Because the Scholz government in Germany will be pro-Israel
In foreign policy, the Scholz government moves away from Merkel's pragmatism with China and Russia, and supports Israel as never before. The article by Tino Oldani for Italy Today
The new German government, under the leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, SPD, socialists, and the green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, wants to give a new course to German foreign policy. He will certainly remain pro-European, so much so that he affirms in the program of the traffic light coalition that "Europeanism is not negotiable". There will also be continuity on other issues, on which the government program is clear: it reaffirms its adherence to NATO, the European Green Deal, the stability pact and the "strong German-French partnership". But on relations with other global players, such as the US, China and Russia, possible changes in direction with respect to Angela Merkel's policy are in the offing. A topic so far neglected by the mainstream media, bewitched by gender equality in the assignment of ministries in the new German government, to which they have dedicated entire pages. But the geostrategic issue has been overlooked even in the most careful analyzes.
"The new political course, for the moment only imagined, of Chancellor Scholz can be summed up in the departure from the pragmatism that had characterized the figure of Chancellor Merkel," says Federico Niglia, professor of History of International Relations at the University for International Affairs. foreigners from Perugia. "If in the fifteen years of the Kanzlerin the CDU had maintained its leadership, overlapping and appropriating the programs and requests of the other parties, with Scholz there seems to be the intention to respect the identity spaces of the parties, a hypothesis that seems confirmed by the attribution of key ministries to the leaders of the Greens and the FPD, the liberals ». However, maintaining a compromise within the government between the identifying and conflicting views of the leaders of the three parties (Social Democrats, Green and Liberal), and achieving a balance that is different from paralysis, does not seem an easy undertaking.
Scholz and Baerbock are known to have different views on international relations. The German Social Democrats, for example, have always had friendly relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia, as did Merkel. A closeness started by former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, in favor of the construction of the first Nord Stream gas pipeline and since 2017 chairman of the Russian group Rosneft, and continued by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, former foreign minister in Merkel governments, current president of the Federal Republic. Baerbock, on the other hand, has always been opposed to the Russian gas pipeline, and as leader of the Greens it has always opposed the construction of Nord Stream 2 and the use of gas as fossil energy. Not only that: even if in recent months it has lost the political polish it had in the spring, when some predicted it as the next chancellor, and even if the most coveted ministry by the Greens, that for the Economy and the Climate, has been assigned to Robert Habeck, his parigrade as co-president of the Greens, nominated vice-chaplain, Baerbock has nevertheless always obtained a key dicastery like Foreign Affairs.
Some, given her inexperience in the diplomatic world, have judged her inadequate for the post. But others, who admire her determination, recall her studies in the United States (high school in Florida) and in England (London School), and underline that she has always been pro-American and Atlanticist, in favor of sanctions against Russia and the entry of 'Ukraine in NATO, as well as aligned on Joe Biden's tough positions against China and autocratic countries. Positions very different from those of Merkel and Scholz, both of whom so far agree on the support of German neo-mercantilism in China, and unwilling to take orders from Washington. For this reason, observes Niglia, "it remains to be understood whether, on global issues, the new German political course will also translate into a change of course".
On this last point, the French essayist Thierrry Meyssan, on Voltairenet.org, observes: "The traffic light coalition agreement aligns German politics, point by point, with that of the Anglo-Saxons (US and UK)". Not only. Now the Scholz government goes further, especially on a crucial issue for the chancelleries of the world's big names, which is the relationship with Israel. The program agreement states: »Israel's security is a national interest of Germany, which undertakes to block anti-Semitic attempts to condemn Israel, including at the UN. Likewise, he declares that Germany will continue to support the 'two-state' solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (that is, it will oppose the 'one man, one vote' principle), and welcomes the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab countries. " Meyssan's conclusion: «It is the promotion of a minority, not the only protection. The Scholz government destroys the traditional SPD policy, whose Foreign Minister in office from 2013 to 2018, Sigmar Gabriel, defined the Israeli regime as apartheid ”.
On closer inspection, when he defines Israel's security as "a raison d'etat for Germany", the Scholz government's program shows greater continuity with Merkel's policy, which in 2015, unlike Gabriel, defended Tel Aviv with the sword. from the threats of Iran: «Israel's security has always been and still is important for every German Chancellor, and so it will be in the future. Mine is not only a military but a global commitment to Israel's security. We are certainly not neutral ». On the occasion, she indignantly rejected any attempt to compare Tel Aviv's policy towards the Palestinians to the Shoah: «The Holocaust as a clear attempt to eradicate Jews is a unique crime. This type of comparison is totally wrong and incomprehensible ».
Article published on ItaliaOggi
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-il-governo-scholz-in-germania-sara-filo-israele/ on Sun, 12 Dec 2021 06:40:20 +0000.