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Conflict in the Middle East
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40
Newbutoldfather · 08/11/2023 17:48

This video by a German politician is a staunch defence of Israel’s right to defend itself and why Muslims should not be backing Hamas or excusing them.

It is 10 minutes of subtitled German but well worth the effort.

It strongly backs Israel but is nuanced, criticising Israel’s policies in several areas.

Robert Habeck on Israel and Antisemitism

It's almost four weeks since the horrific terrorist attack on #Israel. A lot has happened, the public debate has become heated and confused. Find thoughts fr...

https://youtu.be/MdZvkkpJaVI?si=R4-21eSKnskR_-nL

LittleMsTellTheTruth · 08/11/2023 17:57

@Newbutoldfather
Does he address islamaphobia and anti muslim/arab/Palestine views and how to prevent rising hate crimes towards these groups?
Does he talk about horrors that are happening in Gaza and West Bank?

Newbutoldfather · 08/11/2023 18:00

@LittleMsTellTheTruth ,

The idea of the link is to watch it, not for me to summarise it to you! Then, after listening, you can critique it.

It is a German Green Party politician, not a natural ally of Israel some might think.

Or, if you don’t want to listen to it, you can just ignore.

Namesbeenchanged · 08/11/2023 18:01

LittleMsTellTheTruth · 08/11/2023 17:57

@Newbutoldfather
Does he address islamaphobia and anti muslim/arab/Palestine views and how to prevent rising hate crimes towards these groups?
Does he talk about horrors that are happening in Gaza and West Bank?

Maybe have a watch and decide?

Ohlalalalala · 08/11/2023 18:50

Written by an "embedded" journalist 😅
"We were a propaganda arm of our governments. At the start the censors enforced that, but by the end we were our own censors. We were cheerleaders."
— Charles Lynch

OP posts:
Ecdysiast · 08/11/2023 19:49

Newbutoldfather · 08/11/2023 18:00

@LittleMsTellTheTruth ,

The idea of the link is to watch it, not for me to summarise it to you! Then, after listening, you can critique it.

It is a German Green Party politician, not a natural ally of Israel some might think.

Or, if you don’t want to listen to it, you can just ignore.

@LittleMsTellTheTruth I watched all of it so you don't have to. He is a bit convoluted, but here are his main points:
-anti-Semitism is wrong and should not be tolerated.
-Germany is a great ally of Israel and has an obligation to support it because of the Holocaust.
-Many Jews that he has spoken to in Germany are fearful.
-The protests against Israel's actions in Gaza are 'Islamist demonstrations" and must be stopped. Anyone who does anything illegal at protests should have their residency permits taken away (implying that all demonstrators are foreigners).
-The Muslim community in Germany is largely to blame for anti-Semitism in Germany because the right-wing nationalists are 'holding back' for tactical reasons, since they prefer to agitate Muslims.
-The political left in Germany should not take the view that there are 2 sides in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. They should side with Israel.
-He talks about the terrible humanitarian situation of the Palestinians (without even mentioning how many have been killed by Israel) but blames everything on Hamas.

That was 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

EsmaCannonball · 08/11/2023 19:51

I've just seen the footage on Channel 4 News of the Palestinians in Gaza moving south under the gaze of IDF soldiers. It was uncomfortable to watch. But then I thought, if they were Israeli civilians being displaced, Hamas wouldn't be watching them, they would be slaughtering them.

LittleMsTellTheTruth · 08/11/2023 19:57

Thank you @Ecdysiast , I had a feeling it was going to be very one-sided and bad.
I can see why the poster didn’t want to answer.
Sorry that you had to waste the time, but I appreciate the summary.

Ecdysiast · 08/11/2023 20:02

EsmaCannonball · 08/11/2023 19:51

I've just seen the footage on Channel 4 News of the Palestinians in Gaza moving south under the gaze of IDF soldiers. It was uncomfortable to watch. But then I thought, if they were Israeli civilians being displaced, Hamas wouldn't be watching them, they would be slaughtering them.

@EsmaCannonball I think the guys in the video would happily slaughter them:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzUFpCiNAMj/
Anyway, the operation is not over, they might still get slaughtered.

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzUFpCiNAMj

MissyB1 · 08/11/2023 20:03

EsmaCannonball · 08/11/2023 19:51

I've just seen the footage on Channel 4 News of the Palestinians in Gaza moving south under the gaze of IDF soldiers. It was uncomfortable to watch. But then I thought, if they were Israeli civilians being displaced, Hamas wouldn't be watching them, they would be slaughtering them.

What you were watching was ethnic cleansing, it made me furious.

Parkingt111 · 08/11/2023 20:05

MissyB1 · 08/11/2023 20:03

What you were watching was ethnic cleansing, it made me furious.

Exactly. Thank you
It was very painful to see

HeidiInTheBigCity · 08/11/2023 20:14

Newbutoldfather · 08/11/2023 18:00

@LittleMsTellTheTruth ,

The idea of the link is to watch it, not for me to summarise it to you! Then, after listening, you can critique it.

It is a German Green Party politician, not a natural ally of Israel some might think.

Or, if you don’t want to listen to it, you can just ignore.

Germany is complicated in this way, to be fair ... "Greens are not a natural Israel ally" does NOT quite do this justice ... and I am saying this as someone who, for professional reasons, works with a lot of Germans (and also has had a lot of, sometimes heated, discussions with them over politics ... I also speak really fluent German).

Okay, this might get long-ish - propbably a short essay - and also: complicated. And, by necessity: incomplete and not doing full justice to all aspects of it - but it needs explaining:

First things first: you need to understand what happened to Germany after WWII. Which, and please note that I am absolutely and grossly over-simplifying here, is basically "not that much at all", also "everything". Germany was split in half, basically divided by Western and Soviet occupying powers, after WWII. And while each side did its own bit of "reckoning", each in its own ideologically acceptable manner, the real debate about "but we were the Nazis" - having begin in roughly around the 70s but not having gained major traction while the cold war was still going on - really only happened after German re-unification in the 90s. At which point, it sort of did in earnest and became a major thing. Germans have words such as "Tätergesellschaft" (perpetrator society) and "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (coming to terms with [but also: conquering] the past), etc. In a nutshell, you could say that modern German identity has somehow a) embraced and b) rejected the Holocaust all at the same time - in the sense that some sort of "atonement" but also a "we are the exact opposite of that" has become a major theme!

You could arguably say that the culmination of this would have been the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel, giving a speech in the Knesset [Israeli parliament], declaring the security and existence of Israel to be an integral part of the German "Staatsräson" (roughly: purpose / reason why this state should exist / mission).

In this sense, anti-antisemitism can be viewed as a fundamental pillar of contemporary German national identity. But it is a partcicular kind of anti-antisemitism, that is, arguably, less grounded in personal conviction and more in an identity as "our grandparents or great-grandparents were perpetrators, and we atone for their sins". You could say that, in this sense, this is a very specifically Christian take on things (even though Germany is largely secular).

All good, until: enter immigrants! Apart from a huge number of people of Turkish origin, Germany is also home to the largest Palestinian diaspora community in Europe. As well as a variety of other Arab (and further majority Muslim) minorities. And many of them are refugees - either in the formal sense of "fled, obtained asylum" or in a more informal one of "emigrated by more conventional means, still getting away from something bad". Here is the problem: their grandparents and great-grandparents did NOT commit the Holocaust! The questions they ask when taught about it in "integration classes" tend to be more "could this happen to us, too?" and less "could we do this, too?". And by failing to adopt this identity of "Tätergesellschaft" - because, again, their ancestors did not run gas chambers - they are also failing to fully adopt a modern German identity. They therefore remain a "them", an "other". Because they lack the ultimate evil to atone for, they can never quite become the "but we are good now". The "redemption arch" that contemporary German identity is based on remains closed to them ...

... which, yeah, fine, we could all just file under "have fun, sociologists, sounds interesting and whatnot", if it were not for ...

a) Modern Germany having a far-right and a racism problem, and
b) the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

You see, Germany has a far-right problem on par with that of the rest of Europe (thing LePen, Orban, Meloni, ... you name it!). Their is called the AfD, and they, literally, include some bona-fide real actual neonazis (you know the "Hitler was a good guy, he just took things a little far" kind). They also have "even further than that" parties - as do we all - but those have mostly been muffled with the AfD becoming the 2nd strongest party in the country.

But because performative "anti-antisemitism" has become such a non-brainer in German identity even the "just about publicly defensible" part of the far right is of course also against anti-antisemitism. At least on paper. In practice, what they tend to really mean is "so long as them Jews stay in that Israel and - even better! - fight even browner foreigners, we can sort of pretend we like them". And, yes, I am deliberately using quite cynical language - because the whole thing is quite cynical!

So, therefore, you will find really far-right Germans - and, under the pressure they put on the mainstream: actually not at all far-right ones, such as the Greens, and the Social Democrats, caving in on topics that are just not that bad in terms of losing votes - now basically "outsourcing" the issue of anti-semitism to people who fail to successfully feel guilty for the sins of their forefathers - because, again: well, their gradparents really actually DID NOT do the Holocaust. And they hence find it hard to identify with the entire "we used to be the really bad guys - but we have atoned, and now we are really good" thing. The fact that - as I stated above - the whole narrative is super "Christian" and these people are by and large not, makes this even harder for them to grasp!

Hence: enter contemporary Germany! The country that committed the Shoa. Where even far-right natives are anti-antisemitism and even the left condemns how immigrants just do not commit to the "anti-antisemitic" identity the way ethnic Germans do ...

... and this ends up, ironically, really stinking of racism!

Muslims (says Habeck, in the video quoted) might - by default - be anti-semitic. Unless they specifically say otherwise! Arabs (said president Steinmeier today, demanding all Arabs explicitly distance themselves from anti-semitism and Hamas) might be - by default - anti-semitic, unless they explicitly say otherwise!

There is just one small problem: putting an entire group of people under suspicion of - for no other reason than their religion or ethnicity - being anti-semitic, whilst this obviously does not apply to yourself and people like yourself. Even worse when you happen to be projecting your own guilt onto people who ... have no reason to carry it ...

... that is actually really fucking racist!

In the meantime, the Deputy Minister President of Bavaria, the largest of the German states, is one Hubert Aiwanger - who has an openly anti-semitic, possibly even outright pro-Nazi (depends on where you draw the line) past. That caused a bit of a stir - but he still has the job! Nobody threatens him with deportation or withdrawal of citizenship. Because he is an ethnic German and ... well ... that is obviously altogether different than all those non-natives who ask the wrong questions at Holocaust education class.

... and that, long story short, is why I really do not think "but some German politician said" is a particularly good basis for anything antisemitism related!

For the record: I vehemently oppose antisemitism! I just also vehemently oppose it being instrumentalised in order to bash immigrants - and that is what is happening in Germany right now! It is very, very worrying!

Ohlalalalala · 08/11/2023 21:14

Ecdysiast · 08/11/2023 19:49

@LittleMsTellTheTruth I watched all of it so you don't have to. He is a bit convoluted, but here are his main points:
-anti-Semitism is wrong and should not be tolerated.
-Germany is a great ally of Israel and has an obligation to support it because of the Holocaust.
-Many Jews that he has spoken to in Germany are fearful.
-The protests against Israel's actions in Gaza are 'Islamist demonstrations" and must be stopped. Anyone who does anything illegal at protests should have their residency permits taken away (implying that all demonstrators are foreigners).
-The Muslim community in Germany is largely to blame for anti-Semitism in Germany because the right-wing nationalists are 'holding back' for tactical reasons, since they prefer to agitate Muslims.
-The political left in Germany should not take the view that there are 2 sides in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. They should side with Israel.
-He talks about the terrible humanitarian situation of the Palestinians (without even mentioning how many have been killed by Israel) but blames everything on Hamas.

That was 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Thank you for the summary. I feel sorry that you wasted 10mnts of your life on such nonsense.

OP posts:
MrTiddlesTheCat · 08/11/2023 21:40

People interested in what the German Vice Chancellor said should watch it themselves. The 'summary' up thread is from a disingenuous poster with an agenda and is a complete misrepresentation of what was actually said.

For example, the 'summary' said, 'Anyone who does anything illegal at protests should have their residency permits taken away (implying that all demonstrators are foreigners)'

Whereas what he actually said was that burning Israeli flags and praising Hamas terror is a criminal act in Germany. That any German citizen who does this will face the full force of the law, and those who are not citizens also risk their residency status. So absolutely no implication that all demonstrators are foreigners.

Ohlalalalala · 08/11/2023 21:46

HeidiInTheBigCity · 08/11/2023 20:14

Germany is complicated in this way, to be fair ... "Greens are not a natural Israel ally" does NOT quite do this justice ... and I am saying this as someone who, for professional reasons, works with a lot of Germans (and also has had a lot of, sometimes heated, discussions with them over politics ... I also speak really fluent German).

Okay, this might get long-ish - propbably a short essay - and also: complicated. And, by necessity: incomplete and not doing full justice to all aspects of it - but it needs explaining:

First things first: you need to understand what happened to Germany after WWII. Which, and please note that I am absolutely and grossly over-simplifying here, is basically "not that much at all", also "everything". Germany was split in half, basically divided by Western and Soviet occupying powers, after WWII. And while each side did its own bit of "reckoning", each in its own ideologically acceptable manner, the real debate about "but we were the Nazis" - having begin in roughly around the 70s but not having gained major traction while the cold war was still going on - really only happened after German re-unification in the 90s. At which point, it sort of did in earnest and became a major thing. Germans have words such as "Tätergesellschaft" (perpetrator society) and "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (coming to terms with [but also: conquering] the past), etc. In a nutshell, you could say that modern German identity has somehow a) embraced and b) rejected the Holocaust all at the same time - in the sense that some sort of "atonement" but also a "we are the exact opposite of that" has become a major theme!

You could arguably say that the culmination of this would have been the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel, giving a speech in the Knesset [Israeli parliament], declaring the security and existence of Israel to be an integral part of the German "Staatsräson" (roughly: purpose / reason why this state should exist / mission).

In this sense, anti-antisemitism can be viewed as a fundamental pillar of contemporary German national identity. But it is a partcicular kind of anti-antisemitism, that is, arguably, less grounded in personal conviction and more in an identity as "our grandparents or great-grandparents were perpetrators, and we atone for their sins". You could say that, in this sense, this is a very specifically Christian take on things (even though Germany is largely secular).

All good, until: enter immigrants! Apart from a huge number of people of Turkish origin, Germany is also home to the largest Palestinian diaspora community in Europe. As well as a variety of other Arab (and further majority Muslim) minorities. And many of them are refugees - either in the formal sense of "fled, obtained asylum" or in a more informal one of "emigrated by more conventional means, still getting away from something bad". Here is the problem: their grandparents and great-grandparents did NOT commit the Holocaust! The questions they ask when taught about it in "integration classes" tend to be more "could this happen to us, too?" and less "could we do this, too?". And by failing to adopt this identity of "Tätergesellschaft" - because, again, their ancestors did not run gas chambers - they are also failing to fully adopt a modern German identity. They therefore remain a "them", an "other". Because they lack the ultimate evil to atone for, they can never quite become the "but we are good now". The "redemption arch" that contemporary German identity is based on remains closed to them ...

... which, yeah, fine, we could all just file under "have fun, sociologists, sounds interesting and whatnot", if it were not for ...

a) Modern Germany having a far-right and a racism problem, and
b) the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

You see, Germany has a far-right problem on par with that of the rest of Europe (thing LePen, Orban, Meloni, ... you name it!). Their is called the AfD, and they, literally, include some bona-fide real actual neonazis (you know the "Hitler was a good guy, he just took things a little far" kind). They also have "even further than that" parties - as do we all - but those have mostly been muffled with the AfD becoming the 2nd strongest party in the country.

But because performative "anti-antisemitism" has become such a non-brainer in German identity even the "just about publicly defensible" part of the far right is of course also against anti-antisemitism. At least on paper. In practice, what they tend to really mean is "so long as them Jews stay in that Israel and - even better! - fight even browner foreigners, we can sort of pretend we like them". And, yes, I am deliberately using quite cynical language - because the whole thing is quite cynical!

So, therefore, you will find really far-right Germans - and, under the pressure they put on the mainstream: actually not at all far-right ones, such as the Greens, and the Social Democrats, caving in on topics that are just not that bad in terms of losing votes - now basically "outsourcing" the issue of anti-semitism to people who fail to successfully feel guilty for the sins of their forefathers - because, again: well, their gradparents really actually DID NOT do the Holocaust. And they hence find it hard to identify with the entire "we used to be the really bad guys - but we have atoned, and now we are really good" thing. The fact that - as I stated above - the whole narrative is super "Christian" and these people are by and large not, makes this even harder for them to grasp!

Hence: enter contemporary Germany! The country that committed the Shoa. Where even far-right natives are anti-antisemitism and even the left condemns how immigrants just do not commit to the "anti-antisemitic" identity the way ethnic Germans do ...

... and this ends up, ironically, really stinking of racism!

Muslims (says Habeck, in the video quoted) might - by default - be anti-semitic. Unless they specifically say otherwise! Arabs (said president Steinmeier today, demanding all Arabs explicitly distance themselves from anti-semitism and Hamas) might be - by default - anti-semitic, unless they explicitly say otherwise!

There is just one small problem: putting an entire group of people under suspicion of - for no other reason than their religion or ethnicity - being anti-semitic, whilst this obviously does not apply to yourself and people like yourself. Even worse when you happen to be projecting your own guilt onto people who ... have no reason to carry it ...

... that is actually really fucking racist!

In the meantime, the Deputy Minister President of Bavaria, the largest of the German states, is one Hubert Aiwanger - who has an openly anti-semitic, possibly even outright pro-Nazi (depends on where you draw the line) past. That caused a bit of a stir - but he still has the job! Nobody threatens him with deportation or withdrawal of citizenship. Because he is an ethnic German and ... well ... that is obviously altogether different than all those non-natives who ask the wrong questions at Holocaust education class.

... and that, long story short, is why I really do not think "but some German politician said" is a particularly good basis for anything antisemitism related!

For the record: I vehemently oppose antisemitism! I just also vehemently oppose it being instrumentalised in order to bash immigrants - and that is what is happening in Germany right now! It is very, very worrying!

@HeidiInTheBigCity thank you so much for your very informative post. I agree completely and especially when you said "Even worse when you happen to be projecting your own guilt onto people who ... have no reason to carry it ...".
This sentence sums up so well the situation. Germans, with their guilty conscience, are so ashamed of, and feel so guilty about what their forefathers did that they are running the risk of substituting the antisemitism of the 20th century with racism and islamophobia.

OP posts:
Ecdysiast · 08/11/2023 21:53

@HeidiInTheBigCity
Thanks for contextualising that - very interesting.
I agree that your comment about the view of some in Germany's far right that "so long as them Jews stay in that Israel and - even better! - fight even browner foreigners, we can sort of pretend we like them" is cynical, but I think it touches on an important point that never gets much mention: I've always found the fact that the West responded to the Holocaust by actively supporting the movement of Jews away from Europe to be quite cynical - like "It's terrible what happened to you, we are totally on your side, why don't you go live over there (not with us over here)". Instead of saying, "we value you - stay and remain part of the fabric of our society".
I think there was a similar movement (that never got much traction) in the US after the abolition of slavery. A lot of well-meaning white people who had actively opposed slavery had the bright idea of encouraging the newly-freed slaves to emigrate to Africa where they could 'enlighten' the continent with all the knowledge they had acquired in the New World. I think that movement is generally looked upon today as having been extremely racist!

HeidiInTheBigCity · 08/11/2023 22:01

Ecdysiast · 08/11/2023 21:53

@HeidiInTheBigCity
Thanks for contextualising that - very interesting.
I agree that your comment about the view of some in Germany's far right that "so long as them Jews stay in that Israel and - even better! - fight even browner foreigners, we can sort of pretend we like them" is cynical, but I think it touches on an important point that never gets much mention: I've always found the fact that the West responded to the Holocaust by actively supporting the movement of Jews away from Europe to be quite cynical - like "It's terrible what happened to you, we are totally on your side, why don't you go live over there (not with us over here)". Instead of saying, "we value you - stay and remain part of the fabric of our society".
I think there was a similar movement (that never got much traction) in the US after the abolition of slavery. A lot of well-meaning white people who had actively opposed slavery had the bright idea of encouraging the newly-freed slaves to emigrate to Africa where they could 'enlighten' the continent with all the knowledge they had acquired in the New World. I think that movement is generally looked upon today as having been extremely racist!

I had no idea such a thing even existed ... but, yes, possibly interesting!

Newbutoldfather · 09/11/2023 07:34

I don’t think Europeans supporting Israel post WW2 was cynical. The Jews had a long history of being ‘welcomed among us’, swiftly followed by being driven out by pogroms. They desperately wanted somewhere they could feel safe forever.

My grandfather emigrated to Kenya in the early 20th century to escape a pogrom in what used to be called White Russia (now Belarus), having been promised a temporary British homeland there under the ‘Uganda Program’.

The nuances of German politics are interesting and I was certainly unaware of them. However, for me, it does not dilute the power of the message that I linked to earlier.

This current upheaval, brutal though it is, is actually a great opportunity to form a long term settlement beneficial to all sides. Firstly, Hamas won’t exist (at least as a military force). That will remove a huge stumbling block. Secondly, Israel has the eyes of the world upon it in terms of a post conflict resolution. They won’t be able to permanently take territory or occupy Gaza for more than a very short period of time.

I still believe that, with international pressure, wiser voices in Israel will prevail and we will move towards a longer term two state solution, along the lines of what the U.S has demanded of Israel.

Auvergne63 · 09/11/2023 16:12

Itsaharddlife · 07/11/2023 20:42

Everyday I think to myself that I won't read anything about the situation today. I can't sleep at night, seeing videos of children screaming in pain, small feet trapped beneath rubble, families crying, holding limp broken bodies of small children.
Yet I can't avoid reading daily as my thoughts are consumed with their suffering. I feel so helpless, like I'm sure so many others do on here too. Yet I still see so many on this forum justifying this, or casually acknowledging the sadness of it but then claim "israel has the right to defend it self". How do these people sleep at night

I feel the same. I find it so difficult to understand how some can happily support what is happening in Gaza. I have no words.

Auvergne63 · 09/11/2023 16:17

EsmaCannonball · 08/11/2023 19:51

I've just seen the footage on Channel 4 News of the Palestinians in Gaza moving south under the gaze of IDF soldiers. It was uncomfortable to watch. But then I thought, if they were Israeli civilians being displaced, Hamas wouldn't be watching them, they would be slaughtering them.

Don't worry, the IDF will be doing the same as Hamas as soon as the cameras are gone!

Parkingt111 · 09/11/2023 16:20

Biden can quite frankly go to hell
All this time he was the one saying he doesn't believe Hamas figures and today he does a total U TURN Saying its likely to be HIGHER than 10 thousand
What the hell is wrong with that man
I don't understand why he didn't just say in the first place
It wad so obvious that thousands had been killed

Number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza over 10,000 😡
Parkingt111 · 09/11/2023 16:21

That's why I say
All these people who think biden is a friend of Israel, he really is not
He's realised that this might cause him to lose his seat and he is slowly changing his narrative

Parkingt111 · 09/11/2023 16:23

What bloody game is he playing??? I don't swear but I am so mad
He's literally saying today the total opposite of what he said a few days ago
First he said he doubts the figures are that high
And now he is saying they are actually higher than what Hamas has said
I really can't understand it
Anybody who knows American politics better please explain what is going on??

OuiOuiKitty · 09/11/2023 16:37

Parkingt111 · 09/11/2023 16:23

What bloody game is he playing??? I don't swear but I am so mad
He's literally saying today the total opposite of what he said a few days ago
First he said he doubts the figures are that high
And now he is saying they are actually higher than what Hamas has said
I really can't understand it
Anybody who knows American politics better please explain what is going on??

I read yesterday that he is losing Gen Zs and Millenials. The US was traditionally very strongly pro Israel, I don't think he predicted the strength of feeling from the younger generations who are watching an attempted genocide play out on their phones and are angry knowing that they are funding it. He will never not back Israel, they've put too much into their investment there not to but I think he is trying to placate people or maybe not antagonise them too much.

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