Former German government’s cover-up to approve lethal weapons license for Israel.
The newspaper Die Zeit wrote in a report: The former German coalition government known as the Traffic Light, consisting of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, led by Olaf Scholz, approved the export of an unspecified number of Matador rocket launchers to the Israeli regime in the second half of 2024.
This export approval came at a time when, including senior UN officials, they were talking about possible war crimes by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.
The Matador weapon has been openly used in urban warfare in the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper Die Zeit published the report, citing classified documents and interviews with former government officials involved in the decision.
In addition, the authorization for the shipment of several hundred power transmissions from the manufacturer Renck for the Merkava tanks was reportedly approved at the time. The deliveries were reportedly distributed monthly. In addition, the German government approved large quantities of spare parts for the regime, apparently including armor plates for vehicles, sensors for surveillance systems, and hatches for warships.
According to the report, the German government has approved a total of 577 million euros in military equipment for Israel as of October 7, 2023. The newspaper reported, citing the German Ministry of Economic Affairs, that from January to the end of June, Germany had approved the delivery of weapons to Israel worth approximately 90 million euros.
In March 2024, the Federal Foreign Office, then still under the leadership of Annalena Baerbock, independently stopped the delivery of some spare parts to the Israeli army – apparently without the Chancellor’s knowledge.
In the summer of 2024, Israel requested new deliveries from Berlin. This caused a rift in the traffic light coalition. In particular, the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats pushed for further deliveries to the regime. Schulz even threatened to use his powers to issue directives on the matter.
The dispute was resolved by approving the exports monthly instead of all at once, to avoid attracting public attention. In addition, the German government used a bureaucratic trick to evade parliamentary oversight of the arms deliveries, in which, instead of deciding on the matter in the Federal Security Council, as was usual, this body simply drew up directives and instructed the ministries to act on them. The details of the deliveries were thus kept secret.