Hamas’s use of children and other civilians as human shields means that Israeli leaders face unique dilemmas amid unmatched international scrutiny of their actions, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview on Friday.
Merkel made these remarks in a podcast called Kaffee und Fluchen, in which two interviewers asked her to address topics that they said occupy young adults in Germany today.
“If you try to put yourself in the position of an Israeli prime minister, you face an extraordinarily difficult task—one I never had to confront,” she said. “If there is a bunker beneath every kindergarten and every hospital, and Hamas is sitting inside it, knowing that I can destroy its position only by also attacking what is above it, then the task facing an Israeli prime minister becomes considerably more complicated,” she added.
Merkel, who served as chancellor from 2005 to 2021, also said, “An Israeli prime minister must do everything possible to promise his citizens security, just as our citizens here in Germany expect their political leaders to do. He must be able to promise them the greatest possible degree of security. Otherwise, he will not be elected.”
She said German politicians should not hesitate to condemn “disproportionate” actions by Israel.
“One can and must call out the disproportionality in certain instances of what the civilian population has been forced to endure, particularly when it comes to food supplies and other matters,” she said.
She criticized, however, what she described as the lack of criticism of Hamas among Palestinians from Gaza.
“What surprises me, however, is that we have heard very, very few people from the Gaza Strip openly criticizing Hamas. If that were acknowledged openly, by all sides, if we could agree on that, then perhaps the discussion would already become somewhat more nuanced,” Merkel said.
Israel is the subject of disproportionate condemnations, she said.
“If you look at how much people talk about Yemen, where millions of children are starving, how much they talk about Sudan, and how much they talk about Israel, then there is also, in a certain sense, something disproportionate about having virtually no discussion at all about those other places,” said Merkel.
Reason of state
She defended her 2008 assertion, which she made at the Knesset in Jerusalem, that Israel’s right to exist was part of Germany’s Staatsräson, or reason of state, meaning a critical and fundamental element of policy. Merkel’s successor, Friedrich Merz, who also belongs to her Christian Democratic Union party, used the term in June last year but later distanced himself from it, citing unclear “implications.”
The Staatsräson term, Merkel said, “is sometimes misinterpreted as meaning, for example, that one must not criticize the Netanyahu government. I did that many times as chancellor, and there are certainly reasons to do so now regarding the conduct of the war in Gaza.”
Criticism of Israel must not veer into undermining Israel’s right to exist, Merkel added.
“I must always keep in mind: Can I help ensure that the State of Israel continues to exist, and that it can, preferably, live in peace?” she said.
The Oct. 7, 2023, massacres, Merkel noted, were not “an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip. It was an attack by Hamas on Israel.”
She recalled that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leading to Hamas’s takeover there.
Asked whether the far-left Die Linke party, where anti-Israel sentiment is rife and which has had multiple scandals involving antisemitism, should be included in a governing coalition, Merkel said her party excluded it.
Earlier this year, Die Linke for the first time emerged as the largest party in a regional election, garnering the largest number of votes in the Berlin State Assembly. But the party’s scandals involving Israel and Jews have complicated coalition talks with more mainstream parties.
“I wouldn’t do it,” Merkel said of partnering with Die Linke, adding that its Berlin branch had a particular problem regarding its position on Israel’s right to exist. “Berlin’s Die Linke party has a particular problem in this regard. And, like everyone else, I am naturally following how they intend to resolve it. Fortunately, there is also a major public debate about this,” Merkel said.
Sawa News, a Gaza-based outlet, quoted a Hamas spokesman it identified as Hazem Qassem as saying that Merkel’s comments amounted to “Actual complicity in the crimes of genocide.” He accused Merkel of excusing “Israeli terrorism” and disregarding Palestinians’ humanitarian and national rights.
