The cowardly, unprovoked, and barbaric Hamas attack on Israel has ushered in a new era in the Middle East. The period of relative peace is over. Turbulent times lie ahead, especially for Israel, requiring a fundamental rethink—not only from Israel, but also from German and European politics.
“For the dreadful thing I feared has come upon me, and the thing I dreaded has befallen me.” Job 3:25
This was not only Job's feeling in his moment of acute distress, but also the collective sentiment of Israel yesterday. The Hamas attack has ushered in a new era in the Middle East. The time of relative peace is over. Turbulent times lie ahead for us, and especially for Israel.
Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, which in turn began firing rockets at Israel last night, have forced the war on Israel that it has always tried to prevent.
Just when opportunities for peace were opening up in the wider Middle East, war broke out directly in Israel.
The cowardly, unprovoked and barbaric attack by Hamas has not only spectacularly failed decades of Israeli security concepts, but also – and this concerns us – German and European views and concepts about peace in the Middle East.
Examining aid payments for Palestinians
For too long, it has been common practice in German and European politics to unilaterally demand concessions from Israel, to morally equate Israel with terrorist organizations, to speak of spirals of violence, and to shower the Palestinians with lavish aid and subsidies. Yesterday, we witnessed firsthand what actually happens to our humanitarian aid payments. This must stop now!
The Budget Committee of the German Bundestag can and must scrutinize all German aid payments to the Palestinians for the 2024 budget. Where it cannot be guaranteed that German funds will not benefit the wrong people, these payments should be frozen.
For on October 7th, Israel's enemies showed the world that they despise all human and civilizational conventions. The hatred directed against Jews by Palestinian leaders and many Palestinians in the streets is greater than their concern for their children and their own future.
Concessions are interpreted as weakness
Diplomacy is useless against such enemies. Concessions are interpreted as weakness. And the threat to Israel is a persistent, existential one.
German naiveté, gullibility, and our humanistic good intentions in the region have severely harmed Israel in this regard.
Almost exactly 50 years ago, when Israel was surprised by the Yom Kippur War, the German government under Willy Brandt forbade the Americans from using German airspace to bring vital military equipment to Israel.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz can show that Germany has changed and is once again living true friendship by backing up German national interest with clear actions this time!
Germany's commitment to Israel's right to exist includes its commitment to Israel's right and obligation to go to war now.
Support for Israel not only at the beginning of the war
Germany's full support for Israel in its defensive war should not only apply now at the beginning, in times of images of Israeli victims, but also when images of Palestinian victims from Gaza and Lebanon inevitably reach us.
Israel's defensive war will be fierce and dramatic. Not because Israel wants it that way, but because Hamas is forcing it – with its attack and hostage-taking, combined with its strategy of using human shields and embedding military structures within the civilian infrastructure of the densely populated Gaza Strip. Hamas's calculation behind this is as simple as it is perfidious: either Israel backs down and critical military infrastructure remains intact, or it invades with full force and occupies the Gaza Strip. Hamas can then feed images of civilian casualties to an all-too-willed media landscape, which helps them win the information war and put Israel under immense international pressure. The cost in the lives of ordinary Palestinians is simply irrelevant to them.
What we in Germany can do is refrain from calling for de-escalation. That can only happen once Hamas has been eradicated and Israel's security is guaranteed.
Hold Iran accountable
The German government would be well advised to demand a high price from the mastermind behind the Hamas campaign, the Iranian regime. It should advocate for triggering the snapback mechanism of the nuclear agreement! Iran has long ignored and transgressed all relevant boundaries; it is time to hold it accountable. At the European level, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps should finally be placed on the terrorist list. Domestically, it is essential to take action against and ban Palestinian terrorist proxy organizations, such as the Samidoun network, which is affiliated with the PFLP. Anyone who celebrates the bestial murder and rape of civilians in Israel by handing out sweets on Berlin's Sonnenallee has no place in our society and should be ostracized and banned.
The justified German outcry against the barbarism of the Palestinians will have to be measured by what concrete fruits it produces in a timely and sustainable manner.
