Israel’s security is Germany’s ‘reason of state’
Others framed the move as a further illustration of their leader’s tendency to suddenly change course on core issues.
“Reason of state abolished? A break with the principles of [conservative] policy,” the youth wing of Merz’s conservatives said in a post on Instagram.
Israel’s security was declared as part of Germany’s “reason of state” in a 2008 speech by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel on account of her country’s “special historical responsibility” after the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the German Nazi regime.
“Israel’s security is and remains a matter of German national interest,” Boris Rhein, the CDU state premier for Hesse, said in a post on X on Monday. “Hamas can only be defeated in battle, not at the negotiating table. We must therefore continue to equip Israel to fight this battle, defeat Hamas and end terrorism.”
Merz, however, has found himself in a bind in recent weeks. Pressure from outside has increasingly mounted, with U.N. agencies warning that Palestinians in Gaza were facing famine. Food consumption and nutrition indicators are at their lowest levels since the conflict began, and deaths from starvation are mounting.
Many other European countries, and the SPD, had demanded that Merz take concrete actions by, for example, giving up Berlin’s blockade over a partial suspension of the EU’s association agreement with Israel which provides for close ties on trade and other areas of cooperation.
And while Merz had recently signaled such steps were among the options on the table, that seems to have changed after the sharp blowback from within his own ranks over the weekend.
“We are not prepared to interfere with Israeli trade or trade with Israel. We have already fended off many attempts to do so, including in Europe,“ Merz said in Sunday’s interview.