Germany’s Moral Collapse: How Merz Handed Victory to Hamas

You can judge a person by the enemies they make and the friends they keep. By this measure, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his nation are in serious trouble.

Last week, Merz announced Germany would suspend arms deliveries to Israel that could be used in Gaza. Nothing highlights the catastrophic damage of this cowardly betrayal more than the thunderous applause from radical pro-Hamas activists who celebrated his capitulation.

The symbolism was unmistakable at a Berlin event in Neukölln on Saturday—the same district where Hamas supporters celebrated the October 7th massacre nearly two years ago. Organized by the most radically anti-Israel elements within Germany’s Left Party under the banner “Stop the Genocide,” the gathering featured keynote speakers from the United Palestinian National Committee—an organization under surveillance by Germany’s constitutional protection office for its Hamas links.

As attendees slurped watermelons to display solidarity with Gaza (the fruit bears ‘Palestinian'”‘ colors), speakers called for Israel’s final defeat. Arabic speeches echoed through the venue while a massive image of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque dominated the stage backdrop. Predictably, Merz’s announcement drew praise from speakers who demanded Germany abandon its “double standard” on Israel policy, as crowds chanted “Viva Palestina.”

For decades, Germany’s post-war commitment to Israel has tormented the anti-Israel lobby. Alongside the United States, Germany stood as one of the Jewish state’s most crucial supporters. This historic pledge, however performative at times, struck at the heart of anti-Israel propaganda by constantly linking Israel, the Holocaust, and antisemitism—making it impossible to claim that hatred of Israel had nothing to do with antisemitism.

The commitment represented Germany’s reckoning with true genocide, not the fabricated narrative these activists promote about Gaza. Anti-Israel forces knew this moral framework had to be destroyed—a goal that paradoxically aligned them with Germany’s far right, which also campaigns against the country’s pro-Israel “guilt complex.”

“Free Palestine from German guilt” became one of their rallying cries. Posters bearing the slogan appeared in 2022 after the antisemitism scandal at Germany’s Documenta art exhibition in Kassel. The exhibition displayed several artworks with classic antisemitic tropes, including depicting Jews as pigs. When outcry followed, artists and curators dismissed criticism as evidence of Germany’s guilt complex.

Even Israelophobic leaders from the Middle East exploited this strategy. When Turkish President Erdoğan visited Berlin in November 2023—just a few weeks after Hamas’s massacre—he accused Germany of being trapped in a “psychology of guilt” regarding Israel.

The irritation with Germany’s steadfast support for Jewish life grew so intense that cultural activists launched the Strike Germany campaign in autumn 2023. Though never achieving the momentum of anti-Israel boycotts, it found prominent supporters like the French author and Nobel Prize laureate Annie Ernaux—and Judith Butler, who announced she would no longer travel to Germany due to its “pro-Israel stand.”

Although most ordinary Germans probably couldn’t care less about Judith Butler’s visit to Germany (most of them don’t even know who she is), the campaign did have a certain influence on our insecure establishment. This was especially apparent in the green-left milieu. The fact that then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) stood frozen next to Erdoğan when he insulted Israel without uttering a word of protest is evidence of just how unreliable Germany’s support for Israel already was at the time.

Now Merz—proving himself worryingly weak and unprincipled—has surrendered too, despite solemnly promising to stand by Israel before the elections and condemning his predecessor Scholz for even considering such measures. “What are your expressions of solidarity with Israel actually worth if you simultaneously deny the country essential aid in its precarious situation?” Merz had asked pointedly.

His volte-face coincided perfectly with his 100-day milestone highlighting his government’s failures, including approval ratings of just 30%—lower than any previous chancellor at this stage. For a politician unable to convince the public and lacking support, abandoning Israel proved easier than mounting a principled fight.

Prioritizing short-term tactics over wisdom, Merz ignored the serious long-term consequences (he didn’t even anticipate the uproar within his own party). Instead, he allowed himself to be swayed by shifting public opinion and the desire to appease his Social Democratic partners—a party that has become nearly as Israelophobic as the leftist Die Linke. In a petty game of tit for tat, Merz abandoned an important ally—the Middle East’s only democracy—to mollify the SPD’s anger over their rejected Supreme Court candidate.

The terrible truth is that by abandoning Israel, Germany has empowered murderous, antisemitic Hamas. Days before Merz’s announcement, Hamas published images of emaciated hostages. In Nazi-style executions, a hostage, Evyatar David, was forced to dig his own grave, while Rom Braslavski, a German-Jewish citizen, was filmed lying on a stone floor, contorted by hunger. Like the Nazis before them, Hamas has pledged to kill all Jews.

Merz isn’t the first weak leader to bow to antisemitism under pressure. But his betrayal stands out, even as other opportunistic leaders—in France, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere—announce recognition of a Palestinian state. Germany, with its historic pledge to learn from its past and support the world’s only Jewish state, bears special responsibility.

This is why Ben Cohen, senior analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), calls German officials’ statements his yardstick for measuring anti-Israel sentiment and the country’s growing isolation.

Israel, thankfully, doesn’t depend on Germany militarily—several experts note Germany relies more on Israeli support than vice versa. Volker Beck, chairman of the German-Israeli Society, calls it “German arrogance”: if Israel retaliated by cutting arms deliveries to Germany, German air security would collapse. This cooperation also proves vital in fighting the global Islamist terrorism that has repeatedly struck Germany.

Yet, practical considerations pale beside the moral bankruptcy of Merz’s statement. Recalling Merz’s words after Israel’s successful strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities—that Israel was doing the “dirty work for us”—Johannes Winkel of the CDU youth organization aptly observed, “From today, Israel will do the dirty work for us, only without German weapons.”

For 80 years, Germany claimed to have learned history’s lessons—standing with democracy against antisemitic terror. Israel’s safety as the world’s only Jewish state was famously called Germany’s “reason of state” by former Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2008. Though never given substantial content, it nonetheless anchored Germany’s moral framework.

Merz has now casually swept this aside. Those who understand antisemitism’s danger to any society must raise their voices and join the growing protests against Merz’s cowardice. The stakes could not be higher.