cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/44521474
Germany on the wrong side of history again.
Guess German is okay with Israelis invading neighbors
I think we should have killed more Nazis back when we had the chance.
Germany cancelling weapons to Israel only to start again when they escalate to TWO active extermination campaigns is very on brand for them
Why
On top of what was said already, i strongly recommend this podcast with the Jewish-German Journalist Emily Dische-Becker https://thedigradio.com/podcast/the-german-question-w-emily-dische-becker/
Here are some points of what she talks about extensively and much better than i could.
The fascists (AfD) have realized that they can push around the less fascist parties by being the most pro-Israel. This has lead to the infamous “BDS-resolution” in 2019 where anyone who suggests boycotting, divesting or sanctioning Israel to be called antisemitic and subsequently used to exclude people from culture and science. Ironically despite making less than 0.5% of the population, Jewish people have made up about 25-33% of the people cancelled over alleged antisemitism for being critical of Israel.
Also since about 10 years both the Nazis but also “middle class” conservatives/reactionaries have realized that they can use being pro-Israel and fighting antisemitism as pretense to hide their anti-Muslim, anti-brown racism and white supremacy.
Despite typical far right Nazis making up over 80% of the perpetrators of antisemitic crime, there is a whole debate of “imported antisemitism”, again blaming it on Arabs and other “brown” people.
So basically by claiming to have learned from history through staunchly and unquestioningly supporting Israel, Germans can tell to themselves that they aren’t white supremacists any longer, while happily aiding in the murder and repression of non white people and also they can life out their antisemitism by classifying Jews as “good”, when being aligned with the official German line and Israel and “bad” when being leftist and critical. Now they can persecute the “bad” Jews while claiming to do it in the name of fighting antisemitism.
This is especially useful for the “social democrats” SPD and “green” party. This way they claim to be still in their anti-bigotry tradition while embracing their inner nazis. Incidently over the passed years they have brought forth many policies that are socially and ecologically regressive, surpassing the former conservative CDU of Merkel on the right.
their grandparents displaced and tortured jews to death, so they feel indirectly responsible for jews settling in israel. they think if they don’t support them with weapons, israel will be destroyed by neighbouring states. that may be true, but israel is also completely unhinged at the moment. German politicians are very confused about it but don’t dare stop any support because of their past
