Germany has shown foolish Starmer how to handle the Palestine question. Unlike the British Prime Minister, Friedrich Merz has chosen genuine moral leadership over gesture politics

Friedrich Merz.... He has insisted that Hamas cannot be allowed a role in Gaza’s future and that hostage release and disarmament are non-negotiable. This is not callousness; it is the minimum moral logic of diplomacy. A peace plan that includes Hamas is not a peace plan at all – it is surrender to fanaticism and rewards the wrong side. And here Germany’s historic responsibility comes into sharp relief. No European nation has a deeper obligation to the security of the Jewish people. For Germans, the Holocaust was not a tragic accident; it was a state-driven programme of annihilation, which can...