Image by Alessandro Armignacco.

At the ceremony in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the leaders of European and Arab states gathered behind US President Donald Trump. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) seemed somewhat lost on the sidelines of the peace show. Trump praised him, saying he was “very smart and he is doing a fantastic job for his country.”

Not only Merz, but Europeans as a whole felt visibly uncomfortable in their assigned supporting roles and smiled in pain for the cameras. The peace plan for Gaza was signed by Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the US, not by the Europeans or the EU.

Now the German government wants to play at least first fiddle among the second fiddles in the implementation of Trump’s peace plan, which in reality contains an intensified occupation policy—with no prospect of an end to foreign rule, disenfranchisement, and blockade of the Palestinian state by Israel and the US. In this sense, Merz is said to have told his colleagues Keir Starmer in London and Emmanuel Macron in Paris: “The hard work will only begin tomorrow.” Berlin wants to take the lead in this.

The hard work—or, in Merz’s words, the “dirty work,” as he put it with regard to Israel’s war of annihilation on Gaza —means above all the reconstruction of Gaza. Together with Egypt, the German government is planning a donor summit. Estimates put the cost of reconstruction at around $80 billion. But they could be significantly higher. Whether these sums will ultimately be raised and paid is highly questionable, even if generous promises are made. Budgets in European and Arab countries are very tight—and the EU is also facing enormous reconstruction costs of over a trillion euros in Ukraine.

The past also gives no reason for optimism. In particular, after the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, which killed 2,000 Palestinians and destroyed 17,000 homes, the Gulf states and EU countries promised $3.5 billion for reconstruction and nearly $2 billion for the Palestinian Authority’s budget at a conference in Cairo. But over the next few months, virtually no money arrived. Four years later, many promises had not been fulfilled, so that when Gaza was bombed again in 2021, many buildings destroyed in previous Israeli attacks were still in ruins.

The idea that Israel and the US should pay for the eradication of Gaza in the form of reparations is not up for debate in Western public opinion. As before, the US is assigning Europe and the Arab countries the role of paying the bill for the damage caused by the devastation wrought primarily by US weapons (worth almost $22 billion) and Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories. Germany plays a central role here, contributing money and aid. Berlin has already announced that it will provide 200 million euros in emergency aid for Gaza.

It is the usual German-European double role: first helping with the destruction, then paying for the reconstruction of what has been destroyed. Germany is not only a model student when it comes to cleaning up, but also acts as a loyal ally alongside the US in enabling Israel’s destruction in the occupied territories and then removing the evidence. Germany’s unwavering support for Israel is generally attributed to the Holocaust and its responsibility for the Jewish state due to historical guilt. But Germany’s raison d’état (“Staatsräson”) toward Israel has less to do with morality than with fitting into a geopolitical corset.

Blood for Oil

During the two-year genocide of the population in the Gaza Strip, Berlin increased its arms deliveries to Israel tenfold. It abstained from voting on resolutions for a Gaza ceasefire in the UN General Assembly, which were supported by an overwhelming majority of the international community, and intervened on Israel’s side at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) when South Africa accused the Netanyahu government of committing genocide in the enclave.

Germany also abstained from last year’s historic UN resolution calling on Israel to........

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