Germany’s leading Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the opposition Christian Democratic Party (CDU) have ordered high schools in Berlin’s borough of Neukolln to distribute brochures titled The Myth of Israel #1948.
The brochure states there are five “myths” around the creation of the state of Israel, which are subsequently refuted in short essays by various authors.
In the first section, debunking myth #1, that Jews and Arabs lived together in peace before Israel was founded, Israel’s pre-state militia, the Haganah, responsible for the destruction of 531 Palestinian villages and the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians between December 1947 and the summer of 1948, is promoted as a merely “defensive” Jewish resistance movement.
“Myth #5: Israel is to blame for the Nakba”, includes a text by researcher Shany Mor titled “the UN is distorting the meaning of the Nakba: its view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely one-sided”.
In the text, Mor states that “displacement during war - then and now - was nothing unusual”.
He also labels the UN’s attention to the Palestinian cause “obsessive” and the Arab defeat of 1948 a myth.
I’m as appalled as anyone here, but as someone who speaks German, follows German media and worked in Germany for several years, please stop with the misinformed “Germany supporting genocide again, I guess they never change hurr durr” bullshit.
Germans know their history and every kid is taught a deep shame of what past Germans had done. They feel they owe an infinitely large debt to all Jews for the horrors of the holocaust. They all still feel responsible.
There are laws against antisemitism. Again, this is reasonable for a country with this history. They don’t want any of this to come back, or to make a joke or justification of what happened. Joke about Nazis in public and you’ll find yourself in trouble immediately.
About the current events in Gaza. German media and politicians interpret criticism of Israel as coming from antisemitism, even if the criticism itself may be justified. They may not hear your arguments at all, if they think you’re just saying these things because of some secret antisemitic agenda. It’s not that there isn’t any criticism, but there is very little and it’s always surrounded with a lot of “I’m not antisemitic” qualifiers. You can say something about the Israeli government, but not about the existence of Israel itself. You can call the killing in Gaza terrible tragedy, but never a genocide. Public protest doesn’t do that kind of nuance, so it’s regarded as highly suspect. The chant “from the river to the sea” is tainted, so you can’t say it at all, regardless of intent, interpretation of its meaning, they will flat out stop you. In this sense, dialog is certainly difficult. Once you cross the line, they will dismiss anything after that as the ramblings of just another antisemite. It’s not possible to have the difficult conversations at all.
I’m not saying I agree with any of this, but this is how German society at large sees it. For me personally, zionism and Israel are harmful remnants of colonialist thinking that have no place in this century. Germany needs to grow up when it comes to their stance on Israel. Israel can’t keep oppressing Arabs the way they have. Peace can only come from trying to restore justice and that means equal rights for non-Jews, return of land, right to return of refugees, economic aid, etcetera.
Germany should look at South Africa, Northern Ireland and to their own German Unification as examples from history to follow, and admit their holocaust trauma is distorting their view of the current situation.
I mean you have a point and I agree with most of what you’re saying, but we’re sending weapons and providing rhetorical cover for the Israeli government. E.g. by the police violently interrupting protests, or worse insisting that the claims of genocide are baseless and going as far as announcing to intervene on Israel’s behalf in the ICJ.
Palestinians are being killed by German-delivered ammunition all while Germany is defending Israel in the ICJ. This is clearly supporting the ongoing genocide
I know, it’s fucked up. I just want to comment on these braindead “Nazis gonna Nazi, amirite?” comedians littering every thread about Germany and Israel right now
The reality is that people are really disappointed in Germany for once again supporting Genocide.
Especially with Gaza being a literal concentration camp entrapping two million people, the similarities become rather hard to ignore.
It’s a low blow but factually the Nazis are Nazi’ing again pretty hard.
Nobody is personally holding you responsible, but I hope you can put pressure on your government to stop their complicity in this Genocide.
Hey you’re getting downvoted pretty hard in this thread but just want to say I think you’re right. Having a nuanced opinion is tough on social media. (I already see one commenter calling you a Nazi as a result)
The whole idea that this is happening because Germans just love genocide so much is just beyond ridiculous.
As a german citizen, I do not fully agree with you. Of course, some people behave the way you described because of the reasons you provided, although I find their reasons mostly stupid since they are so inconsistent: why are other genocides more acceptable than others? Why did Germany only recognize the namibian genocide in 2021? Why doesn’t Germany extend the same amount of care, empathy, and concern to LGBTQ people, sinti/roma, and other victims of the holocaust?
On the other hand, there is a growing number of relatively prominent German politicians that have made nazi remarks in semi-public spaces or behind closed doors, or have been uncovered to have a deeply troubling neonazi past, yet they still get invited everywhere and do not see the level of state repression (through the cutting of funds for example) or police violence that pro palestine activists see. Somehow the first point doesn’t seem to fully extend and clamp down on these people.
The entire thing seems to have been taught in Germany as a lesson about one specific race shouldn’t have done what they did to another, specific, race, rather than as the Humanitarian Principle that people, any people, independently of race or creed shouldn’t be oppressed and killed for their etnicity-
So the framework of cold. calous, violent Racism was preserved but in the German mind a specific race - Jewish People - was moved from the list of “inferior races” to the list of “superior races like us”.
(It’s funny how your description of it, heavilly ladden with racial terms, is a wonderful display of just how the “regret” about that country’s own extreme racist violence fully preserves the entire racist mindset of classifying people as members of races and credos and then judging them and treating them differently because of such races and credos, hency why your description of such learnings is all about a specific race, with no reference whatsoever to individuals or humanitarian principles)
Had the lesson been learned along Humanitarian lines, Germany would not unwaveringly support the “Jewish Nation” as they call it as it over the years became ever more Fascist and violent, cultimating in what very overtly is Genocide with openly racist tones (the “human animals” statement by members of the Israeli Governments says it all) because the etnicity of the majority in a nation is entirelly irrelevant for non-racists when judging that nation on its actions, as is the etnicity of its victims: the actions speak for themselves and for a humanitarian, rather than a racist, the race of those involved neither improves nor worsens the judgment of those actions.
That all this has and is being pushed into the minds of the common German using “old-style” propaganda which is even aimed, as we see here, to children, is a pretty worrisome indication that this is more than “mere” racism in Germany and that Fascism never really left the mindset of that country’s power elites and that its ways are still seen as the right way of doing things, both towards the German Population by deploying the kind of Propaganda techniques that Goebbels was so fond of and towards the “enemies of our friends” by continuing to provide “unwavering” support to a Fascist nation currently engaged in the most violent murderous genocide along racial lines since the Nazis.
Germany is supporting Genocide dude.
You should learn a thing or two about your History. You clearly didn’t pay attention in school.
Never again means never again for anyone.
I’ve concluded that Germans were taught “never again” as a very specific “Germans” vs “Jews” thing rather than the Humanist “never again shall people be murder en masse because of their etnicity” that does not include any specifics about the etnicity or credo of the perpetrators or the victims.
Certainly, that would be very consistent with not just the current behaviour of German politicians when it comes to Israel’s Genocide but also how the past events which Germans regret are invariably framed and talked about in race terms, i.e. “Germans” and “Jews”, even to the point of excluding other etnicities that the Germans also targetted and murdered in large numbers during WWII such as the Roma.
If one doesn’t destroy the racist framework of thinking of people as members of a race first, one is still a racist (even if some races one before though of as “lesser”, one now thinks of as “like us”), because one is still running around judging and acting based on prejudices about entire races and credos when dealing with human beings - not treating them as persons but rather treating them as members of groups they were born into.
This right here is what I’m talking about. We all know the history, thank you very much. Germany’s stance comes from extreme loyalty to Jews to make up for past crimes, not from a desire to genocide Gazans. I can’t say it any more plainly. These jokes and remarks about “Germans always be genociding” are insulting and incorrect.
And you don’t have to explain to me how Israel is absolutely in the wrong in this conflict, my friend. Israel is committing (and has been committing) genocide and I condemn that to the fullest. Not only should there be a ceasefire, there should be an end to the occupation
Germany was a big fan of expulsing all the Jews to another country. This has nothing to do with wanting to protect them.
In fact the opposite is true. Getting all the Jews to voluntarily migrate completely falls in line with Nazi ideology.
The Madagascar Plan was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, proposed the idea in June 1940
Germany has a massive Nazi party in the AfD right now. So the actual protection of Jews does not seem like a German priority.
