The Hamas incursion into Israel, with a rising death toll and injury toll, could have consequences for all Palestinians. In Germany, a country that has made Israel’s security a state issuethe debate over how to respond to the Jewish State’s aggression with more than just words of condemnation has begun.
The first to ask for concrete actions has been the Minister of Finance, the liberal Christian Lidner. Supported by his militancy and conservative politicians from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Linder defends the suspension of development aid to the Palestinians. Germany It has already transferred 340 million euros in the last two years. The 2024 budget provides for some 350 million euros for the Palestinian Authority, aid now being questioned due to the suspicion that these funds serve to indirectly finance terror against Israel.
Lidner has dragged the debate to the entire Executive by demanding from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, of the Green party, a recommendation on whether Germany should continue paying the Palestinians. “The terror exercised is astonishing. We must react to it not only with words,” she argued.
Baerbock, for the moment, has only spoken of brutal attacks by Hamas and Israel’s right to defend itself “against this perfidious terror” and stated that Hamas’ terror has once again distanced the region from peace: “Due to these terrorist attacks, there is now the incalculable danger of a major regional escalation.” He could only “warn in the strongest terms against others joining in this terror.”
The president of the Defense commission, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), also called for a review of all aid to the Palestinian Gaza strip. “The existence of the Jewish State of Israel is rightly part of the inseparable core of German reasons of state,” she declared to the media group’s newspapers. Funke. “Therefore, this cowardly attack by Hamas against innocent civilians must absolutely be used as an opportunity to thoroughly test the use of all German, EU and UN aid funds intended for Gaza.” Any use for anti-Israel or anti-Semitic purposes “must be completely excluded,” he said.