Merz tells Netanyahu he hopes for ‘speedy' Gaza ceasefire
Merz also 'stressed that the urgently needed humanitarian aid must now reach the people in the Gaza Strip in a safe and humane manner' and that the 'disarmament of Hamas was imperative', his office said in a statement.
'The chancellor expressed his hope for a speedy ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. All remaining Hamas hostages, including those with German citizenship, must be released immediately.'
The statement added that Merz 'advocated for finding a viable post-war order for Gaza that takes into account Israeli security needs and the Palestinian right to self-determination.'
The chancellor also 'emphasized that there should be no steps towards annexing the West Bank.'
Speaking earlier at a Berlin press conference, Merz labelled the events in Gaza as 'no longer acceptable.'
He also emphasized Germany's commitment to Israel's security, saying: 'We are doing everything we can to do justice to both sides, it is clear where we stand.
'But we also see the suffering of the Palestinian population and are trying to do everything possible to provide humanitarian aid here as well.'
More than 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for Gaza's population, displacing most residents at least once and triggering severe shortages of food and other essentials.
The war was triggered by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 58,667 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
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Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Camp David meeting 25 years on: Could the Middle East plan have worked?
LONDON: Emerging from lush woodland, amid birdsong and with wide smiles, it was a scene that could not have been further from the slaughter currently unfolding in Gaza. Yet through the quarter of a century that has passed since the Palestinian and Israeli leaders joined President Bill Clinton for talks at Camp David, a direct line can be drawn to the daily massacres Palestinians are now facing. What began with cautious optimism to make major headway toward a final status peace agreement ended in failure on July 25, 2000. Clinton solemnly 'concluded with regret' that after 14 days of talks, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had not been able to 'reach an agreement at this time.' Israel and the US media perpetuated a myth that Arafat had turned down a generous offer of a Palestinian state. Palestinians and other diplomats involved say Israel was offering nothing of the sort. Within weeks of the talks ending, the right-wing Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited Haram Al-Sharif, the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem, igniting the Second Palestinian Intifada uprising against Israeli occupation. While the talks have gone down in history as a failure, the six months that followed culminated in what many believe was the closest the two sides have come to a final status agreement. But by the start of 2001, with Clinton out of office, Israeli elections looming, and violence escalating, the window of political timing slipped away. Many were left to wonder whether the mistakes made during the Camp David meeting resulted in a missed opportunity that could have led to an agreement, thus altering the course of Middle East history. Perhaps decades of episodes of bloodshed and occupation could have been averted. With hindsight aside, is there anything that can be learned from those two weeks of negotiations that brought together the leaders from either side? The talks at Camp David convened eight years after the first of the two Oslo Accords was famously signed in 1993 between Arafat and the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the White House. The agreement was designed as an interim deal and the start of a process that aimed to secure a final status agreement within five years. Under Oslo, Israel recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the representative of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian side recognized Israel. The agreement led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority to have limited governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel had annexed in 1967 along with East Jerusalem. A phased Israeli military withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories was also meant to take place. By the year 2000 it was clear that the Oslo process had stalled with Palestinians deeply unhappy about the lack of progress and that the Israeli occupation had become more entrenched since the agreement. The building of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land had accelerated, restrictions against Palestinians had increased, and violence continued. Clinton, who was in the final year of his presidency, was determined to push for a blockbuster agreement to secure his legacy. Arafat, on the other hand, was strongly against the talks taking place on the grounds that the 'conditions were not yet ripe,' according to The Camp David Papers, a detailed firsthand account of the talks by Akram Hanieh, editor of Al-Ayyam newspaper and close adviser to the Palestinian leader. 'The Palestinians repeatedly warned that the Palestinian problem was too complicated to be resolved in a hastily convened summit,' Hanieh wrote. Barak came to the table also looking to seal a big win that would bolster his ailing governing coalition. He was looking to do away with the incremental approach of Oslo and go for an all-or nothing final agreement. The leaders arrived on July 11 at Camp David, the 125 acre presidential retreat in the Catoctin mountains. The secluded forested location was cut off further with a ban on cell phones and just one phone line provided per delegation to avoid leaks. It was something Clinton joked about when he greeted Arafat and Barak before the press, saying he would not take any questions as part of a media blackout. There was even a lighthearted moment when Arafat and Barak broke into a gentle play fight as they insisted one another entered the lodge first — an image unthinkable in the current climate. But behind the scenes there was less joviality and deep concern grew among the Palestinian camp about how the talks would unfold. The core issues to be discussed included the extent of territory that would be included in a Palestinian state and the positioning of the borders surrounding them. There was also the status and future of Israeli settlements, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees displaced when Israel was founded in 1948. What proved to be the most contentious issue, and the one the US proved to be least prepared for, was the status of Jerusalem, and in particular sovereignty over its holy sites. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state with full sovereignty over Haram Al-Sharif — the third holiest site in Islam. The site, known as the Temple Mount by Israelis, is also revered by Jews. Because nothing was presented in writing and there was no working draft of the negotiations, there are differing versions of exactly what the Israelis proposed. Israeli claims that Barak offered 90 percent of the West Bank along with Gaza to the Palestinians turned out to be far less when applied to maps. Israel also wanted to maintain security control over the West Bank. Israel would annex 9 percent of the West Bank, including its major settlements there in exchange for 1 percent of Israeli territory. Israel would keep most of East Jerusalem and only offer some form of custodianship over Haram Al-Sharif, nowhere near Palestinians demands. And there was nothing of substance on returning refugees. While US media interpretations of the talks often claimed the two sides were close to an agreement, Hanieh's account describes big gaps between their positions across the major points of contention. With a sense of foreboding of what was to come, Hanieh wrote: 'The Americans immediately adopted Israel's position on the Haram, seemingly unaware of the fact that they were toying with explosives that could ignite the Middle East and the Islamic world.' The fact the proposals were only presented verbally through US officials meant that nothing was ever formally offered to the Palestinians. Barak's approach meant 'there never was an Israeli offer' Robert Malley, a member of the US negotiating team, said in an article co-written a year later that sought to diffuse the blame placed on Arafat by Israel and the US for the talk's failure. The Israeli leader's approach and failures over implementing Oslo led Arafat to became convinced that Israel was setting a trap to trick him into agreeing major concessions. The Palestinians also increasingly felt the US bias toward Israel's position, and that all the pressure was being applied to Arafat. This undermined the US as an honest broker. 'Backed by the US, Israel negotiated in bad faith, making it impossible for Palestinians to consider these talks a foundation for a just peace,' Ramzy Baroud, the Palestinian-American editor of the Palestine Chronicle, told Arab News. 'The talks were fundamentally designed to skew outcomes in Israel's favor.' Another reason for the failure was the lack of ground work carried out before they started. 'It was not well prepared,' Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, told Arab News. 'They went there with not enough already agreed beforehand, which is very important for a summit.' The US hosting has also been heavily criticized, even by members of its own negotiating teams. 'The Camp David summit — ill-conceived and ill-advised — should probably never have taken place,' Aaron David Miller, another senior negotiator, wrote 20 years later. He highlighted 'numerous mistakes' and a poor performance by the US team that would have made blocked reaching an agreement, even if the two sides had been in a place to reach one. When Arafat held firm and refused to cave to pressure to accept Israel's proposals, the summit drew to a close with little to show toward a final status agreement. 'While they were not able to bridge the gaps and reach an agreement, their negotiations were unprecedented in both scope and detail,' the final statement said. There are various opinions on whether the talks were doomed to failure from the start or whether they can be viewed as a missed opportunity that could have brought peace to the region and averted the decades of bloodshed that followed. The latter viewpoint stems as much from the diplomatic efforts in the months that followed Camp David. Against a backdrop of escalating violence and during Clinton's final months in office, focus shifted to a set of parameters for further final status negotiations. Both sides agreed to the landmark plan in late December but with reservations. The momentum carried over to the Taba summit in Egypt three weeks later but the impending Israeli election meant they ran out of time. In the closing statement, the sides declared they had never been closer to reaching an agreement. With the arrival of President George W Bush in office and Sharon defeating Barak in Israel's election, political support for the process evaporated and the intifada raged on for another four years. 'It was a missed opportunity,' Mekelberg said of Camp David. 'There was a great opportunity there, and had it succeeded, we would not be having all these terrible tragedies that we've seen.' The way that Arafat was blamed for the failure left a particularly bitter aftertaste for Palestinians. 'The most egregious demonstration of Israel's and the US's bad faith was their decision to blame the talks' collapse not on Israel's refusal to adhere to international law, but on Yasser Arafat's alleged stubbornness and disinterest in peace,' Baroud said. The talks were 'unequivocally doomed to failure,' he said because they rested on the false premise that the Oslo Accords were ever a genuine path to peace. 'The exponential growth of illegal settlements, the persistent failure to address core issues, escalating Israeli violence, and the continuous disregard for international principles concerning Palestinian rights all contributed to Camp David's collapse.' He said if any lessons are to be taken by those attempting to negotiate an end to Israel's war on Gaza and implement a wider peace agreement, it would be that 'neither Israel nor the US can be trusted to chart a path to peace without a firm framework rooted in international and humanitarian law.' In the coming days, Saudi Arabia and France will co-chair a conference at the UN on the two-state solution to the conflict, that seeks to plot a course toward a Palestinian state. Perhaps this could help build the sustainable international framework that was lacking in July 2000.
Arab News
3 hours ago
- Arab News
Jordan's King Abdullah, Trump discuss Gaza and Syria in phone call
AMMAN: Jordan's King Abdullah II spoke on the phone on Saturday with US President Donald Trump to discuss regional developments, with a particular focus on the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the situation in Syria, the Jordan News Agency reported. According to a statement from the Royal Court, the king stressed the urgent need to end the war on Gaza and ensure the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip to ease what he described as a 'tragic and alarming' humanitarian crisis. King Abdullah also commended US efforts, and President Trump personally, for working to de-escalate tensions across the region. He reaffirmed Jordan's commitment to working closely with the US and other international partners to achieve a just and lasting peace that ensures the security and stability of the entire region. On Syria, the king highlighted the effectiveness of Jordanian-US coordination in helping to de-escalate the situation there, underlining the importance of safeguarding Syria's stability and territorial integrity. The leaders also discussed ways to deepen the strategic partnership between Jordan and the US and explore opportunities for enhanced economic cooperation.
Arab News
3 hours ago
- Arab News
‘Humanitarian city' and ‘voluntary migration' are inhumane and involuntary
The Oxford Dictionary defines 'euphemism' as 'a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.' Wars and conflicts that cause unbearable suffering have also become fertile ground for irritating euphemisms. After all, individuals or groups involved in inflicting pain and misery on others are trying to hide their sense of shame, embarrassment, guilt, or accountability by using 'creative' and 'imaginative' euphemisms in order to deflect from their responsibility for their ill-doings. For example, one of the most used, though scorned, euphemisms from recent military history is 'collateral damage,' a term first used during the Vietnam War. In reality, this refers to death, injury, or damage to property inflicted on noncombatants — sometimes unintended, but very often recklessly — during military operations. Two more examples are 'extraordinary rendition' and 'friendly fire.' The first refers to seizing terror suspects and whisking them away to remote places in order to use illegal interrogation techniques, including torture; while the second refers to being shot accidentally by your own side — and there is nothing friendly about that. New wars bring with them new euphemisms or the dusting off of old ones, and in recent months Israel has increasingly been using two that are infuriating, but worse, pose a danger that if translated into reality are most likely to result in the committing of further war crimes. Let us start with the increasing use of 'voluntary migration' regarding the people of Gaza. Nothing is voluntary in what is being suggested by Israeli officials. Cabinet ministers began floating this idea just weeks after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. The ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads one of the religious ultra-nationalist parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, and happens also to be a prominent settler in the occupied West Bank, declared in November 2023: 'I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world, as the right humanitarian solution for the residents of Gaza.' As the war continued, Netanyahu joined the chorus of supporters and endorsed this despicable idea, encouraged by the US president's suggestion to push the entire Gaza population out of the enclave, while calling it 'a remarkable idea,' and one that 'should be really pursued.' To translate this idea into a practical plan, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the establishment of a new directorate in the Defense Ministry tasked with enabling Palestinians to 'voluntarily' leave the Gaza Strip. The use of the world 'voluntary' is deliberately misleading because those who are plotting the operation are well aware that Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits 'individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying power or to that of any other country, occupied or not.' Gaza's more than 2 million people were living in the world's biggest open-air prison even before the war broke out. Yossi Mekelberg The only exception is for the purpose of ensuring the security of the people displaced, and even the current Israeli government would find it impossible to convincingly advocate that this is their intention. Instead, experts in international law suggest that the constant displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and attempts to move them altogether out of the enclave are in breach of international law, and for the rest of us represent a cruel and immoral act of immense proportions, with serious political implications across the region. Those who toy with 'voluntary migration' know that they abuse the term voluntary, as it suggests doing something of one's own free will. Gaza's more than 2 million people were living in the world's biggest open-air prison even before the war broke out, and since then have been experiencing a living hell. Most have already been forcefully displaced several times, suffering from extreme shortages of food, water, medical help, shelter, and other basic needs. They are also traumatized by what they have experienced and witnessed in nearly two years of a war that hardly distinguishes between combatants and noncombatants, while every day they live in the constant fear that this might be the last for themselves and their loved ones. And despite that, most do not want to leave what is their home, even if it is a devastated one. Who could blame them if in the face of this cruel reality, and with no end in sight, they did wish to leave? But fleeing from the horrors of a death trap hardly constitutes voluntary migration. If this situation does not scare them enough to make them run for the border, the Israeli government has come up with the even more sinister idea of building a 'humanitarian city' on the ruins of Rafah. One wonders what sick brains have been brewing this evil plan to cram at least 600,000 souls into a new encampment on the border with Egypt, in a location that is already one of the most densely populated territories in the world. Audaciously, Israel's defense minister made no attempt to hide the true intention of this huge camp, openly declaring that those who move there will be free to leave, but only to go to another country — once again this doublespeak of 'free will' and 'completely voluntarily.' For the rest of us, this is a plan to transfer as many Palestinians as possible out of Gaza. The international community must not fall into the trap of these euphemisms, and must call out these horrific ideas for what they are — cruel and inhumane, and aimed at pushing out of Gaza as many as Palestinians as possible, and leaving the place under Israeli control, along with the idea being floated of building settlements there for Israelis. Those who supported Israel, and rightly so, after Oct. 7, should be brave and use what leverage they have to remove from the agenda any forced displacement or the building of what one former Israeli prime minister has called a concentration camp. The anger directed at Hamas for the hostages still held in captivity must not continue to be directed at innocent civilians as a justification for committing atrocities, and Israeli society must wake up and acknowledge this. After all, it is being done in their name. A good start would be to call a spade a spade, and call out 'voluntary migration' for what it is: an attempt to force the residents of Gaza out of their homes and push them into an inhumane camp and not a so-called 'humanitarian city.'
