The German who refused to surrender in Dublin
Europe Israel relations have reached their lowest point in decades, and this week one man decided to stand against the current.
On Tuesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (@_FriedrichMerz) traveled to Dublin, one of the most hostile capitals in Europe for Israel, and said what few European leaders dare to say.
Standing next to Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, Merz ruled out broad sanctions against Israel.
He accepted the existing European trade rules on products from the settlements, but he rejected any comprehensive punishment of the Jewish state.
His reason was simple and powerful: Germany carries a historical responsibility toward Israel.
The timing matters.
The foreign ministers of the European Union met this month and failed to agree on new restrictions against Israel. Diplomats expect no consensus before October.
The pressure on Berlin is enormous, and Berlin is not moving.
The map of friends and enemies in Europe
To understand Europe Israel relations today, the reader needs the full map of this foreign policy battlefield.
The hostile group is led by Ireland.
The Irish government recognized a Palestinian state in May 2024, joined the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and on July 7 became the first country in the European Union to criminalize imports from Israeli settlements.
Spain and Slovenia also recognized a Palestinian state.
Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia formally requested the suspension of the trade agreement between the European Union and Israel.
Sweden asked Brussels to sanction Israeli ministers. The Netherlands restricted all military exports to Israel in April 2025.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said: “I am not revealing a secret by saying we must change words into sanctions.”
On the other side, the group of defenders is small. Germany leads it. The Czech Republic and Austria stand nearby.
Hungary was the most loyal friend of Israel in Europe.
Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán even started the process to withdraw Hungary from the International Criminal Court when that court ordered the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But Orbán lost the election in April, and Israel lost its fiercest European defender.
Italy is the hesitant friend.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has blocked the strongest European measures, but her government already froze new defense exports to Israel under pressure from the streets.
Italy hosts important American military bases and depends on Washington for its security, yet the internal pressure keeps growing.
Nobody knows how long Rome will resist.
The Brussels machine is stuck
Here is the educational part, because European foreign policy has rules that most people never learn.
Sanctions against individual Israeli officials require the unanimous approval of all 27 member states. One single negative vote stops everything.
The suspension of the trade agreement requires a qualified majority of 15 countries.
This explains the entire situation. Ireland can pass national laws inside its own borders, and it did. But the European Union as a group remains paralyzed, because Germany says no.
One shield still holds, and that shield is Germany.
Staatsräson, the word that protects Israel
Germany’s position has a name, and it is one of the most interesting words in modern foreign policy: “Staatsräson”, a German word that means “reason of state”.
The doctrine says that the security of Israel is part of the reason of state of Germany itself.
In 2008, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared before the Israeli parliament that Israel’s security is non-negotiable for Germany.
The doctrine was born from the guilt of the Holocaust, and it has guided German foreign policy ever since. Merz inherited it, and this week he honored it.
Now comes the heroic detail.
A poll published in April 2026 found that only 17 percent of Germans view Israel as a reliable partner.
Merz is not following his voters. Merz is leading them.
A politician who defends his principles against public opinion is a rare species in any continent.
The strange marriage behind the hostility
Look at the map again and a pattern appears. The governments punishing Israel are socialist. The governments protecting Israel are conservative.
This is not a coincidence.
Across the West, an informal alliance has formed between the socialist Left and Muslim political movements.
In France, the party of socialist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization after the massacre of October 7.
In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn was formally investigated for antisemitism, and several candidates won seats in Parliament campaigning almost exclusively about Gaza in districts with large Muslim populations.
In the United States, the pattern is identical.
Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani march together politically, socialists and Islamists side by side.
What unites two groups that disagree about women, family, and faith?
Two things. A shared resentment against Western values. And electoral arithmetic: the world has almost 2,000 million Muslims and only 16 million Jews.
Mass migration changed the demographics of Europe, and the Left decided to capitalize on the new voters.
For the socialist strategist, choosing a side is simple mathematics.
Principles never enter the calculation.
Punishing the victim for surviving
Here is the painful irony. The wave of hostility against Israel began after October 7, 2023.
Israel did not start this war. Israel was invaded, its families were massacred, and its citizens were kidnapped.
Israel simply fought back, and repaid its enemies with generous interest.
Europe watched all of this and decided to punish the victim. The only democracy of the Middle East receives sanctions proposals, while the ideologies that openly despise European civilization walk through the front door of the continent.
That is not a foreign policy. That is a confession of weakness.
America chooses blessing
Our opinion is simple, and it starts in Scripture.
The LORD told Abraham in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.”
Nations position themselves before that promise whether they believe it or not.
America First foreign policy understands this.
President Trump reversed the sanctions against Israeli settlers in January 2025 and has kept America firmly beside Israel while Brussels debates new punishments.
And Germany, the nation that once committed the worst crime in history against the Jewish people, today protects Israel out of repentance.
There is something deeply biblical in that transformation.
A nation can change.
A nation can choose blessing.
We pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and we pray that Europe remembers which side of history it wants to stand on.
With Germany refusing to punish Israel and America standing firm with its ally, Europe Israel relations still have one path back toward friendship. 🙏 🇮🇱 🇺🇸
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