30 October 2024
“But I have left the Palestinian question alone in order to work on frontier questions hoping eventually to isolate the Palestinians. And this could work.”
“Kissinger Memorandum - 15 June 1975: ‘To Isolate the Palestinians’”, 96 MERIP, (May / June 1981).
Introduction
On 7 October 2023 Israel, an occupying power and an apartheid state, launched an unjustified and illegal war against Gaza committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The war followed an effective resistance operation by armed groups from Gaza that targeted the system of occupying and enclaving that territory. Israeli military censorship and government prevented revealing that at least most of the Israeli civilians killed that day died as a result of Israeli forces’ shooting. Israeli officials made allegations about raping of women during the resistance operation that were untrue.
Israel’s crime of genocide in Gaza materialized during the first month of the war, has escalated since then, and has not ended yet.[1]
Premised on ideological and opportunist support of Israel generated by the Israel lobby, Biden administration and large parts of the American Congress expressed messianic enthusiasm for Israel’s ludicrous claims and abhorrent actions. The European Union, with its leading members forming an essential part of NATO, followed accordingly. American and British[2] governments’ complicity in Israel’s international crimes is beyond doubt particularly given their tenacious supply of weapons to Israel by flights during the onslaught against the occupied enclave.[3] Both governments and militaries were also quick to oppose Yemen’s humanitarian intervention in the Red Sea aimed at terminating Israel’s monstrosity.[4] Most other[5] relevant European Union countries have also supplied weapons to Israel despite its glaring violations of international law.
During Israel’s offensive against Gaza differences between European countries emerged. In May 2024 Spanish Defense Minister said that the war in Gaza was real genocide,[6] followed the next month by a declaration on the applicable law before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention.[7] Officials from Belgium and Ireland made public statements in January and March 2024 claiming an intent to join the proceedings before the ICJ genocide case against Israel, but to this date no actual filing has been advanced before the Court on their behalf. Italy’s arms suspension remains vague.[8] Courts in the Netherlands partially limited arms delivery to Israel.[9] In October 2024 France declared incomplete adjournment of weapons dispatch to Israel.[10] Britain’s Labor government slightly amended the position of its predecessor on arming Israel during its war on Gaza, without alleviating its association with Israel’s culpability.[11] As a rule, most European Union countries regularly vote in opposition or abstention about resolutions centering on Palestinians’ rights at the United Nations General Assembly or the United Nations Security Council. The United States is the European Union’s main security and trading partner that also leads the G7 group in its economic and military power.
Germany’s Collaboration with Israel’s International Crimes in Gaza
Since the inception of Israel’s atrocious war against Palestinians in Gaza, Germany reiterated its commendation to the occupying and apartheid state throughout the war regurgitating Angela Merkel’s 2008 speech in the Israeli Knesset that Israel’s security is the rational for Germany’s statehood.[12]Germany joined the chorus of providing Israel with arms during the war only to recently introduce legalistic maneuvers concerning its unabated backing of Israel’s military effort.[13] Germany is Israel’s second-largest arms trader (30%) after the United States which furnishes Israel with 69% of its foreign arms stockpile.[14]
Germany’s militaristic backing of Israel has been strategic ignoring its constitutional structure, status under international law, and policies that for decades has engaged in systematic grave violations of international law and ordinary daily illegalities.[15]A main European economic power and a close diplomatic ally of the United States, Germany publicly and unequivocally opposed South Africa’s case before the ICJ against Israel under the Genocide Convention declaring that it would intervene on Israel’s behalf as a third party.[16]
Germany also principally objected to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ruling that extended its jurisdiction over the Palestine situation in 2021.[17]Furthermore, the country renowned for its daunting abstract analysis of legal norms[18] defied ICC Prosecution’s incomplete request for arrest warrants against two Israeli officials on the grounds of complementarity and Israel’s purported commitment to the rule of law.[19] Israel does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, has consistently declined to cooperate with this Court, and its legal system with respect to Palestinians is no less than biased, abusive, and derogatory. The ICC has been under pressure by American officials and politicians as well as European countries to disrupt any actions pertaining to Palestine.[20]
On 1 March 2024 Nicaragua instituted proceedings before the ICJ against Germany for failing to prevent genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and other violations of international law regarding its consistent abutment of Israel’s 1967 occupation of Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza). Germany alleged that its process of exporting arms to Israel followed existing regulations and has decreased since October 2023. Subsequently, the ICJ decided on 30 April 2024 that at that stage there is no reason to exercise its jurisdiction to issue provisional measures against Germany and rejected the latter’s request to remove the case from the Court’s docket. The ICJ reiterated its grave concern regarding the mass killing of Palestinians noted in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention underscoring the obligation of all states not to violate international law by arms transfer:
Moreover, the Court considers it particularly important to remind all States of their international obligations relating to the transfer of arms to parties to an armed conflict, in order to avoid the risk that such arms might be used to violate the above-mentioned Conventions. All these obligations are incumbent upon Germany as a State party to the said Conventions in its supply of arms to Israel.[21]
German – Israel Relations and the Question of Legitimacy
Zionism’s goal has been to rule Palestine without its original inhabitants the Palestinian Arabs, rather than seeking refuge in it. The 1917 British Balfour communication was a result of entrenched lobbying in Britain granted when Zionists in Palestine comprised no more than 10% of the total population. It was incorporated into the preamble of the 1922 League of Nations mandate over Palestine which is a colonial rule substituting Ottoman presence that had objected to Zionism’s political claims in the midst of the Arab world. Palestinian opposition to Zionist enterprise in Palestine was given, vindicated, and irrevocable. American approval of the 1947 United Nations partition plan of Palestine was also a result of domestic pressure politics by American Jewish organizations. There is no genuine right to sovereignty for Zionism in Palestine historically, geographically, legally, and politically.
Between the 1917 British Balfour commitment and the 1947 United Nations partition plan Zionists proved to be a menace in Palestine attacking, killing, and sabotaging Palestinians, the British, and international diplomats. Britain abstained during the vote on the United Nations partition plan which further diminishes Zionism’s political desires for governance in a distant location. The only possible path for Zionism to gain its political objectives was by forcibly removing Palestinians to transform Palestine’s demography concealing its project with baseless nationalist ideology and superfluous moral justifications. It is no wonder that to this day the Israeli study of the ethnic cleansing of more than two-thirds of the Palestinian population by Zionist forces in 1948, the other crimes during that year and after, and the pre-state era is framed in mythology, denials, selective rationalizations, and erasure.
Second World War atrocities were an opportunity for Zionism to illogically assert its correct historical track. Regardless of the number of Jews affected by the horrors of the war in Europe who actually sought refuge in Palestine and their character, for Zionism that was a necessary diplomatic opportunity to demonstrate its bankrupt thesis.
After that war Germany was subjected to an American version of victors’ justice legally, politically, and economically. West Germany formed diplomatic relations with the United States in 1955 and with Israel in 1965. Israel accepted reparations from West Germany in 1952 long before the inception of diplomatic ties which many consider another indication of Ben Gurion’s savage opportunism. The founding father of the Israeli state and its first war criminal stressed in an interview relating to this agreement after he retired from politics that “history is not moral”. In this context, it should be noted that intelligence cooperation between Israel and West Germany commenced in 1956 following the tripartite aggression against Egypt.
German historians have conducted soul-searching explorations regarding the Nazi era, an endeavour that Israeli historians have colossally declined to engage in, particularly about Zionism’s and Israel’s attitude and behavior towards Palestinians. One possible reason is the continuous nature of Israel’s deranged performance.
Germany’s pompous pronouncements affirming its responsibility towards Israel verge on the ridicules, are opaque, and collude with the country’s international crimes and apartheid. Israel’s regional terrorism has defined its foreign policy for decades in a pathetic attempt to gain diplomatic leverage and ideological self-assurance.[22] After the Oslo Accords of 1993 Israel’s abomination became obvious against its own population as well in order to sustain a fragile identity and derail any attempt by Palestinians to genuinely reclaim their rights. The human and political cost of Israel’s consistent demented malevolency has been willfully disregarded by German diplomacy.
Germany should reconsider the scope and nature of its conjectural obligation towards Israel regardless of its complicity in the Gaza genocide.
[1] See Article 6 of the International Criminal Court’s statute.
[2] “Banning UK arms exports to Israel would strengthen Hamas, UK’s Cameron says”, Reuters, 12 May 2024.
[3] Alex Gatopoulos, “How US and UK military airlifts have supported Israel’s war on Gaza”, Al-Jazeera, 27 October 2024.
[4] “Yemen’s Houthis warn ships in Red Sea to avoid Israel or face attack”, The Guardian, 13 December 2023.
[5] For the purposes of this essay, Britain is considered part of the European Union group despite the process of Brexit.
[6] “Spanish defence minister says Gaza war is ‘real genocide’”, Reuters, 25 May 2024.
[7] International Court of Justice, South Africa v. Israel, Declaration of Intervention of Spain Under Article 63 of the Statute of the ICJ, 28 June 2024.
[8] “Italy arms exports to Israel continued despite block, minister says”, Reuters, 14 March 2024.
[9] Stephanie van den Berg, “Dutch court orders halt to export of F-35 jet parts to Israel”, Reuters, 12 February 2024; “Dutch court rejects demand for further export ban for jet parts that may go to Israel”, Reuters, 12 July 2024. See also “Dutch state sued over alleged failure to stop Israel’s violations of International law”, Reuters, 10 October 2024.
[10] Lazar Berman, “French FM backs Macron’s calls for arms ban, argues it’s for Israel’s security”, Times of Israel, 8 October 2024; “France’s Macron calls for an end to arms exports in Gaza and Lebanon”, 11 October 2024.
[11] Dan Sabbagh, “Incoherence over arms exports to Israel leaves UK on shaky middle ground”, The Guardian, 3 September 2024; Louisa Brooke – Holland, “UK arms exports to Israel”, House of Commons Library, 23 October 2024.
[12] Lena Obermaier, “Germany is Complicit in Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza”, Jacobin, 10 October 2023; Lena Obermaier, “‘We are All Israelis’: The Consequences of Germany’s Staatsrason”, Sada, 28 March 2024; William Noah Glucroft, “Germany’s unique relationship with Israel”, DW, 15 October 2023.
[13] “Scholz says Germany will supply Israel with weapons to defend itself”, Reuters, 17 October 2023; Andreas Noll, “War in Gaza: Germany supplies 30% of Israel’s rms imports”, DW, 19 July 2024; “German government denies it suspended permits for arms exports to Israel”, euro news, 18 September 2024; Ben Night, “Germany slows arms exports to Israel – without admitting it”, DW, 14 October 2024; Reuters, “Germany approves over $100 million in arms exports to Israel, angering rights groups”, Times of Israel, 24 October 2024; Tamish Paternoster et al, “German arms exports to Israel increase, contradicting government reports”, euro news, 24 October 2024.
[14] Pieter Wezeman et al, “Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2023”, SIPRI, March 2024.
[15] Carla Bleiker, “German – Israeli security cooperation”, DW, 12 May 2015; Forensic Architecture, “German Arms Exports to Israel, 2003 – 2023”, 2 April 2024.
[16] See Stefan Talomon, “Germany Rushes to Declare Intention to Intervene in the Genocide Case brought by South Africa Against Israel Before the International Court of Justice”, German Practice in International Law, 15 January 2024.
[17] Stefan Talmon, “Germany publicly objects to the International Criminal Court’s ruling on jurisdiction in Palestine”, German Practice in International Law, 11 February 2021.
[18] Another grave legal failure by a German official on the international stage is the investigation conducted by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis regarding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s mandate resulting in significant draining of Lebanese and international resources. Known for his past investigations of transnational terrorism plots and accusations, he failed to capture the responsibilities of the United States and Israel for the political assassinations in Lebanon.
[19] ICC-01/18, Federal Republic of Germany, Observations Pursuant to Rule 103(1) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, para.15.
[20] Robert Tait, “Biden attacks request by ICC prosecutor for Netanyahu arrest warrant”, The Guardian, 21 May 2024; Patrick Wintour et al, “ICC urged to delay possible war crimes charges against Israel and Hamas”, The Guardian, 29 April 2024; Stephanie Maupas, “International Criminal Court faces constant pressure over Gaza and Israel”, Le Monde, 22 August 2024.
[21] International Court of Justice, Nicaragua v. Germany, Alleged Breaches of Certain International Obligations in Respect of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 30 April 2024, paras.24; 20 -25.
[22] Tom Segev, “Now it Can Be Told”, Haaretz, 6 April 2006; Tom Segev, “Benyamin Gilbi: 1919 – 2008 Shameful Business, Constant Danger”, Haaretz, 20 August 2008.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Source: Spiegel International, 11 September 2024.
Comments