(Aug. 12, 2025 / JNS) The German government’s decision last week to halt exports to Israel of weapons that may be used in Gaza elicited strong-worded condemnations by Jewish groups, and triggered an internal debate within the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), that German state’s branch of Merz’s Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), publicly objected to the ban, which the German leader announced on Aug. 8, and said it would initiate an internal coalition discussion about it.

“The CSU was not involved in this decision, and we consider it questionable. This would be a departure from decades of foreign policy continuity toward Israel and, as such, requires at least some explanation. We will hold internal discussions on this within the coalition,” Alexander Hoffman, head of the group of CSU parliamentarians in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, according to the Die Zeit newspaper.