{"id":35986,"date":"2026-08-13T11:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=35986"},"modified":"2026-08-13T11:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:44:17","slug":"ex-german-ambassador-urges-measures-against-israel-over-settlements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=35986","title":{"rendered":"Ex-German Ambassador Urges Measures Against Israel Over Settlements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steffen Seibert ended his tenure in Israel this summer amid harsh criticism from Netanyahu’s government. He said settler violence aims at the ‘displacement’ of Palestinians and revealed he discreetly joined a protective presence in the West Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"German<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Former German ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert has called on Berlin to consider “targeted measures” against Israel over its West Bank settlement policy, describing settler violence against Palestinians as “displacement through psychological and physical violence” and stressing that Germany’s commitment to Israel does not extend to the settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seibert made those statements in an interview published Wednesday by the German weekly Zeit Magazine<\/a>, based on two conversations \u2013 one held in Tel Aviv in June 2026 and another after his return to Berlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seibert completed his four-year tenure as ambassador this summer, and the interview is his first since leaving the post. Earlier this year, he was attacked <\/a>by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who accused him of an “obsession” with Israeli settlers over his condemnations of settler violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked in the interview whether Germany should rethink its principle that Israel’s security is a matter of “Staatsr\u00e4son,” rooted in Germany’s historical responsibility<\/a> toward Israel, Seibert said he stands by it, but stressed that it applies only to Israel within its 1967 borders. Germany’s commitment to Israel, he said, “does not extend” to settlements, as the country “does not support a sense of superiority over another population.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state of Israel<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Seibert also revealed that he once traveled to the West Bank and discreetly took part in a\u00a0protective presence<\/a>\u00a0initiative, in which Israeli and foreign activists station themselves alongside Palestinians in a bid to deter settler violence. He recalled spending time with a Palestinian herder when a settler showed up and told him he couldn’t graze his cows there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite having a map that showed he wasn’t in an army firing zone, as the settler had claimed, the herder was eventually detained by the army. With a piece of cloth tied around his head and zip ties around his hands, Seibert described the arrest as involving “gestures of humiliation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To see, up close, how an innocent person is treated like that is simply horrific. I understand when the IDF takes action against terrorists. But these are peaceful people\u2026 They pose no threat to Israel,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Palestinian farmers are, however, “a thorn in the side of the settlers, who have arrived in droves in recent years, because the settlers want these valleys for themselves for religiously disguised ideological reasons. This is displacement through psychological and physical violence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Israeli<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The former ambassador recalled taking the train back to Tel Aviv after spending the night in the West Bank. “None of the other passengers knew what was happening 20 minutes away. Many didn’t want to know either,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seibert was then asked if experiences like these made him think Germany should change its policy toward Israel. He said German support for Israel is right, but that “does not mean that our support includes all of Israel’s actions, for example, the occupation, which is now entering its 60th year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am against boycotts and against the blanket isolation of Israelis,” he said, using the example of boycotting Israeli scientists \u2013 who are by and large on the liberal side of the political spectrum \u2013 as a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The question must be whether there are targeted measures that make our rejection of the disastrous settlement policy clearer,” Seibert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JG8VWPSxg8A?start=0&controls=false&loop=false&modestbranding=false&rel=false&autoplay=false&enablejsapi=1&mute=Linda Dayan and Joshua Leifer on Haaretz’s Election Podcast<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the West Bank, Seibert spoke about the volatile situation in Gaza, which he described as being in a state in which there “is neither war nor peace.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I sincerely hope that something will come of it,” he said, referring to the cease-fire proposal floated by the Board of Peace, led by U.S. President Donald Trump. However, he cautioned that “the suffering of the Gazans will continue” as long as “Hamas [is] armed to the teeth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“On the other hand, Israel is constantly shrinking the territory of Gaza. Now the Israeli army has erected an earthen wall in the middle of the Gaza Strip,” he said, adding that such a move “fuels the suspicion that they might want to permanently divide<\/a> the territory in two, which would be devastating.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/world-news\/europe\/2026-08-13\/ty-article\/.premium\/ex-german-ambassador-urges-measures-against-israel-over-settlements\/0000019f-faa6-d28e-a3df-faf664480000<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steffen Seibert ended his tenure in Israel this summer amid harsh criticism from Netanyahu’s government. He said settler violence aims at the ‘displacement’ of Palestinians and revealed he discreetly joined a protective presence in the West Bank. Former German ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert has called on Berlin to consider “targeted measures” against Israel over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[23876,25547,25980,33402,26287,1510,33400,17576,33399,29081,33401,1515],"class_list":["post-35986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-agression-2","tag-annexation","tag-expansion-of-israel-2","tag-german-ambassador","tag-invasion","tag-israel-2","tag-occupying-arab-lands","tag-palestine-2","tag-pushing-arabs-out","tag-settlers-2","tag-war-crimes-genocide","tag-west-bank-2","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35987,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35986\/revisions\/35987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}