Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday endorsed Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, saying it was doing essential work for Germany and others.
“This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us,” Merz told the ZDF broadcaster during an interview on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada.
The phrasing came in response to a question from an interviewer who had used the term.
“We are also affected by this regime. This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world,” Merz added.
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, lauded Merz’s remarks.
“Chancellor Friedrich Merz clearly described the realities in the Middle East with his choice of words,” Prosor told German news agency DPA. He added that Iran’s nuclear ambitions may be directed at Israel, “but they threaten the security of the entire world.
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“The missiles currently hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem also threaten Berlin, Paris and London,” Prosor said. “The supply chain of terror must be interrupted.”
Prosor noted that Iranian arms shipments and Houthi attacks on international shipping had decreased recently, showing that pressure is working. “This is a litmus test for whether Europeans are willing to stand up for their values and interests independently.”
In the interview, Merz said he had “the greatest respect for the fact that the Israeli army had the courage to do this, that the Israeli leadership had the courage to do this.”
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In the German political establishment, Merz’s remark prompted some rebuke by opposition leaders and members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the left-center coalition partner of his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.
“When people are killed, Merz calls it dirty work. In doing so, he mocks the victims of war and violence,” Jan van Aken, leader of the Left Party, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday.
But within the CDU, senior party members defended Merz. “What the chancellor expressed with his words was that it cannot be in the interest of all of us for a terrorist regime like the Iranian mullah regime to possess nuclear weapons,” one senior CDU official, Thorsten Frei, told the same newspaper.
Frei added that the threat isn’t limited to the Middle East. “Iran’s missile technology is such that medium-range missiles can reach very long-range targets — even in Europe. That’s why we can’t pretend that none of this concerns us.”
