German government takes tougher tone with Israel – DW – 08/02/2025
After his talks with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives from the United Nations in Jerusalem, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul tried to put more pressure on the Israeli government.
On Friday he made an urgent appeal to the Israelis: The government should immediately allow the UN to help the hungry people in Gaza.
"That is why we call on Israel to allow the UN to transport and distribute the aid safely," Wadephul said, while in Jerusalem. "This was also part of my discussion with the Israeli government yesterday. The humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip must be ended now, with the help of the efficient, established UN system."
The day before Wadephul had described the situation in Gaza in dramatic tones. The death and suffering there was "unimaginable," he said. Wadephul also appealed to the militant group Hamas, asking them to stop fighting and to return all the hostages they still held. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Germany, the US, Israel and other countries.
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Israel's foreign minister Gideon Saar didn't publicly express an opinion on Germany's suggestions. But Wadephul told reporters he thought Germany's message had been understood.
Saar did reject accusations from his colleague in the Israeli government, the far-right extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's minister of national security. On social media platform X, Ben-Gvir said that 80 years after the Holocaust, Germany was once again supporting Nazis.
Before he left Germany, Wadephul had warned that Israel was becoming increasingly isolated internationally. He also said Berlin would respond to any unilateral actions by Israel and was critical of potential Israeli plans to annex the occupied West Bank.
Israel's Saar answered Ben-Gvir on social media too. "I strongly reject Minister Ben-Gvir's statements about Germany. They are unnecessary and harmful. Germany is a friendly country and Foreign Minister Wadephul is a friend of Israel. This does not change, even when there are differences of opinion between us."
Germany is still pushing for a two-state solution to the intractable problems in the Middle East. Wadephul confirmed the right of the Palestinians to their own state after he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday. However Netanyahu's government has rejected that idea in the recent past. Even as Germany criticizes the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Israel's foreign minister sees the settlements as justified.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had sent Wadephul to Israel after a meeting of the country's so-called security cabinet. This group includes the ministers of foreign affairs, defense, interior and finance, as well as various intelligence services. Wadephul's mission was to make it clear that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza must be resolved and he was also to assess whether and how the Israeli government could be convinced to do this. Over this weekend, he is to report back to the Chancellor and the security cabinet.
The results of this are hard to predict. Whether the German government would use sanctions against Israel, stop weapons deliveries or recognize a Palestinian state is unclear. However observers in Berlin says it's unlikely any concrete steps will be taken, because of Germany's special responsibility towards Israel, after committing the Holocaust.
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Criticism is likely but sanctions won't happen, says Martin Huber, the secretary general of the conservative, Bavaria-based Christian Social Union, or CSU. Even so, the tone German politicians are using is becoming sharper, as more and more pictures of starving children in Gaza emerge.
The leader of the Social Democrats' parliamentary group, Dirk Wiese, told local journalists that the time for talk has passed. "We need political pressure and concrete progress," he said. The Social Democrats are part of Germany's governing coalition together with the CSU and the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU.
Up until now the German government has been holding back, Andreas Reinicke, the director of the German Orient-Institute, told public radio Deutschlandfunk. But that's for good reasons, he argued, in reference to the Holocaust. However if the world now really wants a two-state solution, "then we will have to do this not only verbally, but also with an active process," Reinicke said. "I believe Germany's influence [on Israel] is greater than is commonly assumed."
Meanwhile the Israeli government disputes that locals in Gaza are going hungry and insists that the siltation is actually better than depicted in the international press. Foreign Minister Saar accused media of showing misleading pictures of hungry children. "This is what a modern blood libel looks like," he wrote on social media platform X, referring to a-now-well-known picture of Osama al-Raqab, an emaciated 5-year-old. Al-Raqab has cystic fibrosis and was evacuated to Italy in June, Saar pointed out.
The Israeli government's position on the issue is in opposition to what international aid agencies have observed and eyewitnesses have reported.
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Wadephul also said that the thesis often insisted upon by the Israeli government — that Hamas will benefit from any aid shipments they allow in — is no longer justified. It could well be that Hamas previously diverted some of the shipments, he said. "But the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip is now so great that it is not justified to put up further hurdles here," Wadephul insisted.
Another contentious point: While the German foreign minister and others argue that the UN and the World Food Program should be taking care of supplies into Gaza, Israel and its main ally, the US, insist the newly created and increasingly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF should be.
On Friday, Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, demonstratively visited a GHF aid distribution site near Rafah, in Gaza. The US ambassador in Israel, Mike Huckabee, claims the GHF has given out 100 million meals in two months.
However the UN and other aid organizations say the GHF is not working properly. During past weeks, there have been reports of hundreds of people killed or wounded while trying to get aid from the GHF.
On Friday, the German air force began to help, dropping palettes of aid into the Gaza Strip, flying out of Jordan. However even Germany's foreign minister considers this more a symbolic than anything particularly helpful. The crucial thing now is to send hundreds of trucks carrying food into the Gaza Strip daily, Wadephul said while in Jerusalem.To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
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