The German government’s position on the Gaza war is met with incomprehension in the Arab world – “No country has suffered more damage through its stance on the Gaza war than Germany,” says a former Egyptian diplomat who prefers to remain anonymous. He got to know a Germany that “was seen as a symbol of integrity, bravery and principles, especially in the global south” and that, in his view, now offers Israel “cover for such crimes” in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt, like other Arab countries, is one of the major critics of the war in Gaza. But it is a criticism in which the government determines what can be said, when – and by whom. In Saudi Arabia you are not even allowed to hang a Palestinian flag out of the window, but in Egypt you could at least demonstrate with official permission. There are hardly any surveys in the Middle East from which one can find out what people think about the war in Gaza. And none about how the role of Germany is perceived, which was a place of longing or a role model for many in the Middle East.
In the days before social media became the yardstick for moods and opinions, taxi drivers were something like the seismograph of entire countries and societies. The empirical breadth was manageable; one chauffeur often represented millions and half continents. But they were often not completely wrong, because they distilled the opinions and comments of thousands of passengers. So if you take taxi drivers in Cairo and the wider Middle East as such indicators, then a few years ago they were often greeted with “Heil Hitler”, which they then tried to reject.
For several years now, “Angela Merkel” has been the clear favorite to let so many Muslim refugees from Syria into Germany. At least that was the case before October 7, when Hamas terrorized Israel and the war that followed. Now the taxi drivers are rather silent, some say “Scholz” and shake their heads. There is sometimes a Palestinian flag hanging from the rearview mirror. You feel a distance.
The diplomats at the German embassies in the region are also reporting on this, and they are wondering whether the headquarters knows exactly how lasting the damage is that is being caused in the region by unreservedly supporting the Israeli war in Gaza. In Qatar you will meet representatives of the Qatari government, which mediates between Israel and Hamas. You can still remember what it was like during the 2022 World Cup, when German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for “safety guarantees” for homosexual stadium visitors during her visit. “Where are your human rights today?” they ask in the Gulf and the Middle East. What is not talked about is that many Arab countries also stopped dealing with the Palestinian issue and preferred to move closer to Israel. However, these were government projects that did not necessarily correspond to the will of the population.
Away from the officialdom, German foundations feel the alienation from Germany; they lose local employees. It is noticed in German schools, which were once considered the ideal of a solid education. And you can feel it at the Goethe Institutes. Artists distance themselves from people who were supposed to be offered a stage. “We are losing civil society,” says a German diplomat. In other words, that part of society in many Arab countries that tried to fight for human rights under difficult conditions and that believed in German and European values. And now is disappointed because Germany is supporting Israel’s war with money and weapons.
A well-known Egyptian human rights activist no longer wanted to be nominated for the German-French Human Rights Prize in December. And said at the time: “In our work as a human rights organization, we always criticize the inaction of Western governments in particular when it comes to autocratic regimes. This time it’s about their actions, their support for Israel and the war against Gaza. This is direct complicity.”
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