Yes, Germany supports Israel – but not uncritically, and not for the reasons you think

Who could have anticipated such a twist in Germany's fraught relationship with its dark past? The German government is coming under increasing pressure to break free of the constraints of German guilt. And it is Turkey that wants the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to deliver the reversal. On a visit to Germany earlier this month, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, standing next to Scholz in Berlin, claimed that Germany was too absorbed by historical remorse to grasp the reality of the Middle East. Before his arrival in Germany, ErdoÄŸan had called the Hamas terrorists "freedom fighters" and said that Israel's…