When we talked yesterday with
, the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, about why he’s calling what’s happening in Gaza a genocide, and what kind of international pressure might be able to stop Israel’s military campaign, we talked at length about how Germany’s sense of historical guilt over the Holocaust and its attempts to come to terms with the legacy of Nazism had left it unable to deal with its changing domestic politics and an increasingly authoritarian Israel. As Bartov told us yesterday:Germany…has created an incredible culture of memory over the Holocaust, a highly laudable effort over two generations of coming to terms with the past. At some point, that came with a price. And the price was both as regards Israel, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Israel was Germany's Staatsräson, the raison d'état of Germany was protection of Israel. And of course, protection of Israel — but does it mean that you then defend Israeli crimes, Israeli breaches of international law and keep supplying them with arms as Germany is still doing?
But in the less than 24 hours since we spoke, that has changed. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced today that his country — the second-largest supplier of military equipment to Israel, after the United States — would stop supplying Israel with arms. Merz said that Germany would “not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.” It’s a major shift in policy for a key ally, and it comes as a response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of plans to occupy Gaza fully, signalling just how deeply unpopular that move is, in Israel and among its main international supporters.
The details of the German plan are not yet clear, and whether this can turn the tide remains to be seen. But it’s a more serious blow to Israeli military operations, even symbolically, than similar moves by nations like Slovenia or even the recognition of a Palestinian state by Canada, France, and the U.K.
And it is another sign that the day when everyone will always have been against this may be approaching — and with it, at least the promise of change in Gaza.
For more, you’ll want to listen to our full conversation with Omer Bartov. Just click on the video player above. And visit the link below for more of our coverage of Gaza.
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