Short answer: Yes. As of August 2026, the record from Olaf Scholz's time as German Chancellor (December 2021 to May 2025) shows repeated, consistent support for Israel. He affirmed that Israel's security is part of Germany's "Staatsraison" (reason of state), made Germany one of Israel's largest arms suppliers after October 7, 2023, flew to Israel within days of the attack, and grounded his position in Germany's Holocaust responsibility. His government also paused a significant share of new arms-export approvals for several months in 2024 amid international-law concerns, a complicating fact that does not reverse his consistent public position. Scholz left the chancellorship in May 2025 after his party's election defeat, so any current statements from him now carry the weight of a Bundestag member rather than a head of government.
What Olaf Scholz has actually said and done
October 17, 2023: Ten days after the Hamas attack, Scholz visited Tel Aviv and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said Germany's history and Holocaust responsibility mean "the security of Israel and its citizens is Germany's reason of state," adding that in hard times Germany has "only one place, and that is alongside Israel," according to the Times of Israel.
September 18, 2024: A source close to Germany's Economy Ministry told Haaretz that Berlin had effectively sharply reduced approvals for new "weapons of war" export licences to Israel through 2024, citing concerns about compliance with international humanitarian law. Al Jazeera reported the same finding, though the German government publicly denied any formal moratorium.
October 10, 2024: In a special Bundestag session marking the first anniversary of October 7, Scholz told parliament "we have supplied weapons and we will supply weapons," announcing decisions that would let further arms deliveries to Israel resume, per Euronews.
October 11, 2024: Germany formally announced new arms shipments to Israel following Scholz's Bundestag remarks, rebuffing international criticism of continued military support, according to Middle East Monitor.
February 23, 2025: Scholz's Social Democrats fell to third place with 16.4% of the vote in Germany's federal election. Scholz conceded defeat to CDU leader Friedrich Merz and said his party would enter coalition talks without him as chancellor candidate, per the Associated Press.
May 6, 2025: Scholz's term as Federal Chancellor of Germany officially ended, and Friedrich Merz was sworn in as his successor, per the German federal government's own record at bundeskanzler.de. This ended Scholz's tenure as the figure setting German government policy toward Israel.
The fuller picture
Olaf Scholz led Germany's coalition government (SPD, Greens, FDP) as Chancellor from December 2021 until his party's defeat in the February 2025 federal election, with Merz formally succeeding him that May. Through the Gaza war period, Scholz's core message stayed consistent: Israel's security is a matter of German "Staatsraison," a term German chancellors have used since Angela Merkel to describe an existential national commitment rooted in Holocaust responsibility. He repeated that framing in his October 2023 Tel Aviv visit, in a formal government statement on Israel, and again in his October 2024 Bundestag remarks marking the first anniversary of the attack.
The record is not free of tension. German civil-society and legal pressure over Gaza casualties led Berlin's Economy Ministry to slow new arms-export license approvals for several months in 2024, which German officials publicly framed as ordinary legal review rather than a policy reversal, and which Scholz's government moved to reverse by that October. Taken together, the pattern is one of a leader who stayed vocally committed to Israel's security while also navigating real domestic and international pressure over how the war was being conducted.
As of August 2026, Scholz holds no government office. Any influence he now has on Germany's Israel policy runs through his standing as a Bundestag member and former chancellor rather than through the executive branch, so his voice on the subject today carries less direct weight than it did while he held office.
The bottom line
Olaf Scholz built a substantial, consistent public record of support for Israel while serving as German Chancellor from 2021 to 2025: frequent statements grounding that support in Germany's Holocaust-derived "Staatsraison," a rapid post-October 7 visit to Israel, and continued arms sales even through a rockier 2024 stretch over export licensing. He is no longer in government as of 2026, so his current statements carry the weight of a prominent opposition politician, not a head of state.
Wear where you stand
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
