Column by Michael Backfisch

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The disturbing images from the Gaza Strip have startled international diplomacy: spindle drought young children being carried by their mothers through a rubble desert. Babies without milk. Exhausted men and women waiting with empty pots in front of one of the few food outlets. The famine in Gaza has many faces. Malnutrition among the approximately two million inhabitants of the coastal enclave is at “alarming levels”, warned the World Health Organization (WHO).

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French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been regarded as a specialist in disruptive initiatives not only since his “brain death” statement about NATO in November 2019, made the first move. He announced that he would recognize Palestine as a state at the UN General Assembly in September. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined in. His government also wants to do this if Israel does not take “substantial steps” to improve the situation in the Gaza Strip.

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And German Chancellor Friedrich Merz? He exhausts himself in window-dressing and moral appeals, which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shrugs his shoulders at. It is true that the Bundeswehr's “airlift” over Gaza triggers positive connotations — the “raisin bombers” supplied West Berlin blocked by the Soviets in 1948 and 1949. But the internationally coordinated dropping of food and medicines over the largely bombed coastal strip of the Mediterranean Sea is a political PR campaign to calm one's own conscience. All aid organizations in the Gaza Strip say in unison that airdrops “are inaccurate and inefficient and endanger people on the ground. Merz himself admits: “This work may only make a small humanitarian contribution, but it is an important signal: We are here, we are in the region, we are helping.” In reality, it is more of an expression of despair, helplessness and powerlessness.

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What the population in the Gaza Strip, which is suffering extreme hardship, needs is 500 to 600 trucks a day with water, flour, bread and medical supplies - as was the case before the cruel massacre by the Islamist Hamas on October 7, 2023. Netanyahu has now opened the borders for a small proportion of the shipments. But it is far too little.

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The chancellor sends powerful admonitions to Israel, but they all fall flat. He calls for an improvement in the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a comprehensive ceasefire, no further expulsions of the Palestinians and the release of all hostages by Hamas, which should also lay down its weapons. A cascade of “must”, “should”, “would be good if.” A hurricane of morally underpinned calls whose volume is inversely proportional to their effectiveness.

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The problem: Merz is in a tight spot in Israel. Since Angela Merkel, every federal government has had the monumental commitment that Israel's security is the “German reason of state.” To put it less pathetically, Germany has historical responsibility for the safety of the Jewish people as a result of Nazi crimes. If the country is attacked, Germany provides assistance. However, the commitment to Israel's security is not a blank check for the Israeli government. And certainly not for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is willing to kill tens of thousands of civilians under the pretext of fighting Hamas. The Gaza Strip is now a dead zone.

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But Germany is committed not only to Israel's security, but also to international law. If the Israeli government uses hunger as a weapon to assert its interests, a German Federal Chancellor may also criticize this. Open words about Netanyahu's policies in Gaza and the West Bank are one thing, Germany's commitment to the security of the Israelis is another. Netanyahu is trying to discredit any dissent with his course as a threat to Israel's security. Merz must not fall into this trap. Although the Chancellor has repeatedly described Netanyahu's Gaza policy as “unacceptable”, his choice of words is guarded. He is trying to exercise restraint.

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He doesn't have to. Merz should speak plainly. Because there are radicals in Netanyahu's cabinet who strictly reject even the completely inadequate supply of aid to the population in Gaza. The far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the move a slap in the face of Israeli soldiers fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The distribution of bread, flour and drinks is synonymous with “keeping the enemy alive”.

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Ben-Gvir operates with a brutal logic that despises humanity. The ultra-right finance minister Belazel Smotrich is on the same line. Both want to expel the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and build Jewish settlements instead. In the West Bank, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich cover violent Jewish settlers who, often under the eyes of the Israeli army, invade Palestinian villages and expand their territory. They are working on the dream of restoring “Judea and Samaria,” as the biblical name for today's West Bank was. It is a process of gradual annexation and expulsion of the Palestinians.

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In reality, Netanyahu has long been a hostage to extremists in his government. Defense Minister Israel Katz from Netanyahu's Likud party promotes the idea of a “humanitarian city” on the rubble of Rafah. Initially 600,000 - later all - Palestinians are to be squeezed into a reception camp here. They are only allowed in, but not out. It would be a gigantic refugee quarter that would force people to “leave the country voluntarily.” Behind this is a plan of systematic impoverishment that accepts starvation.

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In Israel, too, this policy is massively criticized. For the first time, two human rights organizations have branded their government's actions as “genocide.” Forum B'Tselem speaks of “coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip.” The Physicians for Human Rights Israel Association, in turn, is taking a stand against the “deliberate and systematic destruction of the health system in the Gaza Strip.” Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon argues similarly: “The path we are being led along means conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing. ”

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Netanyahu's problem is that he has no political concept for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. He has no plan for how the Gaza Strip should be governed in the future. Rather, it follows a doctrine of “perpetual war against the enemies of Israel.” The fact that more than 60,000 Palestinians lost their lives as a result does not affect him.

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All of this in no way means that the atrocities committed by Hamas should be underexposed. With the massacre on October 7, 2023, the Islamists committed an unforgivable breach of taboo. It is right that Israel wants to eliminate the terrorist militia. It must play no role in a future government in Gaza. And it is just as true that Hamas could take a decisive step towards defusing the conflict by laying down arms and releasing the hostages.

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But that doesn't justify the Israeli government pricing tens of thousands of civilians as collateral damage — through bombing, uprooting, expulsion, and famine. A federal chancellor can and must bring this up. And he should never tire of advocating a two-state solution. Because only if the Palestinians have space for a decent life will the Israelis also live in security in the long term.

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However, be warned against illusions: international sanctions against Israel will probably achieve little. For example, the EU Commission has recommended partially suspending Israel's participation in the “Horizon Europe” research funding program. Such steps are likely to strengthen Netanyahu's wagon-castle mentality. However, it is important that Europe speaks with one voice. Measures taken by individual countries would be little more than PR stunts on their own behalf. Along the lines of: “Look, we're doing something.”

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