Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar was greeted by protest chants of “blood on your hands” during a tense Berlin visit on Thursday. Amid a shifting political and public mood in Germany on Gaza, Mr Sa’ar held talks and laid a wreath at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial alongside his German counterpart Johann Wadephul.
In recent days the new German foreign minister has sent mixed signals, saying at the weekend that further German arms exports to Israel would be conditional on a review of their compliance with international law, indicating this could reduce deliveries.
“We have changed our tone and will likely change our political actions next,” said Mr Wadephul, echoing a more critical tone from chancellor Friedrich Merz.
On Wednesday, Mr Wadephul appeared to shift again, promising further arms deliveries and telling the Bundestag that “Germany must know where it stands: at Israel’s side”.
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The value of German arms exports to Israel spiked in 2023 to €326.5 million, then dropped by half last year amid rising pressure and public disquiet.
At their joint press conference on Thursday, Mr Wadephul flagged ongoing attacks on Israel from its neighbours and said Germany would continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself.
But he criticised Israel’s new Gaza aid distribution programme, saying it forced people to walk long distances often to “come back empty-handed or, in the worst case, they don’t come back at all because they’ve been killed”.
Israel’s permission for 22 new West Bank settlements, according to Mr Wadephul, was “contrary to international law ... and a literal block to a two-state solution”.
Mr Sa’ar thanked Germany for standing at Israel’s side on the international stage and asked for more time for a new aid distribution push by the US-backed Israeli foundation to establish itself.
“This effort has the potential to free the Palestinian population from Hamas’ stranglehold and end this war,” he said.
Mr Sa’ar denounced growing international calls to halt arms deliveries to his country, saying that would leave “Israel, the most attacked and threatened country in the world, deprived of its right to self-defence”.
Outside Berlin’s foreign ministry, protesters accused the Israeli visitor of “co-responsibility for crimes against humanity and genocide”.
They demanded an end to German arms exports to Israel, “not as a pipe dream but as a legal obligation”.
“This visit legitimises aggression and gives political cover for a people’s extinction,” said one German speaker. An Israeli speaker said Mr Sa’ar was in Berlin “to buy more time for Israel because he knows the tide is turning”.
The German public mood towards Israel and its war in Gaza has cooled in recent weeks, according to a public television poll, with almost two thirds (63 per cent) saying that Israel’s military response in Gaza has gone too far.
Almost three quarters (73 per cent) did not consider the military action against Hamas justified if the Palestinian civilian population suffers.
Meanwhile, 77 per cent of respondents approved of the more critical tone from Berlin towards Israel, which just 16 per cent viewed as a trusted partner of Germany.
During his visit, Mr Sa’ar expressed concern about a study logging more than 8,627 anti-Semitic incidents in Germany last year, the equivalent of one an hour. The numbers mark a 76 per cent rise on 2023, the report said, and a 341 per cent increase since 2020.
Among the documented cases was a swastika drawn on the wall outside the apartment of a Jewish couple in Hamburg; a Jewish schoolchild held down by two men and called a “dirty Jew”; and a sign at a Düsseldorf protest reading: “Yesterday Holocaust Victims. Today Perpetrators in Gaza.”
The fallout from the October 7th, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel has supercharged anti-Semitism in Germany, the report found, with 68 per cent of cases categorised as “Israel-related anti-Semitism”.
Two per cent of the cases related to extreme violence or attacks, while 87 per cent were categorised as “injurious behaviour”.
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“The risk of being persecuted as a Jew in Germany has increased since October 7th, 2023,” said Benjamin Steinitz, co-author of the report from the Federal Research and Information Point for Antisemitism (RIAS). “But debates about what counts as an expression of anti-Semitism seem to take up more space than empathy for the victims.”
He was responding to a critical report arguing that the RIAS methodology equated criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
“RIAS statistics and publications indicate a bias in favour of the Israeli right, reinforced by opaque methods,” wrote Itay Mashiach, an Israeli journalist, in the report by the international Diaspora Alliance titled Biased.
He said RIAS’s “flawed approach and resulting alarmist reporting have significant repercussions, including the stigmatisation of migrant communities, the restriction of political expression and the suppression of human rights activists”.
Back at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, a school group waited to visit after the foreign ministers departed.
Benjamin, an 18-year-old student from Hanover, said he followed the Middle East closely – in particular the aid blockade and resulting outcry.
“I understand that Israel doesn’t want aid to go in that feeds Hamas fighters first and civilians second,” he said. “But I don’t agree with what looks like an effort to smoke out the Palestinians from Gaza.”
