GERMANY PERSPECTIVE

Berlin, June 18, 2026. The decision by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to sever all contact with EU High Representative Kaja Kallas has placed Germany in a delicate position, caught between institutional European solidarity and distance from the statements attributed to the Estonian diplomat.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz was the first European leader to publicly distance himself from the language in question. On the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels, he declared unambiguously: "Diese Wortwahl teile ich ausdrücklich nicht" — "I do not share this choice of words." For him, the issue needed further debate among European heads of state and government. A calculated response: neither unconditional support for Kallas nor validation of the Israeli reaction.

What is being attributed to Kallas, according to the Euractiv portal, is that during a visit to Mexico in May she compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to South Africa's apartheid regime. Kallas neither denied nor confirmed these remarks. "I will not comment on what was or was not said in closed discussions," she declared, while offering Saar the opportunity to continue dialogue on X and reaffirming the EU's commitment to a "constructive" relationship with Israel.

Saar, meanwhile, chose particularly harsh rhetoric, describing the presumed remarks as "Blutverleumdung" — blood libel, a reference to medieval antisemitism — a term that prompted discomfort in European capitals, including Brussels. The Israeli minister declared he would "have no choice but to cut all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she directed against the sole Jewish state in the world."

The FAZ and Handelsblatt note that this crisis occurs against a backdrop of accumulated tensions between the EU and Israel since the October 7, 2023 attacks: new European sanctions imposed in May against Israeli settlers in the West Bank, Kallas's work on commercial restrictions affecting settlements, and recurring criticism regarding international law and the expansion of settlements. These substantive issues form the foundation of a disagreement that far exceeds the controversy over an informal statement.

ZEIT Online further notes that Kallas faces internal pressures within the EU for other reasons, which weakens her position at the precise moment when she becomes the target of Jerusalem. For Berlin, the priority is to preserve European cohesion without validating the terms of a debate that the Merz government judges poorly framed on both sides.