There has been no stronger defender than Olaf Scholz’s German government of Israel’s contention that the assault on the Palestinians was a necessary evil. But as evidence grew that the Israeli military was less than discriminating in the killing of thousands of civilians, and with a manufactured famine looming and Israel threatening an attack on Rafah, Chancellor Scholz went to Jerusalem last month to ask Benjamin Netanyahu whether the pursuit of Hamas could “justify such terribly high costs”. The Israeli prime minister surprised no one by saying that it could.
What Scholz will do in response, if anything, remains to be seen. But the Germans, like the Americans and the British, have been forced by mounting evidence of the horror being perpetrated on ordinary Palestinians in Gaza, where women and children account for a majority of the 33,000 dead, to at least consider that there might be more to this war than Israel’s claim that it wants only to break Hamas. In Britain, a letter signed by more than 600 prominent lawyers, including former supreme court justices, warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel, has added to the pressure on politicians to confront this reality.
