Visiting the Jewish state for the first time since taking office, the German Chancellor assured Israel on Saturday of Germany's "unchanging" support. Friedrich Merz is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, increasingly internationally isolated, on Sunday to discuss efforts to move to a second phase of the ceasefire in Gaza.

Published on: 07/12/2025 - 07:55

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz assured Israel of Germany's "unchanging" support on Saturday, December 6, during a first visit to Jerusalem since taking office, intended to deepen the privileged relationship between Berlin and the Jewish state after some friction.

“Standing alongside this country is part of the essential, unchanging core of the policy of the Federal Republic of Germany and will remain so,” declared Friedrich Merz, whose decision taken in August to decree a partial embargo on arms exports from his country to Israel in the face of the intensification of bombings on Gaza had greatly displeased the Israeli authorities.

"The actions of the Israeli army in Gaza posed some dilemmas for us [and] we reacted to them", but "we also noted that to date, there is basically no divergence [between us]", added Friedrich Merz, who lifted this embargo at the end of November thanks to the fragile ceasefire in force in Gaza for almost two months.

“Israel has the right to defend itself, because that is the only way to guarantee Israel’s right to exist,” he said.

Friedrich Merz is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, increasingly internationally isolated, on Sunday to discuss efforts to move to a second phase of the ceasefire in Gaza, as part of US President Donald Trump's plan to put an end to the war that began on October 7, 2023.

“Constructive role”

Friedrich Merz's visit is intended to consolidate the special relationship between Germany and Israel, despite his recent distancing in reaction to the scale of the war waged by Israel in Gaza in retaliation for October 7, or to the violence of extremist Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Before his departure, Friedrich Merz called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the phone to urge him to implement "urgently necessary reforms" to be able to "play a constructive role" in the Gaza Strip after the war.

During the interview, he also denounced "the massive increase in violence by [Israeli] settlers against Palestinian civilians" in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, according to German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius.

From the same source, he also praised the Palestinian Authority's "cooperative attitude" towards Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza and reiterated Berlin's support for a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living in security on mutual borders, remarks he repeated to President Isaac Herzog, while Benjamin Netanyahu's government does not want an independent Palestinian state.

During a brief stopover Saturday in Aqaba, southern Jordan, where he met King Abdullah II, Friedrich Merz called for more humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza and for Hamas fighters to lay down their arms.

According to a statement from the royal palace, King Abdullah stressed "the need to commit to implementing all stages of the agreement to end the war and provide humanitarian aid to all areas of the Gaza Strip" and warned against the continuation of "the escalation [of Israeli violence] in the West Bank."

“Great expectations”

Due to its historical responsibility for the Holocaust, Germany is one of Israel's greatest supporters. On Sunday, Friedrich Merz must also go to the Yad Vashem memorial to honor the memory of the Jewish victims of the Nazis.

But in recent months, Berlin's tone towards Israel has hardened as the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has deteriorated dramatically.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains very fragile, with both camps accusing each other almost daily of violating it, which bodes poorly for the realization of the American president's plan to end the war.

Immediately after his victory in the legislative elections at the end of February, Friedrich Merz assured that Benjamin Netanyahu could travel to Germany despite the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

But this is “not a subject at the moment”, the chancellery recently stressed.

From now on, Benjamin Netanyahu has "high expectations" and hopes for a "continued signal of support" from Berlin, Michael Rimmel, the Jerusalem director of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, closely affiliated with Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU), told AFP.

With AFP

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