Merz: Germany will not recognize a Palestinian state at UN
"We will not join this initiative. We don't see the requirements met," the German leader said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
Berlin does not believe the requirements for recognizing a Palestinian state have been met and will not join the initiative to do so at the United Nations in September, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday.
“The position of the federal government is clear, as far as the possible recognition of the state of Palestine is concerned,” Merz reiterated at a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“Canada knows this. We will not join this initiative. We don’t see the requirements met,” the German leader continued, according to Reuters.
On Friday, a government spokesperson declared that Germany had no immediate plans to recognize a Palestinian state, calling such a move at this stage “counterproductive.”
“A negotiated two-state solution remains our goal, even if it seems a long way off today,” the spokesperson told a press briefing. “Recognition of Palestine is more likely to come at the end of such a process. Right now, it would undermine efforts toward peace.”
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Berlin’s statement stands in sharp contrast to the positions of capitals such as Paris, London, Canberra and Ottawa, where governments have signaled willingness to recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly annual general debate in September.
On July 31, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir accused Germany of “supporting Nazism” by considering the recognition of a Palestinian state in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
“80 years since the Holocaust and Germany is once again supporting Nazism,” Ben-Gvir tweeted ahead of Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s arrival in Israel.
Before his trip, Wadephul reiterated Germany’s position that talks toward establishing a Palestinian state should begin immediately.
“A negotiated two-state solution remains the only path that can offer people on both sides a life in peace, security and dignity,” he said. “For Germany, the recognition of a Palestinian state comes more at the end of that process. But such a process must begin now.”
US envoy accuses France of failing to act on antisemitism
In an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron published in the Wall Street Journal, Charles Kushner expressed his “deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it.” The letter goes on to state that “not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalized.”
The letter is dated Aug. 25, despite being published a day earlier, a date Kushner notes is “the 81st anniversary of the Allied Liberation of Paris, which ended the deportation of Jews from French soil” under Nazi German occupation.
Antisemitism has “long scarred French life,” Kushner wrote, but has “exploded” since the Oct. 7 massacre and amid the subsequent war in Gaza.
He accused Macron of contributing to the escalating antisemitism through his harsh criticism of Israeli actions during nearly two years of fighting and by announcing intentions to recognize a Palestinian state next month at the United Nations meeting. Kushner wrote that such moves “embolden extremists, fuel violence, and endanger Jewish life in France.”
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