Merz says Israel 'wouldn't exist' without German aid

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday that without Germany’s arms shipments to Israel, the Jewish state would “no longer exist.”

Merz said this during a Q&A discussion on the ARD broadcaster, while explaining why arms shipments to Israel would continue.

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Germany’s Chancellor Merz on Israel:Israel is the only democracy in the entire Middle East.The existence of the State of Israel is non-negotiable for us, for the Federal Republic of Germany.The right of the State of Israel to exist — as long as I hold political… pic.twitter.com/bDw0F7EaMX

His full comment was as follows: “There are no unconditional deliveries to Israel. But for as long as I bear political responsibility, we will always support the State of Israel’s right to exist, including militarily—because otherwise, that state would no longer exist today.”

A spokesperson from Merz’s office declined to reply to JNS’s query on which shipments, specifically, he believes ensure Israel’s survival.

Consecutive Israeli prime ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu, have insisted that Israel’s survival and existence are owed to its own sacrifices, resources and ingenuity of its people. All leaders of the country have rejected a narrative of existential dependence.

Netanyahu in 2024 responded to a partial arms embargo briefly imposed on Israel by then-U.S. President Joe Biden by saying: “if we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails.”

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply by press time to a request by JNS for comment on Merz’s assertion.

In the ARD interview, Merz, who is generally considered to be pro-Israel, noted that in 2025, Germany also briefly halted the supply of some weapons to Jerusalem.

“I acknowledge that last August I made a decision that was heavily criticized: At a time when the Israeli military was acting forcefully against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, I decided to stop supplying ammunition to the part of the military involved,” he said.

Israel, he added, “is the only democracy in the entire Middle East. It is a country whose very existence is threatened by a whole series of neighboring states—not least Iran and the terrorist groups it finances. That is why, ever since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, we have supported Israel in its struggle for survival.”

He also said: “The existence of the State of Israel is non-negotiable for us.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has similarly attributed Israel’s existence to American actions under his presidency.

“Without the U.S., there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel because no other president was willing to do what I did,” Trump said on June 16. Israel “would have been blown up a long time ago” without his intervention, he added, while speaking alongside the president of the United Arab Emirates at the G7 summit.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a 2008 Knesset speech that Israel’s security was part of Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state”: A fundamental German national interest, rooted in Germany’s historic responsibility for the Holocaust.

Israel and West Germany established diplomatic relations in 1952. In the 1950s, Germany paid billions in reparations to Israel and Holocaust survivors, facilitating the Jewish state’s ability to absorb hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe and the Middle East.

Historian Rafael Medoff, the founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington, D.C., disputed Merz’s comment about assuring Israel’s existence.

“Germany only began selling significant quantities of weapons to Israel in 1962,” Medoff told JNS. “Israel existed for many years before it could buy German weapons, and it would continue to exist even if Germany were to re-impose the recent arms embargo.”

Israelis, Medoff added, “appreciate the willingness of the current German government to sell them weapons, but the idea that Israel’s existence depends on buying weapons from Germany is groundless and insulting.”

Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu, a lecturer at the European Forum of the Hebrew University and director of the Israel-Europe Relations Program at Mitvim-The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, told JNS that “There is truth to what he [Merz] said, but his statement takes it to an extreme, likely out of a political desire to ties defense transactions to Israel’s survival and away from the use of German weapons in Gaza or Lebanon.”

She said that public opinion on Israel has soured in Germany since the outbreak in 2023 of a regional war following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, “and Merz knows this. He’s been balancing his ideological commitment to Israel’s security with the growing opposition to it.”

Sion-Tzidkiyahu also said that Merz has preserved “continuity” on Israel from the policies of his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, of the center-left Social Democratic Party. Merz belongs to the center-right Christian-Democratic Union.

“Merz has largely continued Scholz’s policy of examining every export permit individually after Oct. 7.But at the E.U. level, Merz defends Israel more strongly than Scholz did,” she said.

Germany supplied 31% of Israel’s defense imports in 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, with the U.S. providing another 68%. Germany supplies Israel with tank engines and also supplied its entire submarine fleet, comprising six Dolphin units that are operational and another three under construction that have yet to be delivered.

Israel also sells major defense systems to Germany, such as the Arrow 3, which it provided through a deal signed in 2023. The deal was expanded in December 2025, totaling $6.5 billion. This has been Israel’s largest-ever military export contract.

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