Germany’s recent decision to halt arms exports to the Israeli occupation state—if they could be used in its war on Gaza—has sparked wide debate in political and human rights circles. While it represents a shift, albeit a limited one, in German policy, it came far too late, after the genocide in Gaza had reached unprecedented levels: more than a quarter of a million casualties between dead and wounded, control over more than 70% of the sector’s land, complete destruction of infrastructure, and the use of starvation as an openly declared weapon of war.
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This slight change cannot be separated from slow shifts in German public opinion, as a Pew Research Center poll showed that more than 60% of Germans oppose the occupation’s practices in Gaza. However, the impact of this popular shift remains limited, as the political elite continues to protect the Israeli occupation politically, economically, and militarily, despite documented evidence of its commission of war crimes and genocide.
Germany has long justified its unconditional support for the occupation state by citing its “historic responsibility” toward Jews because of the Holocaust. Yet this argument cannot legally or morally justify supporting a settler-colonial project that has committed systematic crimes for more than seven decades. It is illogical for the Palestinian people to bear the cost of a crime Germany committed during World War II. Moreover, the insistence on exploiting Holocaust to cover up present-day crimes is a deviation from the principles of international law, which protect people from occupation and racial discrimination and affirm the right to self-determination.
This position reflects a historical guilt complex that dominates German political thinking, driving it to side with the Israeli occupation state “regardless of any crimes it commits.” At its core, it is complicity with colonial policies planted by British colonialism in Palestine a century ago, at the expense of the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region. In doing so, the German position contradicts the values Berlin claims to defend and ignores its international obligations as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and a member of the United Nations.
Germany also overlooks the vast body of evidence contained in the reports of UN special rapporteurs, various UN agencies, and the testimonies of human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This disregard represents not only a moral failure but also threatens what remains of Germany’s credibility internationally, especially in the eyes of the Global South, which sees European—and German—double standards as a continuation of the colonial legacy.
Despite the symbolic weight of halting some arms exports, the decision remains incomplete and belated, and does not change the fact that Germany is still one of the main supporters of Israel’s war machine. What is required is not limited reactions, but a comprehensive redefinition of German foreign policy based on the principles of international law, far from the psychological and historical calculations long used as a pretext for complicity.
Continuing to support the Israeli occupation state means implicit participation in its crimes. Any serious review of German policy must include a complete halt to arms exports, a reconsideration of political and economic relations with it, and support for international efforts to hold the occupation and those responsible for its crimes accountable before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Berlin must also lift its obstruction of the European Union’s decision to freeze the EU-Israel Association Agreement and link its criticisms of crimes in Gaza and the West Bank to punitive measures aimed at isolating the occupation and stripping it of political and diplomatic cover.
If Germany wants to preserve its image as a state that respects human rights and international law, it must free itself from the shackles of the past and put its policies in the service of justice, not in the service of sustaining oppression and colonialism in its modern forms.
