For the past few years, it has been a condition for anyone who seeks to become a German citizen to explicitly recognize Israel’s right to exist. This is one of several questions related to Israel on the citizenship application form, and there aren’t any multiple-choice answers inviting nuance.
Such is the culture of memory that dominates Germany’s thinking about the past and dictates its policies of the present. This was always fraught terrain, but since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the near destruction of Gaza that Israel has meted out in revenge, it has dominated German public life. And now with Israel preparing a new full-frontal assault, and with Europe being more sharply critical than at any time in years, the new chancellor faces a test of strength.
Several issues have merged or, rather, collided in Germany in recent months: the Holocaust, antisemitism, the Israeli state, and the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right regime. Successive German governments have sought to link all the above and disentangle them at the same time.
Critics—and there are many, including in Germany’s Jewish community—say that legitimate criticism of Israel is silenced. There is much evidence of that, of authors being uninvited to the Frankfurt Book Fair (one of the world’s most prestigious), of cultural organizations being defunded, of pro-Palestinian demonstrators being hauled away.
I have witnessed the curiosity of the situation many times. On several occasions, social and professional, I have been admonished by German interlocutors for “not showing Israel enough support.” My stock response—apart from challenging their evidence—is to ask whether any of them have forebears who, like mine, died in the concentration camps? Usually there is an awkward silence, and then I request that they don’t lecture me on such issues in the future. I describe their approach as guilt-laden virtue signaling.
The debate is both reductive and laden with apprehension. Many Berliners I know are wary of entering into the debate for fear of the consequences. When they do, I have heard comments such as “the Palestinians are responsible for their own plight—they could have thrown out Hamas long ago” from senior German politicians and others from some who wonder whether pictures of starving children in Gaza were fabricated. Such views are amplified in some German media (usually, but not always, on the right) and then reamplified by Israeli politicians, citing them as vindication of their position.
The cause of the present German conundrum is a 2008 speech by then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Israeli Knesset. Merkel declared the defense of Israel to be Germany’s staatsräson, reason of state. Germany would support Israel, no matter what. That became the default position right up to the present crisis.
One statistic brought the horror of Oct. 7 home to Germans and connected it to their past. More Jews were killed on that single day than any day since the Holocaust. “In these days, we are all Israelis,” declared Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister at the time, during a visit to Israel after the attack.
The Ukrainian flags raised in front of government buildings were joined by Israeli ones, two countries seemingly united in a shared sense of jeopardy in the face of evil enemies.
And so it has continued, Germany demonstrating its unflinching support even as Israel repeatedly bombs Gaza and even as Israeli settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank under the sympathetic gaze of the Israel Defense Forces. (According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the estimated Palestinian death toll is more than 60,000.)
In the run-up to Germany’s elections last February, Friedrich Merz suggested that he would invite Netanyahu to Berlin and, in defiance of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, would “find ways and means for him to visit Germany and also to be able to leave again without being arrested.”
As chancellor, Merz has not proceeded with that promise, and relations between Germany and Israel have gradually cooled. A series of fractious phone calls with Netanyahu— sometimes on his own, sometimes with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer—have left Merz feeling increasingly frustrated.
Merz has issued a series of statements, each a notch or two more critical than the one before. Even though the E3—Germany, France and the United Kingdom—have coordinated on Ukraine policy almost daily, Merz was blindsided by the announcements from Macron and Starmer that they plan to officially recognize a Palestinian state in September. He has made clear that Germany will not follow suit.
However, his recent statement that Germany will “not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice” is the most significant move for some time. Merz paused his summer vacation to put the statement together hurriedly, and it emerged that hardly any key figures, except for Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, had been consulted.
Even though the decision would make virtually no impact on the ground—the previous chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his government had quietly stopped providing Israel with weapons that might be used in Gaza back in 2024—it was redolent with meaning. Strong criticism followed from parts of the governing party, the Christian Democratic Union, and in parts of the media, including the influential Bild and Die Welt of the powerful right-wing Springer publishing house.
Was this a demonstration of decisive leadership or the impetuosity for which Merz is renowned? In a hastily arranged interview, which occurred two days after his statement on arms exports, Merz insisted that the fundamentals of the relationship between the two countries had not changed. “Germany has stood firmly by Israel’s side for 80 years. That will not change,” he said. Nevertheless, he doubled down on his decision, saying that any full-scale advance into Gaza City would cause countless victims. “Where are these people supposed to go? We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”
The task that Merz faces is the same one that eluded Merkel and Scholz. How does Germany reconcile cultural memory with the present day? Or, to put it another way, at what point does will Germany’s policy toward Israeli become more objective, without fear or favor, while never moving on from the past? It is a debate that is joined by voices from both universities and think tanks. The passion rarely leads to clarity. Parts of the media also do it, as do some politicians.
But it must be done far more self-assuredly than it has been until now. Because if it isn’t, the gulf between public opinion and the “Berlin bubble” will grow even wider. A recent poll by the Bertelsmann Foundation that only 36 percent of Germans viewed Israel positively. Does that suggest nascent antisemitism or a clear-headed assessment of the actions of the Israeli government and the extremists underpinning it?
Neither France nor the U.K. is faring much better. The decision by Starmer’s government to proscribe Palestine Action, a direct-action network, led to bizarre scenes of dozens of British pensioners being arrested under the Terrorism Act. The public discourse, while also circumscribed, does seem more vigorous in those countries than in Germany.
The danger everywhere in Europe, but particularly in Germany, is that a refusal to engage more vigorously in the Israel-Palestine conflict will leave an even greater gap to be exploited by malign forces. The German far right uses it as a means of fomenting social strife, labeling Muslim immigrants as antisemitic and dangerous. Meanwhile, the refusal to allow a more robust discussion is fueling a new bout of antisemitism.
Only by showing support for an Israel that is prepared to seriously engage in peace talks, will Germany get on the right side of history. Sadly, neither of these two components seem to be a realistic prospect just yet.