“I haven’t witnessed such a dangerous escalation in my almost 20 years as a Foreign Affairs Minister”, Jean Asselborn said to RTL during their morning interview. The additional conflict between Israel and Iran would be poison for a region that is already unstable. Israel had already attacked Iran’s nuclear program in the past, but this time – and this is clear to Asselborn – Benjamin Netanyahu wants more. He wants regime change in Iran. But as experience shows, when a regime change is imposed, you don’t know what you’ll get. Examples of this are Iraq and Libya.
Netanyahu operates according to the principle “I attack, therefore I am”. Gaza, Syria, Lebanon: when the Israeli Prime Minister starts a war, he can no longer stop, and the war in Gaza should have ended long ago. There is no longer any threat to Israel there.
For that reason, Asselborn is ‘extremely skeptical’ that this won’t escalate into another major challenge for the Middle East and for the world. In addition, it’s impossible to predict how the Americans will behave under Trump’s policies. In any case, it’s clear that Iran must not be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb, the former foreign minister believes, peace can only be achieved through negotiations.
When it comes to the Gaza conflict, Israel is conveying an extremely negative picture. It is horrifying that children are shot because they want something to eat, the retired LSAP politician asserts. He added that, one day, all the violence carried out in Gaza will be condemned as war crimes.
For years, Asselborn has been appealing for the recognition of Palestine as an independent state. “As long as Palestinians do not own their own state, there will be no peace neither for Israel nor the whole region”, he underlines.
In May 2024, when Spain, Ireland, and Norway moved to recognise Palestine, Luxembourg absolutely should have joined them. “You know, in foreign policy, it is either black or white – yes, one side or the other. There’s no in-between”.
To Asselborn, it’s important to have a clear position and not keep circling between both sides. The conditions that Luxembourg is setting for recognising Palestine as a state – deradicalisation and disarmament of Hamas, and the involvement of Arab states in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip – are practically impossible to fulfill.
For the past 20 years, Netanyahu has done nothing but pursue a policy of settlements, thereby preventing any progress toward a two-state solution.
“So I don’t think it’s very clever to rely solely on placing conditions on the Palestinians. The world is what it is.” To avoid experiencing another October 7, Asselborn thinks we must go deeper – and give the Palestinians their own state.
The critique voiced by Laurent Mosar (CSV) and Gusty Graas (DP) last week pointed out that Palestine could not have been recognised as a state under Asselborn as a Foreign Affairs Minister.
Asselborn invalidated that claim, writing it off as a joke that people from the second or third rows of these two parties are blaming him for it. “It’s Luxembourg pettiness”. None of the previous governments voted in majority for a recognition of Palestine as an independent state, the minister argued.
The slogan “No Kings” from the recent protests across the US is very fitting, says RTL’s guest.
People feel like they are being pushed as if it were Germany in 1939 – and they want a France of 1789. There is a major revolt against the breakdown of the rule of law. America is the oldest democracy in the world, and it is on shaky ground. That’s why it’s important for people to resist this, and he hopes it will make a difference, said the former foreign minister.
