The Federal Republic will continue to the Jewish state, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Wednesday, in an apparent reversal of recent comments on the issue.
“Germany will continue to support the State of Israel, including with arms deliveries,” the top diplomat told lawmakers in parliament on Wednesday, the German news agency DPA reported.
Wadephul, a member of the ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union, warned last week that Germany may be forced to take “further steps” if Jerusalem continues to pursue its goal of destroying Hamas in Gaza.
“Our full support for the right to exist and the security of the State of Israel must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip,” Wadephul told reporters.
“We are now at a point where we have to think very carefully about what further steps to take,” Berlin’s top diplomat declared in his May 27 remarks.
Three days later, Wadephul said Germany would be “examining whether what is happening in the Gaza Strip is compatible with international humanitarian law.” He added, “Further arms deliveries will be authorized based on the outcome of that review.”
Asked by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper whether this could lead to a partial suspension of exports, he replied: “That’s what the wording implies.”
Wadephul was scheduled to receive Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Berlin on Thursday, with the two counterparts set to visit the Holocaust memorial in the German capital.
On Wednesday, Sa’ar met with Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Bundestag Vice President Omid Nouripour, Sa’ar’s office stated.
In a post on social media, Sa’ar thanked Nouripour, a member of the Greens, for “his clear moral call against an arms embargo of Israel.”
On Sept. 19, Germany denied reports it had frozen all new exports of offensive weapons to the Jewish state in response to legal challenges regarding its support for the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“There is no ban on arms exports to Israel, and there will be no ban,” a spokesman for Germany’s Economic Ministry told DPA.
On Oct. 24, the German Foreign Ministry revealed that Berlin had approved $102 million in arms sales to Jerusalem since August.
