Germany's Middle East policy has reached a dead end

In defiance of his closest international allies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has bluntly rejected the possibility of a two-state solution which calls for an independent, democratic Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel.

"I will not compromise over full Israeli security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River — and this runs contrary to a Palestinian state," Netanyahu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. He told US President Joe Biden the same in a telephone call.

For the US, Germany and the European Union, the two-state solution is the cornerstone of efforts to bring peace to the region. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has even called the two-state solution "the only solution."

"Israel will never be able to live in security if terrorism is not overcome. And by the same token, Israel can only enjoy security if the Palestinians also have prospects for the future," Baerbock said in a statement in December. 

Germany can only keep repeatedly raising this, Hans-Jakob Schindler, analyst for the Middle East at the nonprofit organization Counter Extremism Project, told DW. Israeli resettlement plans for the Gaza Strip, which two Israeli cabinet ministers publicly support, would be "the surest way to securely anchor Islamist extremism in the future in Gaza, and probably among Palestinians in general," Schindler believes.   

While the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas supports a two-state solution, Hamas rejects it, just as the militant Palestinian group refuses to recognize Israel. Germany, the EU, the United States and some Arab states classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Former Hamas leader Khaled Masha said that the terror attack of October 7, which Israeli officials say saw 1,200 people killed and 240 more taken hostage, was just a first taste. That day "turned the idea of liberating Palestine 'from the river to the sea' into a realistic idea that has already begun," he told a Kuwaiti podcaster. Mashal was referring to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, using a phrase now outlawed in Germany  .

How realistic is a two-state solution?

These two positions spell trouble for Germany's Middle East policy, which relies heavily on the willingness to compromise. Germany supports Israel in its war against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip. Baerbock has also called on Israel to protect civilians. More than 26,000 people have been killed in Israel's offensive so far, according to Gaza's Hamas-led Health Ministry.

In an interview with German public radio SWR, historian Michael Wolffsohn has said upholding the idea of a two-state solution completely disregards reality.

"How are we going to realize a two-state solution?" he asked, concluding that the idea is "essentially rubbish, nothing implementable."

Wolffsohn suggested a possible federation of Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan as an alternative. No state has recently expressed support for this idea. 

Egyptian diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, accuses the West of hypocrisy.

"The same politicians who now advocate a two-state solution stood by in silence as Israel seized (through annexation and settlement construction) the majority of the territory intended for a Palestinian state. The period following the current violence possibly offers a final chance of a just and durable peace before the entire region goes up in flames," ElBaradei wrote in the German edition of the journal International Politics and Society in late January.    

Accusations against UNRWA

The recent allegations against UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, have left matters even more complicated for Germany's Middle East diplomacy.

Germany has long and generously supported this organization's efforts to improve conditions for the long-suffering civilian population of Gaza. Yet following accusations that some of its staffers took part in the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, Germany and many other Western states suspended their funding.

Critics say that for years, Germany's government failed to monitor how the money it provided to the UN organization was being spent.

Schindler calls the UNRWA "a difficult organization" but also "basically the sole humanitarian infrastructure that exists in the Gaza Strip." Its challenge, he says, is that it "has to deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip on a daily basis, and then it's, of course, clear that also things like this can occur."

Yet no other organization has the personnel, the funding or the experience of UNRWA. "There is no alternative," he adds. Not even Israel has said what group could replace the UNRWA's humanitarian work in Gaza, Schindler points out. 

Germany's support of Israel is facing more and more challenges. South Africa accused Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague of committing genocidal acts against the Palestinians in Gaza. A final ruling is not expected for years.

Still, the UN's top court has already issued preliminary measures ordering Israel to do all in its power to prevent genocidal acts in its Gaza offensive. Germany has intervened in the case as a third party on Israel's behalf.

"Because of our past, because of the Holocaust, we see ourselves especially obligated to examine this issue very closely, and we are not convinced that the arguments that have been presented justify this accusation (of genocide)," said German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit.

Neglected Middle East policy

As positions in the Middle East harden, the air is thinning for Western diplomatic efforts in the region. The West, including the United  States, has lost practically all leverage on Israel to achieve a two-state solution, according to historian Michael Wolffsohn.

"The Middle East is an absolutely essential geopolitical and geoeconomic building block for the United States of America and for other states, and Israel is the US' sole reliable partner in the Middle East, like it or not," Wolffensohn told SWR. The EU likewise has "only limited possibilities. It needs Israel, first of all, in the fight against terrorism, and second for military technology," he says.

German diplomacy, in particular, stopped playing a significant role long ago, says Schindler. That has less to do with supporting Israel than Germany "having held back too much for too long" as a mediator.

Schindler recalled Germany's role in the Middle East Quartet consisting of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN, which sought for years to mediate in the region.

"This quartet died a slow, silent death," he says. "The Palestinian issue was simply parked. All sides parked it in the last few years."

This article was originally written in German.

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