For nearly two decades, a phrase has defined the relationship between Germany and Israel more than any treaty or diplomatic declaration. The phrase, made famous by Chancellor Angela Merkel before the Knesset in 2008: “Israel’s national security is German Staatsräson.”

The German word Staatsräson [ˈʃtaːts.ʁɛ.zɔ̃] has no exact English equivalent. It is often translated as “reason of state” or “national raison d’état,” referring to fundamental interests, priorities, and guiding principles.

Yet Staatsräson is not a constitutional doctrine, nor is it codified in legislation. It describes a political commitment so central to a nation’s self-understanding that it shapes government policy across party lines, even in the absence of a formal legal obligation. Merkel declared that Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust made Israel’s security “non-negotiable.”

History puts slogans to the test.

The Hamas massacre shattered many illusions in Europe. Germans witnessed the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, while celebrations erupted in Arab neighborhoods of Berlin and other major German cities only hours later. The images were devastating. Eighty years after the collapse of the Nazi terror regime, crowds celebrated the mass murder of Jews in the streets of the German capital. In that moment, Germany’s postwar........

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