01
FEB
2024
The cause of the rejection that Germany is facing in large parts of the Arab world was described by the publicist Amro Ali at the beginning of the year. He recalls that a core positive image of Germany was originally widespread in the Arab countries. After all, Germany has no colonial past there; the fact that it rejected the Iraq war was registered with sympathy as well as the reception of Syrian refugees from 2015. 1] But the German reaction to Israel's warfare in the Gaza Strip has brought a turning point. Although it was "quickly clear" that the war "was far beyond self-defense", the Federal Republic had missed "every nuance" with the one-sided support for Israel; it lacked the "basic human empathy". "In the entire Arab world, Germany is currently losing allies who have so far seen themselves as part of a community of values committed to human rights," states Amro Ali. Although it has been "long" clear that the liberal order and international law often measure with double standards". But now "in view of Western support for obvious Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip, the last appearance of universality has been broken". In the Global South, in the future, no one will listen to appeals for international law as soon as they can.
Well-known examples of "ally" in the Arab world, who have now turned away from Germany, can be found in Egypt, among other things. Already on the 25th In October 2023, for example, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) informed the German Embassy in Cairo in writing that it would cease cooperation with it in protest against Berlin's silence on Israel's warfare. Hossam Bahgat, head of the EIPR and a well-known human rights activist, confirmed at the beginning of December that his organization would no longer participate in development projects of the Federal Government in the future. 2] Already in November, Berlin had stopped the financial aid it had previously granted to a support project for female victims of human trafficking in Egypt. The cause: The lawyer Azza Soliman, who works at the Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA), which in turn operates the aforementioned support project, had expressed herself critically on Berlin's attitude towards Israel's warfare in October and, together with over 250 heads of international NGOs, signed a call for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip and supported the BDS campaign (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) against Israel. Soliman judged that one lives "in a critical historical phase in which the masks fall from the faces of all supporters of human rights." 3]
The set-ast-asis movement is not only evident in NGOs in the Arab world, which have so far cooperated with the federal government, but are now discontinuing or at least reconsidering it. The party-affiliated foundations, influential instruments of German foreign policy [4], which work closely with local cooperation partners at their foreign locations, also report rapidly increasing problems. For example, the CDU-affiliated Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Beirut recently faced open protests because of the rigid German attitude to the war in the Gaza Strip. 5] Jörg Dehnert, regional office manager of the FDP-related Friedrich Naumann Foundation, reports on open calls for blockages of the branch offices of his organization. While the CSU-related Hanns Seidel Foundation informs that young participants of its activities in particular now distanced themselves from it, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, who is close to the Green, acknowledges "questions and irritations in our partner spectrum". The left-wing Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, on the other hand, declares that cooperation partners are "stunned" by the German position on Israel's warfare; the first employees have meanwhile terminated their jobs at the foundation: "Our work in the region is severely impaired." 6] An employee of an unnamed German organization speaks of a "path of devastation" in German-Arab relations.
The "scent of devastation" can also be seen in current opinion polls in the Arab world. At the end of 2020, a survey by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies based in Doha (Qatar) showed that of more than 28,000 respondents in 13 Arab countries, 52 percent had a positive opinion about German foreign policy and only 28 percent had a negative one. 7] The Federal Republic was thus ahead of France (46 percent positive, 39 percent negative) and the USA (32 percent positive, 58 percent negative). A survey conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies between the 12th December and the 5th January among 8,000 people in 16 Arab countries, gave a completely different picture - based on the position of third countries regarding the war in the Gaza Strip. According to this, only 3 percent had a positive, but 94 percent a negative opinion about the policy of the USA. This was followed by Great Britain (8 percent positive, 78 percent negative), Germany (9 percent positive, 75 percent negative) and France (10 percent positive, 79 percent negative). 8] Iran, whose foreign policy at the end of 2020 only 25 percent of respondents rated positive, 48 percent negative, was able to significantly improve its reputation. Currently, 48 percent rate Iran's policy towards Israel positively; only 37 percent have a negative view of it.
The deep slump that Germany is experiencing in public opinion in the Arab world does not come out of the blue. In the past two years, the accusations in particular had become stronger, the Federal Republic has a double standard on a large scale. This was already the case shortly after the beginning of the Ukraine war, when Berlin as well as the West as a whole sided with flying flags. In the Arab world, it was regularly pointed out that the Western fight against the occupation of part of Ukraine did not correspond to a similar fight against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. At the end of 2022, the teachings to Qatar, with which the federal government in particular stood out at the Football World Cup, met with broad resentment; Interior Minister Nancy Faeser officially appeared with a "One Love" armband with provocative intent. 9] The Qatari artist Ghada al Khater commented on the German-European criticism of human rights by saying that she "doubts" the "intention of the European countries" - after all, they had "watched idly in the last ten years" as countless "migrants who fled conflicts, devastation and poverty drowned on the bottom of the Mediterranean." 10]
Already at that time, the German ambassador to Qatar, Claudius Fischbach, had addressed the Federal Foreign Office with a fire letter. "Germany has had a considerable trust bonus in Qatar in recent years," the letter said. However, this "trust bonus" has now been "lost" by the arrogant German appearance, which was "widely and consistently criticized as disrespect for a foreign culture." 11] Fischbach reported: "The current mood towards Germany in local economic circles, traditionally German-friendly, is described to me as miserable." Berlin's rigid attitude to Israel's war in the Gaza Strip now reinforces this on a large scale.
[1] Amro Ali: The double standard is unbearable. spiegel.de 01.01.2024. The slightly longer original version: Amro Ali: The Moral Imagination Crisis in Germany's Approach to Palestine. amroali.com 04.01.2024.
[2], [3] Rana Mamdouh: Germany cuts funding to Egyptian women's rights organization for criticizing Israel. mada38appspot.com 07.12.2023.
[4] See "most effective instruments of German foreign policy".
[5], [6] Eric Beres: Difficult times for German foundations in the Middle East. tagesschau.de 27.01.2024.
[7] The 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief. arabcenterdc.org 16.11.2020.
[8] Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies: Arab Public Opinion about the Israeli War on Gaza. dohainstitute.org 10.01.2024.
[9] S. about values in the system competition.
[10] Jannis Grimm, Stephan Roll: Human rights dialogue with Arab states. SWP-Aktuell 2023/A 45. Berlin, 30.06.2023.
[11] S. about this fire letter from Doha.