German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has this week changed his tone and message on Israel and its war in Gaza. France and the UK threatened action last week, not that their words have saved any lives yet. There are still daily reports of children dying because of both bombing and starvation, while Israel has announced a military campaign aiming to take over two-thirds of Gaza and force its inhabitants into small zones.

Israel’s security is considered part of Germany’s Staatsräson. This is an inalienable policy goal for the country, but that does not mean that all behaviour is justified. The German government is now warning that Israel is crossing a red line.

On Monday Merz questioned Israel’s goal in Gaza, saying the current level of attacks can no longer be justified by the country’s fight against Hamas. He said that Germany has a clear position: no expulsions of Palestinians from Gaza, and an end to the starvation. Gaza and the West Bank belong to the Palestinians, on the path to a two-state solution, he added.

Later that day, Merz’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadepuhl condemned the offensive. But he also made it clear that Germany will continue to deliver arms and stand by the EU association agreement with Israel. As friends, we must be able to criticise when Israel’s operation is becoming intolerable, he said. Wadepuhl also repeated Merz’s insistence that there must be no expulsion or starvation of inhabitants.

Is the debate in Germany shifting? Felix Klein, the German government’s antisemitism commissioner, recently called for a more honest debate on the country’s stance towards Israel given its actions in Gaza. In his view, starving Palestinians and deliberately worsening the humanitarian situation have nothing to do with securing Israel’s right to exist. On the contrary, such actions may increase the risks to its own security in the future.

Protests against the war are spreading across Europe. At the start of this week, there were protests planned in 13 European cities organised by Jewish citizens against arming Israel and in opposition to the EU association agreement. An EU staff for peace initiative also collected 2000 signatures from officials and published a letter calling for concrete actions to address the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.

No one really expects the EU to exclude Israel from the association agreements at this time. An across-the-board exclusion would require a consensus of all 27 EU countries. Out of 27 EU member states, 17 backed looking into the matter.

But even if an outright exclusion is unlikely, the expulsion or suspension of Israel from particular projects, such as the Horizon research programme, has a lower majority threshold and is thus a real possibility. The council of the Israel Academy of Sciences and the Humanities warned on Sunday of far-reaching, serious consequences for research but also for society in Israel if the country were excluded from Horizon, the world’s largest and most prestigious programme for science and industrial cooperation.

Israel is considered a world leader in terms of how many R&D grants have been awarded to its recipients, receiving more than a billion in grants since it joined 1996. The Iron Dome, for example, is based on science that has been financed by the Horizon programmes. If these research grants and programmes become unavailable, it would shrink Israel’s capacity for research and accelerate the country’s brain drain.

There is a real political risk, though. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government may see Europe’s repositioning as a confirmation that Israel is on its own, and so may continue the military operation in Gaza regardless. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer has already threatened that Israel may seize parts of the occupied West Bank if France and the UK recognise a Palestinian state. Any criticism of Israel’s strategy is quickly framed as support for Hamas by those defending the latest operation.

It is a polarised debate from which Europe is belatedly trying to extract itself with great pain. Now, all eyes are on the US and what it can achieve in ceasefire talks.

This is an edited version of an article originally published in the Eurointelligence newsletter.