Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it and I think you have some very valid points. To be perfectly honest, as a human being I am disappointed and angry about the official German state response to the ICC warrant, and the continued delivery of weapons to Israel too. And more personally, I went by a Palestinian protest camp in front of a local university yesterday and I must say I have the utmost respect and empathy towards these people freezing their asses off in tents in sub zero temperatures fighting for awareness of those war crimes.
Having said that, I think you are mixing up causes and effects. Let me try to explain and allow me to show you a different perspective on things, because the whole matter is way more complicated than it might seem, and while anger and hatred towards what is happening here might seem justified it only tells half of the story.
Ok, first some basic history facts (I’ll make this quick because you probably already know that)
Nazi Germany killed about 6 Million Jews in the Holocaust, plus Germany caused WW2, which had an estimated death toll of 80 million people.
After the war the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik) was founded, and in the process vowed to never let that happen again. This vow is a central part of the foundation of the federal republic and staying committed to that vow is absolutely necessary to ensure the legitimacy of the German state. The severity and crushing weight of this fact is something that non-Germans or even younger Germans might find difficult to understand.
(Bear with me here, I haven’t even started yet - What is probably on your mind right now is that the very same thing Germany vowed to prevent is happening in Gaza right now, and they do nothing. I’ll address that)
So, having established the background it should be perfectly clear that Germany has a very heavy weight of responsibility towards the victims of their past crimes, and those victims we are talking about here are the Jewish people. And now is the part where it gets complicated.
As a person I am well capable of making a distinction between hatred towards the Jews (aka antisemitism, denying their right to live, denying the right of existence of the state of Israel…) and criticism of the israeli government. I personally have absolutely no problem calling Netanyahu and his right wing cronies war criminals and at the same time I am strictly positioned against antisemitism. These are very obviously two different things.
On the state/country level however, it’s not that easy. As a state government you have to take the official views of another state at face value. Which means you don’t have the luxury to differentiate between the state’s government and the people of that state, unless you publicly denounce the legitimacy of the government of that state. That’s basically how relations between all states work. And this is the culprit. Germany as a state, due to its history and aforementioned vow is not in the position to openly criticize the government of a country they have vowed to protect. Netanyahu on the other side knows this very well and uses Germany’s inability to act in his advantage whenever he can. For historic reasons, Germany needs to avoid being accused of antisemitism at all costs and Netanyahu uses this fact to play Germany like a puppet.
This isn’t limited to Germany by the way. If you look at what happened in Amsterdam, where violent israeli hooligans incited a riot, and the initial response by the dutch government was to solely blame antisemitic actions for the violence, it was basically the same mechanism at work. The Netherlands as a progressive democratic country with a shared history of atrocities towards the Jews can’t afford to be seen as allowing antisemitic hunts in their cities. Netanyahu and the dutch far right used this reflex to their advantage and it nearly lead to the collapse of the dutch government. In hindsight it became clear what really happened that night and even Amsterdam’s mayor had to row back and say that her choice of the word “pogrom” was wrong and so on. She was making it pretty clear that she felt played. But the damage was already done and the net result was in favor of the israeli government and the european far right.
Anyway. I promised to address German state attitudes towards Gaza. While the aforementioned vow to protect Jewish life has absolute precedence over other matters (as explained) the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are very visible in Germany and they are also constantly being reported in all news media, including the state-funded public broadcasting services. For everyone to see. Every day. Basically without much comment apart from when some UN or US person says something critical about Israel. There is absolutely no-one condoning or even justifying the war crimes against Palestinians (there is some bothsideism concerning Hamas violence though), and the way most of this is presented without much comment really stands for itself. The same goes for humanitarian initiatives towards Gaza including UN projects. They exist and a lot of people are actively trying to help, this includes officials across the political spectrum. But of course they keep a low profile, because they simply have no other choice.
To wrap this up. Germany is trapped inbetween its responsibility to Jews due to its history and a new reality of bad-faith actors in Israel. The fear of being wrongfully denounced as antisemites and the fear of actual antisemitism gaining traction in the population lead to some very questionable decision making in German politics, and to a seemingly one-sided news coverage. However I’d argue in most cases not evil intentions are the reason, but good intentions gone wrong. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it and I think you have some very valid points. To be perfectly honest, as a human being I am disappointed and angry about the official German state response to the ICC warrant, and the continued delivery of weapons to Israel too. And more personally, I went by a Palestinian protest camp in front of a local university yesterday and I must say I have the utmost respect and empathy towards these people freezing their asses off in tents in sub zero temperatures fighting for awareness of those war crimes.
Having said that, I think you are mixing up causes and effects. Let me try to explain and allow me to show you a different perspective on things, because the whole matter is way more complicated than it might seem, and while anger and hatred towards what is happening here might seem justified it only tells half of the story.
Ok, first some basic history facts (I’ll make this quick because you probably already know that)
(Bear with me here, I haven’t even started yet - What is probably on your mind right now is that the very same thing Germany vowed to prevent is happening in Gaza right now, and they do nothing. I’ll address that)
So, having established the background it should be perfectly clear that Germany has a very heavy weight of responsibility towards the victims of their past crimes, and those victims we are talking about here are the Jewish people. And now is the part where it gets complicated.
As a person I am well capable of making a distinction between hatred towards the Jews (aka antisemitism, denying their right to live, denying the right of existence of the state of Israel…) and criticism of the israeli government. I personally have absolutely no problem calling Netanyahu and his right wing cronies war criminals and at the same time I am strictly positioned against antisemitism. These are very obviously two different things.
On the state/country level however, it’s not that easy. As a state government you have to take the official views of another state at face value. Which means you don’t have the luxury to differentiate between the state’s government and the people of that state, unless you publicly denounce the legitimacy of the government of that state. That’s basically how relations between all states work. And this is the culprit. Germany as a state, due to its history and aforementioned vow is not in the position to openly criticize the government of a country they have vowed to protect. Netanyahu on the other side knows this very well and uses Germany’s inability to act in his advantage whenever he can. For historic reasons, Germany needs to avoid being accused of antisemitism at all costs and Netanyahu uses this fact to play Germany like a puppet.
This isn’t limited to Germany by the way. If you look at what happened in Amsterdam, where violent israeli hooligans incited a riot, and the initial response by the dutch government was to solely blame antisemitic actions for the violence, it was basically the same mechanism at work. The Netherlands as a progressive democratic country with a shared history of atrocities towards the Jews can’t afford to be seen as allowing antisemitic hunts in their cities. Netanyahu and the dutch far right used this reflex to their advantage and it nearly lead to the collapse of the dutch government. In hindsight it became clear what really happened that night and even Amsterdam’s mayor had to row back and say that her choice of the word “pogrom” was wrong and so on. She was making it pretty clear that she felt played. But the damage was already done and the net result was in favor of the israeli government and the european far right.
Anyway. I promised to address German state attitudes towards Gaza. While the aforementioned vow to protect Jewish life has absolute precedence over other matters (as explained) the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are very visible in Germany and they are also constantly being reported in all news media, including the state-funded public broadcasting services. For everyone to see. Every day. Basically without much comment apart from when some UN or US person says something critical about Israel. There is absolutely no-one condoning or even justifying the war crimes against Palestinians (there is some bothsideism concerning Hamas violence though), and the way most of this is presented without much comment really stands for itself. The same goes for humanitarian initiatives towards Gaza including UN projects. They exist and a lot of people are actively trying to help, this includes officials across the political spectrum. But of course they keep a low profile, because they simply have no other choice.
To wrap this up. Germany is trapped inbetween its responsibility to Jews due to its history and a new reality of bad-faith actors in Israel. The fear of being wrongfully denounced as antisemites and the fear of actual antisemitism gaining traction in the population lead to some very questionable decision making in German politics, and to a seemingly one-sided news coverage. However I’d argue in most cases not evil intentions are the reason, but good intentions gone wrong. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.