There was a time when diplomacy was an art. Disagreements were addressed discreetly in classrooms and offices. The cigar and the glass could be missing, but never the forms. Diplomacy is now a megaphone. It is becoming so mundane and scandalous that there are governments that prefer to bow their heads out of shame. call for consultations the ambassadors who make pleasure a saying.
Germany knows well what megaphone diplomacy. He suffered it with the former Ukrainian ambassador, Andrij Melnyk. For two years, until his return to kyiv to occupy the post of deputy foreign minister that he had supposedly earned, Melnyk represented his country’s interests by attacking those of others. He left no puppet with a head. He accused the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, of thinking like Vladimir Putin. And at a concert organized by Steinmeier in memory of the victims of the Ukrainian war, left him hanging because there were no Ukrainian musicians in the orchestra and the program was from enemy composers. Logically, he always seeks the maximum echo on social networks.
The German authorities swallowed, in silence, a toad After another. He let the guest Melnyk impose the rules of the game and its narrative. It was only brought to attention once, as far as we know, but it was not through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in a conversation with the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), that of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Israel has it easier. Germany’s past acts in itself bite and in the Executive there are no fissures. The media are something else, but it is difficult to put doors into the field when megaphone diplomacy becomes inquisitive.
The journalist’s latest podcast Markus Lanz and the philosopher Richard David Precht, both well known in this country, is preceded by a statement from the second. He states that in the podcast previous “a formulation was used that caused offense and aroused criticism, including from the Israeli embassy. And of course we do not want that and we are very sorry.” Above all, “because the statement in question did not remotely have the intention attributed to it.”