Written by Reham Alcousa and Matthias Williams
BERLIN (Reuters) -The growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel has pushed to expand military control of the jeep Germany to curb arms exports to Israel, a historically preserved step for Berlin driven by increasing public height.
Conservative Counselor Friedrich Mirz has so far announced a pro -Israel leader on Friday, on Friday, on the pretext that Israel’s actions will not achieve its stated goals in the war of eliminating Hamas militants or giving Israeli hostages to the homeland.
It is a bold step for a leader who said after his victory in the elections in February that he would invite Benjamin Netanyahu to Germany to limit an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister issued by the International Criminal Court.
This shift reflects how Germany’s support is tested for the support of Israel, which is rooted in its historical guilt on the Nazi Holocaust, as it has not happened before, as the high Palestinian civil death in Gaza, the destruction of the tremendous war and pictures of children who starve in decades of politics.
“It is great because it is the first tangible scale for this German government. But I will not see it as a transformation, but” a warning snapshot, “said Morel Asesburg, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
It is declining months from the German government whose accent indicates its escalating military campaign for Israel in the densely populated Palestinian pocket, although it is still far from the most stringent steps that other European countries call and some voices in the ruling Mirz alliance.
The suspension of arms connections to Israel will affect those that can be used in Gaza.
This step reflects a stiff mood in Germany, where public opinion of Israel has grown and more demanding that its government help reduce the humanitarian catastrophe – most of the 2.2 million populations without shelter and Gaza is a sea of rubble.
According to the ARD-Deutschlandtrend surveyed on Thursday, the day before Merz, 66 % of Germans want their government to put more pressure on Israel to change its behavior.
This is higher than April 2024, when about 57 % of Germans believe that their government should criticize Israel more power before its actions in Gaza, a poll of Forsa showed.
Although Germany helps to drop air on Gaza, 47 % of Germans believe that their government does not do much for Palestinians there, compared to 39 % who disagree with this, as ARD-Deutschlandtrend showed this week.
Perhaps the most striking thing, only 31 % of Germans feel more responsibility for Israel because of their history – a basic principle in German foreign policy – while 62 % not.
The political establishment of Germany indicated its approach, known as “Staatsraison”, as a special responsibility for Israel after the Nazi Holocaust, which was placed in 2008 by its President Angela Merkel at the time to the Israeli parliament.
On the remedy of this, before the situation days before his last trip to Israel in July, he told Mirz Johan and Edel’s newspaper that Dee Zeit that Berlin could not be a “neutral mediator.”
“Because we are parties. We are standing with Israel,” he said, echoing similar statements by other conservative figures in the Mirz party.
But the partner of the novice coalition in Mirz, Social Democrats (SPD), was already more evident in the desire to put sanctions against Israel on the table.
Edis Ahmedovich, Foreign Policy spokesman, said that the suspension of arms shipments was only the first step.
“Moreover, the sanctions on the Israeli ministers should not be taboo,” Ahmedovich told Stern.
Media Department
The deep gap inside Germany also played in the media scene.
In two major openings published in late July, the Deir Siblgel magazine accused Israel of violating international humanitarian law and condemning what it said was the complicity of the German government. The front cover display a picture of Gaza women holding empty vessels with the title: “Crime.”
Meanwhile, the Bild, owned by Axel Springer, the largest media group in Germany, denounced the lack of anger towards the Islamic Hamas, whose cross -border attack on Israeli societies led to war, noting what you see as anti -Israel feelings and the increasing protests unilaterally.
Philip Biatov, a Bild correspondent followed by the X Merz account on Friday, was accused of exactly what he criticized for others, “Germany is cutting support to its ally in the middle of the war.”
Israel denies the existence of a policy of hunger in Gaza, and says Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people in its attack on October 7, 2023 and took 251 hostages to Gaza, may end the crisis through surrender.
The Israel War and the Air War in Gaza killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Critics argued that the approach of Germany was excessively hesitant, weakening the collective West’s ability to apply significant pressure to end the fighting and restrictions imposed on humanitarian aid to the Israeli pocket.
Germany has so far been cautious about a modest penalty, such as supporting partial suspension to reach Israel to the main research financing program for the European Union.
Analysts say that there are other reasons for Germany’s reluctance to criticize Israel after its Nazi past, including its strong trade relationship with Israel and the United States.
Germany is the second largest arms supplier in Israel after the United States, but it also buys weapons from Israel as part of a huge renovation of its armed forces since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This includes an anti -rocket operation system 3.
Last week, the Israeli Defense Company Elbit Systems announced a $ 260 million deal with Airbus to supply German Air Force Air Force Airways.
“German arrogance should be avoided,” Falk Beck, a former member of Parliament and president of the German -Israeli Association, told Reuters.
“If Israel will discuss by restricting the delivery of weapons in Germany, the future of German air security will appear to be dark.”
($ 1 = 0.8590 euros)
(Participated in the reports of Riham Alkousaaa and Matthias Williams; additional reports by Laila Bayer in Brussels; edited by Mark Heinrich)
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