Germany indirectly supports Iran's terrorism against Israel through billion-dollar transactions. The reason of state remains hollow rhetoric.
Iran has already been able to isolate Israel regionally Illustration: Katja Gendikova
German policy in Iran and the Middle East is partly responsible for the attacks on Israel on October 7: the murderous actions of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP (“Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine”) were only possible thanks to years of support from Tehran. , and the prerequisite for this support included, among other things, the multi-billion dollar transactions between German companies and the Iranian regime, which have been supported by all German parties and governments over the past decades.
It is Iran's payments, arms supply and training that allowed a Palestinian terrorist group to commit the worst mass murder of Jews since the Shoah: an extermination operation by jihadist groups and a pogrom involving parts of the Palestinian civilian population, a coordinated military attack and an anti-Semitic and misogynistic Bloodlust that words fail to describe.
It has long been known that Iran has made jihadist murder gangs more effective in the Gaza Strip. The mastermind of the October 7 orgy of violence, Yahya Sinwar, publicly thanked Tehran for support in 2019: “Without Iran's support for the resistance in Palestine, we would not have achieved these capabilities. “Iran has supported us with weapons, equipment and experience.” Islamic Jihad is estimated to have received around $700 million from Iran in the last decade and Hamas has received more than $1.5 billion. For years, significantly larger amounts have gone to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has attacked northern Israel with more than 2,000 rockets since October 8.
Tehran's leaders were probably not informed about the exact time of the October 7 attack. Before the massacre, the Hamas leadership had continually coordinated its actions with the ayatollahs and the Pasdaran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A few months before October 7, Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh held a high-level meeting with Supreme Spiritual Leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, and the chairman of the Iranian National Security Council in Tehran. Also present was Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of the Hamas politburo who was assassinated in Beirut after October 7 and was held responsible by Israel for the expansion of Hamas' military infrastructure in Lebanon, supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. .
The extermination campaign was praised as an exemplary act
The Iranian regime finances its policy largely through foreign trade with European countries. In 2023, the trade volume of EU States with Iran will once again exceed €4 billion, and the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was pleased to announce a few weeks ago that Germany remains “the most important of Iran in Europe.” . In addition, the Ayatollah regime received billions in payments from frozen funds through the 2015 nuclear deal, which was strongly supported by German and European politicians, but due to its serious deficiencies it was unable to eliminate the dangers of the program. of Iran's nuclear weapons.
At no time did Germany consider expelling at least the ambassador of such a regime from the country and imposing new comprehensive sanctions.
This means that German policy on Iran and trade with Iran indirectly finance terrorism against Israel. The federal government's refusal to include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on the terrorist list, to which they have belonged for decades, continues to give the regime a free hand, even after October 7.
The Iranian regime remains present in Germany with centers, mosques and cultural associations. The extermination operation of October 7 was praised in all the regime's media as an exemplary act, but at no time did Germany consider expelling at least the regime's ambassador from the country and imposing new and extensive sanctions that would affect economic livelihoods. of Iran and ultimately aim to overthrow the regime.
Until there is a 180-degree turn in German policy towards the Holocaust-denying regime in Iran, all talk of Israel's security as part of Germany's raison d'état is rhetoric as hollow as the invocations made of “Never again.” and “Wehret the beginnings.”
October 7 shattered an illusion that parts of the Israeli security system had harbored for the past 15 years, with fatal consequences. In the long term, Israel cannot accept highly armed anti-Semitic terrorist armies right on its borders.
They will not be permanently deterred and no matter how you behave towards them, they will not deviate even an inch from their stated goal of destroying the Jewish State. Consequently, Netanyahu's government was criticized years ago by Israeli analysts of all stripes for allowing Hamas to have its way in Gaza and failing to take preventive measures against Hezbollah's increasingly threatening weaponry in Lebanon.
Hand over Israel to its enemies?
There is now almost a consensus in Israeli politics that Hamas, which announced shortly after October 7 that it would repeat such actions at any time, must be completely destroyed militarily and must play no role in any future scenario for the Gaza Strip. This is what the current military action of the Israeli army aims at, and any cheap call for an unconditional end to hostilities must be accused of wanting to hand Israel over to its enemies.
The call for peace, which ignores the conditions of Israel's existence, will be even stronger in the future.
Against anti-Israel pseudo-pacifism, to which any constant reaction by the Israeli army is considered “disproportionate”, it is worth remembering a phrase by the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Paul Spiegel. During the Second Intifada, in which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed, Spiegel said of criticism of Israel's counterterrorism measures: “The murderers hide behind the call for peace.”
This call for peace, which ignores Israel's conditions of existence, will be even stronger in the future, especially if the war against Hamas is followed by another against Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. No one can predict future events, but currently almost no one in Israel does not assume that the war against Hamas represents the beginning of a larger conflict with the Iranian regime and Hezbollah.
The Iranian regime will not renounce on its own the positions of power it has gained in Arab countries in recent years, with which it wants to create a “ring of fire” around Israel. It can only be pushed back militarily. And Iran's anti-Semitic regime can probably only be overthrown if the power of the Revolutionary Guard in the country and the region is broken.
Hezbollah will not discard any of its 150,000 rockets aimed at Israel. The “international community” will not lift a finger to implement the disarmament of Hezbollah as required by UN resolutions. It probably will not even guarantee that the 2006 UN resolution, which provides for at least a withdrawal of Hezbollah north of the Litani River, that is, Israel, from whose northern areas almost a hundred thousand people have had to be evacuated since October. 7th, currently requires daily.
Regional power with a precarious security situation
The coming months and years are likely to be characterized by violent military conflicts between Israel and its enemies, the current escalation of which also sought to sabotage the Arab-Israeli rapprochement and advanced Saudi-Israeli talks. There are already signs that Israel feels compelled by the experience of October 7 to return to a behavior that Max Horkheimer had already highlighted during the Sinai War in the 1950s: Israel must behave aggressively and preventively at times, because it is not a world power, but merely a regional power with a permanently precarious security situation.
Furthermore, classical deterrence policy works much worse against fascist Islamist opponents than against more or less secular Arab nationalists, meaning that at a certain point Israel has no choice but to rely on the elimination of the military power of its anti-Semitic opponents. .
Anyone who wants peace in the future or even just a relief of the situation and an improvement in living conditions in the Middle East must support the fight against the enemies of peace, and these are Hamas, Hezbollah, the pro-Iran militias in Iraq , Syria and Yemen, as well as the Iranian regime with its Revolutionary Guards and its nuclear weapons program. A 180-degree turn in German and European policy on Iran and the Middle East would also have to mean supporting Israel in every way in the fight against Hezbollah and the puppet masters of Tehran, even militarily if necessary.
Anyone who sees it differently does not take solidarity with the attacked Israel or the defense of individual freedom seriously, much less anti-fascism.