholz led Germany into complicity in genocide once again. The mantra of 'standing firmly' by Israel's side has been repeated countless times by various German officials, becoming more painful with every step of Gaza's deepening humanitarian crisis.
As foreign minister, Baerbock could have done much to oppose this. She chose not to.
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This is not to say that she expressed no concerns over Israel's actions in Gaza or the plight of civilians. Baerbock repeatedly stressed the importance of adhering to international humanitarian law, called for a ceasefire, and highlighted the need for more aid to enter the besieged territory.
At the same time, however, she continuously reiterated Israel's right to 'self-defence', thus undermining her appeals to help the Palestinian population of Gaza and making her an easy target for allegations of hypocrisy.
Her speech last October stands as a case in point. 'Self-defence means not only attacking terrorists but destroying them. When Hamas terrorists hide behind people, behind schools … civilian places lose their protected status because terrorists abuse it,' Baerbock said during a parliamentary session marking the anniversary of the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
As she prepares to lead the 80th UN General Assembly, Baerbock has yet to acknowledge mistakes in her approach to Gaza
She added: 'That's why I clearly conveyed to the UN that civilian areas could lose their protected status because they are being abused by terrorists.'
Just days before her speech, Israeli forces had targeted another school and mosque sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, killing more than two dozen Palestinians.
Between October 2023 and April 2024, Baerbock held seven meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But she failed to publicly advocate for the rights of Palestinian women in armed conflict, a notion central to her 'feminist foreign policy' - even as countless women in Gaza have suffered miscarriages or watched their children starve.
A recent report by an independent UN commission found that Israel's systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, coupled with restrictions on medical supplies, had caused the deaths of mothers and newborns, noting that Israeli forces had 'intentionally inflicted these conditions of life on the Palestinians in Gaza, in particular women, girls and young children' and that 'such acts amount to the crime against humanity of extermination'.
Baerbock has not commented on the report.
Rhetorical shift
In response to Baerbock's October 2024 speech justifying Israeli attacks on civilian sites, more than 300 academics co-signed a letter calling on the German government to retract her comments and apologise. Meanwhile, an online petition calling for her resignation was signed by thousands of people.
If Baerbock was serious about human rights and women's safety, then the right move would have been to step away from a government that has backed Israel's genocidal war on Gaza. No genuine 'feminist foreign policy' could be reconcilable with such atrocities.
But to this day, as she prepares to lead the 80th UN General Assembly, Baerbock has yet to acknowledge mistakes in her approach to Gaza.
What is behind Germany's complicity in Israel's Gaza genocide? Read More »
Her government's lack of action is made even more tragic in light of the recent change of rhetoric towards Israel by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who assumed office last month.
Shortly after his February election victory, Merz vowed to find 'ways and means' for Netanyahu to visit Germany. The German public barely batted an eyelid at the fact that this would contravene the arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister issued by the International Criminal Court, an institution that Germany played a significant role in establishing. After all, his comments were nothing out of the ordinary for state officials.
But last week saw a 180-degree rhetorical shift.
Merz, supposedly much more conservative than his social democrat predecessor, Scholz, uttered the words that longtime critics of Germany's support for the war never thought they would hear: 'What the Israeli army is now doing in the Gaza Strip - I no longer understand frankly what its objective is,' Merz said in a televised interview. 'To cause such suffering to the civilian population, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism.'
The fact that it took more than 54,000 slain Palestinians, the total destruction of Gaza, and widely circulated images of starving children, for a German chancellor to reconsider the state's unwavering support for Israel is hard to grasp.
Even harder to grasp is the fact that a former foreign minister, whose government stands accused of aiding a genocide, can assume a top position at the very organisation dedicated to preventing genocide and upholding international law.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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