At the ceremony in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the leaders of European and Arab states gathered behind US President Donald Trump. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) seemed somewhat lost on the sidelines of the peace show. Trump praised him, saying he was “very smart and he is doing a fantastic job for his country.”
Not only Merz, but Europeans as a whole felt visibly uncomfortable in their assigned supporting roles and smiled in pain for the cameras. The peace plan for Gaza was signed by Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the US, not by the Europeans or the EU.
Now the German government wants to play at least fir…
At the ceremony in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the leaders of European and Arab states gathered behind US President Donald Trump. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) seemed somewhat lost on the sidelines of the peace show. Trump praised him, saying he was “very smart and he is doing a fantastic job for his country.”
Not only Merz, but Europeans as a whole felt visibly uncomfortable in their assigned supporting roles and smiled in pain for the cameras. The peace plan for Gaza was signed by Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the US, not by the Europeans or the EU.
Now the German government wants to play at least first fiddle among the second fiddles in the implementation of Trump’s peace plan, which in reality contains an intensified occupation policy—with no prospect of an end to foreign rule, disenfranchisement, and blockade of the Palestinian state by Israel and the US. In this sense, Merz is said to have told his colleagues Keir Starmer in London and Emmanuel Macron in Paris: “The hard work will only begin tomorrow.” Berlin wants to take the lead in this.
The hard work—or, in Merz’s words, the “dirty work,” as he put it with regard to Israel’s war of annihilation on Gaza—means above all the reconstruction of Gaza. Together with Egypt, the German government is planning a donor summit. Estimates put the cost of reconstruction at around $80 billion. But they could be significantly higher. Whether these sums will ultimately be raised and paid is highly questionable, even if generous promises are made. Budgets in European and Arab countries are very tight—and the EU is also facing enormous reconstruction costs of over a trillion euros in Ukraine.
The past also gives no reason for optimism. In particular, after the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, which killed 2,000 Palestinians and destroyed 17,000 homes, the Gulf states and EU countries promised $3.5 billion for reconstruction and nearly $2 billion for the Palestinian Authority’s budget at a conference in Cairo. But over the next few months, virtually no money arrived. Four years later, many promises had not been fulfilled, so that when Gaza was bombed again in 2021, many buildings destroyed in previous Israeli attacks were still in ruins.
The idea that Israel and the US should pay for the eradication of Gaza in the form of reparations is not up for debate in Western public opinion. As before, the US is assigning Europe and the Arab countries the role of paying the bill for the damage caused by the devastation wrought primarily by US weapons (worth almost $22 billion) and Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories. Germany plays a central role here, contributing money and aid. Berlin has already announced that it will provide 200 million euros in emergency aid for Gaza.
It is the usual German-European double role: first helping with the destruction, then paying for the reconstruction of what has been destroyed. Germany is not only a model student when it comes to cleaning up, but also acts as a loyal ally alongside the US in enabling Israel’s destruction in the occupied territories and then removing the evidence. Germany’s unwavering support for Israel is generally attributed to the Holocaust and its responsibility for the Jewish state due to historical guilt. But Germany’s raison d’état (“Staatsräson”) toward Israel has less to do with morality than with fitting into a geopolitical corset.
Blood for Oil
During the two-year genocide of the population in the Gaza Strip, Berlin increased its arms deliveries to Israel tenfold. It abstained from voting on resolutions for a Gaza ceasefire in the UN General Assembly, which were supported by an overwhelming majority of the international community, and intervened on Israel’s side at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) when South Africa accused the Netanyahu government of committing genocide in the enclave.
Germany also abstained from last year’s historic UN resolution calling on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories. The ICJ had previously declared Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal in a landmark ruling. The court called on Tel Aviv to end its occupation, dismantle its settlements, grant full compensation to Palestinian victims, and facilitate the return of refugees.
The German government also emphasized until the end, despite the massive war crimes and devastation in the Gaza Strip and also in the West Bank, Israel’s right to self-defense, even though international law experts make it clear that an occupying power cannot invoke war power against the occupied population, but on the contrary has a duty to protect. At the EU level, Germany blocked the initiative to impose sanctions and implement a partial suspension of the EU Association Agreement with Israel, i.e., the cancellation of trade advantages, in order to put pressure on Tel Aviv to stop the genocide.
To understand why the German government in particular, but also most EU states, failed so miserably in Gaza, offering only rhetorical criticism but otherwise acting within the framework set by the US and Israel, one must realize that Europeans as a whole play only a subservient role in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Particularly Germany’s function is subordinate to the geopolitical interests of the US in the region.
Since the end of World War II, control over fossil fuel reserves in the Middle East has been a top priority for US foreign policy. A 1945 paper from the State Department to then-President Harry Truman stated that the Gulf region in particular was home to a “stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” In the postwar period, the US took over control of fossil energy resources in the Arab region from Great Britain.
Although the US never imported much oil from the Middle East, it was crucial for Washington to keep the oil price under control in its own interests and to ensure that the enormous wealth from the energy resources from there, especially the Gulf region, flowed westward in the form of arms purchases, investments, various imports, and financial flows. This is what happened in the wake of petrodollar geopolitics.
From the 1970s onwards, US allies Saudi Arabia and Iran replaced Venezuela as the largest oil exporters, while in the Arab world, as stated in memos from the US National Security Council (NSC), “radical” pan-Arab national movements spread, seeking to break away from Western dominance. In Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser carried out nationalizations while seeking to unite the Arab states under a socialist agenda. Progressive Arab nationalism even temporarily drove the United States out of Saudi Arabia. It lost its military presence and a base there. “Radical” nationalists also took power in other oil-producing countries, such as Iraq, Algeria, and later Libya.
Bulwark against Arab Nationalism
Opposition to US interests stemming from Arab independence efforts was seen by Washington as a real threat. Against this backdrop, the special relationship between the US and Israel developed. Support for Israel was subsequently seen as a natural consequence of countering this threat. The NSC memo cited above stated in 1958: “if we choose to combat radical Arab nationalism and to hold Persian Gulf oil by force if necessary, a logical corollary would be to support Israel as the only strong pro-West power left in the Near East.”
After the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel defeated the largest military power in the region, Egypt, and Syria at the same time, thereby rising to become the Sparta of the Middle East, the US recognized the Jewish state as a strategic ally, crucial for exercising dominance in the oil- and gas-rich region. Since then, Israel has served as a barrier for the United States against national independence movements in the Arab world or other losses of control that could harm US interests—mostly successfully. US aid and arms exports to Israel increased in the 1970s, as did vetoes in the UN Security Council, which protected Israel from sanctions, international law and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Germany’s “unconditional” support for Israel has always been tied to this condition. In the beginning, after World War II, philosemitism and support for Israel were prerequisites for the Federal Republik of Germany to be integrated into the imperial Western system, as Israeli researcher Frank Stern points out. Now, German policy toward Israel is closely tacked to US interests. As long as Washington sees Israel as a “strategic asset” in the oil- and gas-rich region, nothing will change in Germany’s “special relationship” with Israel and its general support for the occupation regime and the resulting violence and lawlessness.
Or to put it another way: if Israel had been founded in a poor part of Africa, far away from any resources, the special relationship with the US would never have developed—and Europeans and Germany would hardly have been forced to “unconditionally” support a decades-long occupation regime and genocide with weapons, trade advantages, and far-reaching aid to this day.
The Israel-First Doctrine
The fact is that, against the backdrop of US dominance in the Middle East and the Gulf region and the associated support for Israel, Europe and Germany were assigned their roles. It was not uncommon for them to have to put their own national interests on the back burner. Israel’s Yom Kippur War against Arab countries in 1973 led to an embargo by Arab OPEC states and an oil and economic crisis. Western Europeans were particularly affected, as they imported 75 percent of their oil from the region at the time, including West Germany. Since then, this dependence has been reduced by diversifying energy imports.
But with the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, there is once again a greater reliance on the oil monarchies, as seen in Germany’s gas deals with the Gulf states and the future supply of green hydrogen. Economist Edoardo Campanella of Harvard University speaks of “Europe’s New Energy Map”: “increased reliance on Middle Eastern oil will make Europe much more vulnerable to geopolitical tensions in the region.” At the same time, the sanctions regime against Iran pushed by the US and Israel is damaging the “special relationship” that Germany and Europe have with the Islamic Republic, driven not so much by economic as by geopolitical interests.
German governments are trying to perform a balancing act, protecting their own interests in the region—economic and geopolitical relations with Arab and Muslim countries in terms of trade or fossil fuel imports—from the negative effects that may result from supporting Israel’s occupation policy. For a long time, they have done this through moderate, mediating behavior—mediation and support for the Palestinian Authority, emphasis on non-military, diplomatic solutions, adoption of the EU line for a two-state solution, and limited criticism of Israel’s actions. However, this had no effect on realpolitik. Words were not followed by deeds.
Ultimately, Germany and the EU, both of which are closely intertwined, have helped support the Israeli occupation, violations of international law, human rights abuses, and now genocide—in the form of military aid, security cooperation, support for the occupation, special economic treatment, diplomatic cover, suppression of criticism of Israeli crimes, political resistance to sanctions, and more. As studies, human rights organizations, and UN agencies have found, they are thus accomplices, now also to a plausible genocide, as the International Court of Justice puts it. But accomplices are just as responsible and, in the end, just as legally liable for crimes as the perpetrators.
Since the Gaza wars—or to put it correctly, high-tech massacres—beginning in 2008 following the Hamas election, the German government’s line has become even more aggressive and militarized. Since its active participation in various wars in the 1990s, Germany has taken a more aggressive stance on the world stage, from its involvement in the Yugoslav Wars to the occupation of Afghanistan and its support for the Iraq War. Israel’s military attacks on the occupied population have been actively supported and justified by German governments. At the same time, criticism of Israel has been combated ever more vehemently with accusations of anti-Semitism, and freedom of expression is being restricted by repressive means—see the BDS ban passed by the Bundestag, funding cuts for critics of Israel, police violence against demonstrations, and penalties and deportation of protesters who speak out against Israel’s war crimes.
Arabs and Europeans out of Control?
Due to its unprecedented support for the Israeli genocide over the past two years, the German government and, with it, large sections of German society have lost all credibility in the world as mediators in the conflict. Merz was therefore only a marginal figure at the ceremony for Trump’s peace plan in Egypt.
However, Germany and the EU could also take a different path, independent of the US, to de-escalate the conflict, minimize violence, and bring peace to the region—thereby ending Israel’s destructive course of self-destruction and bringing lasting security also to the Israeli population. Just as they have responded to violations of international law in the case of Russia, they could also take similar measures against Israel. These include, for example, recognizing the war crimes that have been established, implementing the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, or making future cooperation contingent on humanitarian and international law conditions.
A step in this direction was taken a few weeks ago with the so-called “New York Declaration,” which was adopted as a resolution by the UN General Assembly on September 12. 142 states voted in favor, ten voted against, and twelve abstained. The resolution was initiated by France and Saudi Arabia. The goal was “not only to reaffirm international consensus on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine but to catalyze concrete, timebound and coordinated international action toward the implementation of the two-State solution.”
Germany also voted in favor. But while other Western countries recognized Palestine as an independent state, bringing the total number in favor in the UN to 157 countries, Germany, along with Italy, remains the only major European country to oppose recognition.
However, the UN resolution remained a paper tiger. It was merely passed in a General Assembly session, which does not have the power to grant formal recognition. To circumvent the US veto in the Security Council, as journalist Nicolas J.S. Davies argues, an Emergency Special Session should have been convened. Then, under the principle of “Uniting for Peace,” Palestine could have been officially recognized and admitted as a full member of the United Nations. When Russia invaded Ukraine, such an emergency meeting was used to agree on measures that bypassed the Security Council and Russia’s veto.
During the Emergency Special Session on Palestine, the UN could then have taken the announced coordinated steps to bring about a ceasefire and establish a Palestinian state. This could have taken the form of a UN-led arms embargo, economic boycotts, and other concrete measures to force Israel to comply with international law and UN resolutions.
Instead, however, the initiative fizzled out due to a lack of courage. The Europeans and Arab states obviously did not want to confront the US. Trump took advantage of this to push through his occupation plan, which is dominated by Israeli interests, a recipe for further escalation, misery, and violence, even if the temporary calming of the situation is to be welcomed.
However, sanctions remain a means in the future of achieving the two-state solution in the course of emergency meetings at the UN level. But this path will only be taken if the governments in Europe and the Arab states are persuaded by civil society and the population not only to recognize a Palestinian state, but also to enforce it through realpolitik. For history has shown that they are not prepared to do so on their own as long as the US sets the geopolitical framework, which could entail costs if broken.
David Goeßmann is a journalist and author based in Berlin, Germany. He has worked for several media outlets including Spiegel Online, ARD, and ZDF. His articles appeared on Truthout, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, ZNetwork, The Progressive and Progressive International. In his books he analyzes climate policies, international affairs, global justice, and media bias.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
David Goeßmann is a journalist and author based in Berlin, Germany. He has worked for several media outlets including Spiegel Online, ARD, and ZDF. His articles have appeared on Truthout, Common Dreams, The Progressive, Progressive International, among others. In his books, he analyzes climate policies, global justice, and media bias.