Posted by 
Munich Security Conference Chairman Christoph Heusgen is under pressure to resign over a television interview in which he characterized the brutal killing of more than 1,400 Israelis on October 7 as a “Hamas action” while endorsing comments made earlier in the week by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres that outraged Israeli leaders.
“Guterres is a very level-headed man,” Heusgen, who served as former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief foreign policy adviser for 12 years, told Germany’s ZDF public television. “He was right to both condemn the Hamas action while also noting that it didn’t happen in a vacuum.”
Guterres’s comment at a Security Council meeting on Tuesday that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum” unleashed a storm of criticism, especially among Israeli leaders, who saw the secretary-general as justifying the Hamas attack. Benny Gantz, a centrist Israeli politician who served as an opposition leader until joining Israel’s unity government following the Hamas attack, called Guterres a “terror apologist.”
Heusgen’s subsequent support of Guterres’ U.N. comments sparked condemnations from some prominent figures in both Germany and Israel.
Armin Laschet, the former leader of the center-right Christian Democrats, Germany’s largest opposition party, said the comments were “unacceptable.”
Volker Beck, a former senior figure in Germany’s Green party who now leads the German-Israeli Society, a group that promotes solidarity with Israel, said Heusgen proved himself to be “a dyed-in-the-wool enemy of Israel’s.”
Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, called what he saw as Heusgen’s failure to show unconditional solidarity with the victims of the Hamas massacre “shocking,” adding that the diplomat had shown his “true face.”
“In my view, there’s a big question mark over his suitability to continue to lead this conference,” Prosor told Germany’s Welt TV.
Heusgen enjoys an exalted position in Germany as chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) and is often the go-to person for German media when they need someone to analyze foreign affairs.
Though nominally independent, the annual MSC, which attracts dozens of government leaders and other luminaries every February to the Bavarian capital, is closely affiliated with the German government, which helps to finance and organize the event via the defense ministry. In keeping with the semi-public nature of the role, the chairman, typically a retired diplomat, seeks to avoid controversy.
That goal has proved elusive in recent years. The MSC has been the subject of intense scrutiny after it emerged that Wolfgang Ischinger, Heusgen’s predecessor and now president of the foundation that controls the MSC, used the event to recruit clients for a private consulting firm in which he was a shareholder. The role of McKinsey & Co., the U.S.-based consultancy, in shaping the event’s program has also raised questions about potential outside influences.
Over the past decade, the MSC has drawn millions in support from countries in the Gulf, in particular Qatar, a country Heusgen has often defended against criticism in Germany. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, Qatar’s former prime minister and a member of its ruling family, resigned as an MSC trustee after making antisemitic comments.
Responding to the outcry, Heusgen said on Wednesday that he “regretted” any offense his interview may have caused, suggesting that some of his comments had been taken out of context.
“If I hurt the feelings of the victims and their families I am very sorry,” he told RND, a German newspaper group, adding that he had “very many good friends in Israel.”
Some also came to Heusgen’s defense. Jürgen Hardt, a Christian Democrat lawmaker, praised Heusgen, telling newspaper Die Welt that “few others have done as much for peace and justice in the world.” As head of the MSC, Hardt added, Heusgen “necessarily speaks freely on global political issues.”
The latest uproar is not the first time Heusgen has faced accusations of holding anti-Israel views.
In 2019, while Germany’s ambassador to the U.N., he landed on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s annual list of antisemitic offenders for, as the organization put it, “equating 130 rockets fired by terrorist Hamas at Israeli civilians … with the Jewish state’s demolition of terrorists’ homes.” Both his own government and international representatives, including from Israel, defended Heusgen and dismissed the allegations.
In his public television interview this week, Heusgen also expressed opposition to a potential ground offensive by Israel in Gaza.
“A widening of the conflict must be prevented — Israel should not launch a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip,” Heusgen said, adding that “there needs to be a return to the two-state solution.”
Those comments also angered Israeli officials, who viewed them as a call to negotiate with Hamas terrorists.
Prosor, in his interview on Welt TV, accused Heusgen of having failed in “fundamental questions in German foreign policy,” including on Russia and the controversial Nord Stream gas pipelines between Germany and Russia. “Now he wants to give us advice?” Prosor said. “The gall!”
