Many German companies and institutions are intimately connected with Israel. Any change in support for its annihilation of Palestinians would result in the loss of profits and influence
Jürgen Mackert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He was a temporary Professor for the Structure of modern societies at the University of Erfurt, Germany and a visiting professor for Political Sociology at Humboldt University Berlin. His latest books include On Social Closure. Theorizing Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination (Oxford University Press 2024). Siedlerkolonialismus. Grundlagentexte und aktuelle Analysen (edited with Ilan Pappé; Nomos 2024)
Cross-posted from Middle East Eye
Since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and Amnesty International published a report on Israel’s genocide in Gaza late last year, German government news conferences have become a spectacle.
In November, when asked about the ICC’s verdict, a government spokesperson was evasive, but ultimately told journalists that he had “difficulty imagining that we would make arrests in Germany on this basis”.
The following month, asked about the Amnesty report, German spokespersons were similarly evasive, with one eventually explaining that Israel was acting to defend itself from Hamas.
Germany clearly does not want to fulfil its obligations as a signatory to the ICC’s Rome Statute, nor does it want to call the well-documented genocide of the Palestinian people what it is.
The German government never expected the ICC to reach this verdict, and seeing that the court no longer operates solely as an instrument of western interests, the state is squirming to find a way out.
The mask worn by the self-proclaimed loyal and unwavering defender of the supposedly universal values of justice and human rights has fallen off. Germany, always happy to teach others about these values and the special importance of international law, is showing a hypocritical, if not cynical, attitude towards this very law and the ICC.
Not even an ICC ruling, nor the comprehensively documented genocidal crimes of the Zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime, can stop Germany from following its usual strategy of denial and rejection.
No dilemma
For decades, Germany has defended Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and denied the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which has not stopped since the Nakba. Denying facts by looking the other way is one thing; rejecting well-researched reports from the world’s most respected human rights groups on Israeli apartheid and genocide – which Germany has done repeatedly over the years – is another entirely.
In rejecting both the latest Amnesty report and no less the Human Rights Watch report, long-overdue confirmations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Germany’s denial of these atrocities has reached new heights.
We can reasonably fear that, sooner or later, Germany will declare something along these lines: “Because of Germany’s history, the country is in an unresolvable dilemma: unfortunately, it cannot follow the ICC’s decision. The country has a special obligation to the Zionist regime and Germany’s ‘reason of state’ – Israel’s security – makes it impossible for the country to fulfil its obligations to the ICC.”
But in reality, Germany is not in a dilemma at all; such a dilemma could exist only between two equally important imperatives for action. In this case, however, the ICC’s judgement is the only imperative for action, marking a binding legal obligation.
Germany’s alleged “reason of state”, on the other hand, is nothing more than a chimera – a morally exaggerated quasi-religious idol that the whole world shall believe in and that shall justify and legitimise the state’s unrestricted support for Israel. This transparent strategy intends to make the world, and Germans in particular, believe that the country has a “moral obligation” to side with the Zionist regime, thus concealing its true geopolitical, economic, military and financial interests.
Claiming to act on moral grounds “without alternative”, while supporting and justifying crimes committed by the Zionist regime, has been a policy that worked well for Germany for decades. But after 16 months of the Gaza genocide, the situation has changed.
No one can reasonably believe in the fairytale of Germany’s moral responsibility anymore, as the country defends, finances, arms and diplomatically supports the genocide of Palestinians, in addition to the bombing of Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, while shielding those responsible from accountability.
Invoking Germany’s “reason of state” offers no escape from the country’s binding obligation to the ICC. Rather, it is merely a sad spectacle that the world, and the Palestinian people in particular, have had to endure for far too long.
Foundations laid
When former German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in 2008 that Israel’s security was Germany’s “reason of state”, she attempted to derive a quasi-religious consecration for Germany from its prostration before the racist settler-colonial apartheid regime and thus aimed to lend greater legitimacy to a decades-long policy of unconditional support for the Zionist regime. Her morally and ideologically charged understanding of the term was directed at four specific audiences.
Firstly, to the global public, Merkel wanted to show Germany’s exemplary character, presenting it as a country that had learned lessons from its history and would forever stand by Israel, come what may. This announcement laid the foundations for all subsequent denials and rejections of Israel’s crimes.
Secondly, she was conveying to Israel, which had only recently begun its siege of Gaza, that it had a free hand to do whatever it wanted to the Palestinian people, with unlimited support. Germany thus backed Israel’s wars on Gaza in 2008-09, 2012, 2014 and 2021.
Thirdly, to Palestinian people, Merkel made it unmistakably clear that they could expect nothing from Germany. They were left with idle talk about human rights, feigned regrets about their “humanitarian situation”, and mendacious talk about a “two-state solution”, while Germany turned a blind eye to illegal Zionist settlements and land grabs in Palestine.
Finally, German citizens were meant to understand that from then on, there was “no alternative” to unconditional support for Israel.
From that point up until now, with the Bundestag’s adoption last November of the resolution “Never again is now: Protecting, preserving and strengthening Jewish life in Germany” – which relies on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s controversial definition of antisemitism – we have seen a progressive subjugation of democracy to the needs of the Zionist regime, alongside a rise in the smearing of its critics with antisemitism allegations.
Logic of elimination
By stifling and criminalising criticism of Israel’s policies of war, torture and genocide, Germany has surrendered to the destructive, settler-colonial logic of elimination: German democracy today must conform to the contours of Zionism. Merkel’s making German democracy market-conform and Zionism-conform have been her greatest achievements in destroying quite a number of German citizens’ basic rights.
For Germany’s political class, mainstream media and primary institutions, the country’s “dignity” stems from its total support for Israel’s annihilation of the Palestinian people, and the repression of any dissent within the country. For a country with its own genocidal, settler-colonial and fascist past, what kind of a pathetic “reason of state” is that?
Instead of listening to endless talk about Germany’s “moral obligation” to the Zionist regime, we should focus instead on the state’s naked interests. Many German banks, insurance companies, investors, research institutions, universities and weapons firms are so intimately connected with Israel, that any change in Germany’s politics would inevitably result in losses to markets, profits and important knowledge.
There are fears of losing the Palestine laboratory, from which Germany, in times of neoliberalism, learns so much – from surveillance technology to managing populations, to drone and AI warfare.
Germany is interested in what the settler-colonial logic of elimination against the indigenous Palestinian population has produced over the decades, as neoliberalism progresses and constantly produces new superfluous masses to control. The techniques to achieve this will come from Israel’s decades of oppressing the Palestinian people.
Protecting these interests is the real German “reason of state”, concealed behind an ideological veil of an alleged historical responsibility for a genocidal regime.
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