German Chancellor vows to continue supplying weapons for Israel's genocide after visit with Israeli FM.
Merz rolled out the red carpet for a state committing a genocide just hours after visiting a memorial for victims of genocide.
Good day, spectators,
And Friedrich Merz seems to have perfected the German politicians’ art of performative guilt. Last Thursday morning, the chancellor and his foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, laid a wreath at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. Complete with solemn expressions, furrowed brows, and the ritual vow to ‘remember the victims’ of Nazi crimes.
That afternoon, those same officials were grinning for the cameras alongside Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, having just pledged another half a billion euros in weapons to arm a military campaign the United Nations says has already killed over 54,000 Palestinians.
The cognitive dissonance, if not flat out conscious hypocrisy, is just so sickening at this point in history and I am uncertain what Germany hopes to achieve with this positioning outside of money. I am not sure it’s worth another massive black mark on the country’s recent history though.
Humanitarian tears, weaponised aid.
The press conference was declared a ‘fruitful,’ one. This is diplomatic code for: we pretended to care about people for a bit, then shook hands on more death. Wadephul expressed ‘grave concern’ about Gaza’s starvation, urging Israel to allow more aid. But instead of supporting independent UN agencies, he endorsed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US- and Israeli-backed mercenary group that has been accused of weaponising aid distribution to reward political compliance.
Essentially, Germany is saying ‘We’ll send bombs to flatten neighbourhoods, then we’ll Israel decide who gets the bandages'.
Not that this contradiction seemed to bother anyone. Germany even had the gall to call Israel’s expansion of West Bank settlements a ‘violation of international law’ before immediately reaffirming its arms deliveries. It’s all very bizarre. In Germany, apparently war crimes are more akin to parking tickets: officially they are disapproved of, but quietly tolerated if you’re a preferred customer.
(So don’t mention Putin, because then he’ll get really upset.)
genocide, engineered in Germany™️
Meanwhile, Sa’ar parroted the standard line that ‘pressure on Israel helps Hamas,’ a talking point Merz regurgitated immediately without even blinking. Since 2023, Germany has approved €485 million in weapons sales to Israel, including armoured vehicle components and radar systems. All of this needs to constantly be said within the context that civilians make up 80% of the dead in Gaza.
Let it be made explicitly clear that in Germany: genocide is bad, unless it’s good for business. Especially if it’s stamped with German engineering.
the Merz’s Doctrine: never again (unless It pays).
This is the Merz Doctrine in action: invoke Holocaust remembrance not as a solemn responsibility, but as a shield against accountability. Frame military support for Israel as absolute moral obligation, pay no heed to international rulings from the ICJ, and blame any resulting blowback on migrants. The domestic spike in antisemitic incidents becomes a cudgel against immigration rather than a moment to reflect on the potential radicalising effect of aiding a fucking massacre.
the street says no, yet the state signs the contract.
Outside the meeting, protesters held banners reading ‘Stop the deliberate starvation of Gaza.’ Inside, Merz and Sa’ar toasted to ‘security cooperation.’ This is what Europe’s moral collapse looks like: the street says no, the state signs the contract.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that at least 58% of Germans want arms shipments to Israel halted and public opinion towards Israel has plummeted because…why wouldn’t it? They have eyes and ears and brains and internet just like the rest of us.
That doesn’t matter though because the arms lobby has friends in power and the German political establishment, exactly like its American and British allies. The state is, of course, more than willing to cry humanitarian tears in public but behind the curtains, it’s laughing at us and quietly supplying the hardware that makes humanitarian aid necessary. Mind boggling Doublespeak.
Ultimately, it boils down to this: the country that loves to say ‘never again’ now seems to be saying something else entirely. Something along the lines of: Never again…will Germany refuse a lucrative weapons deal. Never again…will international law override Zionist lobbying. Never again…will Palestinian lives outweigh the optics of performative remorse.
Never again…will Israel be held accountable by European leaders.
When Merz visits Israel later this year, the question will not be whether he lays another wreath. It will be: does he bring a suitcase full of flowers for the murdered Palestinians or just a shipment of duty-free missiles to kill them?
And on that note, I will let you go,
(And as always, thanks for reading, make sure to subscribe and do please give this post a ❤️ and restack below too.)
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Read more from the spectacle:
Thank you. I am very proud of that, too. Half a billion in arms to keep a peaceful, industrious, democratic nation free and save while it is surrounded by theocracies, cleptocracies and dictatorships, after it was attacked by a cowardly, murderous death cult. Wish we could do more.
Performative guilt on camera, arms deals behind closed doors. Germany’s ‘Never Again’ rings hollow when it’s followed by €485M in weapons shipments to the very state committing genocide. Holocaust memory weaponized for modern silence.