154
‘Free speech is a facade’: how Gaza war has deepened divisions in German arts world
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
154 points (88.1% liked)
Europe
8484 readers
1 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out [email protected]
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Crime against jewish people is on the rise in Germany, as are neonazis. Hate crimes against jews were also rising before the Gaza war, by the way.
If Germany didn't try to protect jewish people it would mean they learnt nothing from the past.
The chancellor has said the safety and security of Israel is Germany's raison d'êtat.
Before I get downvoted to hell by Gaza sympathisers, let me add that Israel is currently committing massive war crimes against the Palestinian people and those responsible must be tried and punished in an international court of law.
All of these things can be true at the same time:
a) Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity
b) Hamas has committed crimes against humanity
c) Israel has a right to existence and to security
d) Palestine has a right to existence and to security
I don't get how some people feel they have to pick only two out of these four.
They're not protecting 'Jewish people'. They're protecting Israel. There's a massive difference.
They're protecting Israel by persecuting hate crimes committed inside of Germany?
They're not persecuting hate crines. That's the entire point of the article. They're withdrawing funding and bringing legal charges against people who accurately describe the situation in Gaza as a genocide committed by a racist settler colonial state.
By calling every war crime genocide you are removing the meaning from the word. What Israel is doing with mass civilian bombardment is terrible, but not genocide. Read about what happened to the Armenians, the Hutu, and the Jews for comparison. Another point to consider: the USA killed 20% of the Korean population through bombardment in the Korean war, and even that isn't considered a genocide.
They do both and there's a lot of overlap between those. Israel was founded and untortunately continues to be needed as a save haven for a group that is persecuted in a lot of places in the world.
Oh yeah, tell that to Assyrians from Nineveh plain. Or even NK Armenians.
Sober up a bit, this piece of text doesn't make any sense.
Eh, why the hell not? They'll just redefine who's a Jew, and will throw down the well those who don't fit.
That central rabbinate of theirs can already decide that for proselytes and even people who've been with some other religion. Cause that's used in Israel's right of return laws, and they don't want Christians of Jewish ancestry getting citizenship, for example.
It's actually interesting how that state decided to implement some kind of judenrat to manage centrally things which in Judaism are not supposed to be managed centrally.
For centuries, the Jews in the Middle East had lived in peace with their Muslim, Christian, Druze or Yazidi neighbors.
Many of them had sought refuge in that region many generations earlier at the invitation of Turkish and Arab rulers after being brutally expelled from the Iberian peninsula by Christians.
But strangely, as soon as a small minority of European Jews with typical European arrogance, ignorance and zero respect for the local culture began to present themselves as the only legitimate representatives of worldwide Jewry and to expel (almost) all Arabs (except the Jewish ones) from Palestine with brutal violence, tensions arose between the resident Jews and the non-Jewish majority society in the neighboring Arab states.
Who could have guessed something like this? BOO! Ugh! Evil, barbaric, backward, anti-Semitic Arabs!
But simultaneously it was a big relief for the Zionist government of early Israel. Even if it was only backward Arab Jews who came, second-choice Jews so to speak, they were urgently needed to get the new state up and running without Palestinians.
There simply weren't enough European Jews left to replace the attainted and expelled native Arabs. But remembering their own expulsion plus the corresponding brainwashing and birth rate, the Arab Jews actually became the spearhead of aggressive Zionism.
There are many peoples on earth who don't have their own state. Regardless of religion, however, no one would come up with the idea of supporting one of these peoples in its attempt to choose a country, expel the native people and establish its own state on their land.
The idea per se is only not totally ridiculous for those being stuck in the racist European ideology of the 18th or 19th century.
Apart from that, people have always persecuted, fought and massacred each other, completely independent of religion.
Zionists began immigrating to Palestine over 100 years ago. They did NOT do ANYTHING of what we rightly expect of immigrants today. That is to say, they did not adapt to the culture of the locals or at least learn the local language any more than other European immigrants to other countries in the world have ever done. The Europeans in general still do not do it up to this day, to be honest, we only demand it of those who want to immigrate to our countries.
Since 1967, Israel, as an occupying power, has been the government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in practice and under international law. This means that all the duties that a government has, you know, increasing the benefits and preventing harm, etc., are the duties of the State of Israel towards the people of the occupied territories.
In the 67 years since the Six-Day War, has Israel done anything to fulfill these duties? What did Israel do during this time to avert harm to the population of the occupied territories and, for example, to improve the prosperity, security, freedom, health care and educational opportunities of the people living there?
In fact, it was the changed awareness and the changed policy in those states where Jews had been particularly intensely persecuted that significantly improved the security of Jews worldwide after the Second World War. And it was (and is) the racist expansionist policy of the Zionists and the State of Israel that reduces this increase in security, both in the State of Israel and for Jews worldwide.
They failed massively on this part on last September. Not only did they ignore several countries warning then but they actively moved soldiers from protecting the border to Gaza to the Westbank to help in their illegal settler campaign. And even after being engaged in massive battles in Gaza they KEEP fucking things up in the Westbank, ensuring that the people there will continue to hate Israel. And that's by no means a new development but they have been doing so for decades.
So yeah, they are doing a really shitty job at protecting their people.
there is not a massive difference. jewish and israeli identity are intertwined. Many jewish people sought refuge in israel because they had nowhere else to go. European jews after WW2 or arab jews in the late 40s/50s who were expelled out of muslim countries, for example. And again, defending israel's right to exist is not the same as defending the israeli government or the war crimes the idf commits.
Not really. Israel is an ethnostate, they've declared it themselves. Genocide and oppression are guaranteed so long as it continues to be one.
No, they are not. But that is exactly what Israeli propaganda is trying to make you believe.
And because German politicians and media are cowards, they simply repeat Israeli propaganda when it comes to issues concerning the Jewish people or Israeli issues.
For this reason, the following Jews and Jewish organizations have probably never been invited to a German talk show or as experts on Jewish or Israeli issues:
Gideon Levy, Breaking the Silence, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Avi Shlaim, Max Blumenthal, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Simone Zimmerman, Jewish Currents, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JJP), IfNotNow, Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Never Again Action, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)
Watch them, read them.
I am convinced that this bias in German media is one of the main reasons for the increasing anti-Semitism in Germany.
When the only Jews you are shown are ardent supporters of an oppressive apartheid state that commits genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, and when that state presents itself as the core of Jewish identity, it is just too easy to conflate Jewish and Zionist and Israeli identities.
it is funny how you don't even react to anything I wrote and just say I am wrong and I believe in israeli propaganda.
Israel has no right to exist though. The existence of Israel is dependent on settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.
Before you say “if Israel has no right to exist then neither does the United States, Canada, Australia, etc.” then I have to agree.
This has no right to be true. First, a state does not have an intrinsic right to exist. A state is a social tool, crafted to help humans survive and thrive, in coexistence as how it came to be. If tools turn out to be primarily used for war and suffering, they are no longer tools for the betterment of humanity. You can argue Israel stealing more land is a betterment for their people, but the animosity caused during the process is eventually reflecting on the people benefiting from the betterment, both as outside perception and as shifting the thinking of the Israeli people about what is better for humanity, and it is not a good way to go forward.
The State of Israel is a malfunctioning machine that is spewing out more poison than it is manufacturing goodness. Malfunctioning machines need to be repaired, and if they can't be, disabled and discarded/recycled, not kept active and doing harm saying they have a right to exist.
If we reject the UN and international law, as you appear to be doing by denying Israel's right to exist as defined in the two state solution, we basically go back to the right of the strongest. Putin would agree with you.
A couple presumptions you make are the very causation for today's problems:
UN, which deep-seated inequality and over-representation ingrained to it right from its very beginning as giving substantial privileges to 5 WWII winner imperialist powers as permanent members with unconditional veto power, even on resolutions that question their validity, which they have been abusing for as long as the UN existed , as infallible authority.
The international law, which is used by the aforementioned powers to keep the status quo after they drew the borders and partitioned the world according to their greed, and still circumvent to further their agendas without facing repercussions, as infallible, just and fair compromise and authority.
Two-State solution with current borders implied. The original and rejected two-state solution that was forced upon Palestinian territories as peaceful division, that also meant to leave the Arabs with bleak desert and give all the shores and fertile lands to Jewish people, which also gave way to acceptance of way fairer division of land with populations and prosperity in consideration, ended in Zionist terrorists causing a contemporary (mainly cultural) genocide. Later attempt at two-state solution was prefaced with Zionist terrorists giving back the occupied land and agreeing to the fairer share of the land, which didn't happen. The idea behind recognizing both Palestine and Israel as states never came to fruition, mainly due to Israel wanting unfair share that would result in a de facto infeasible Palestinian statehood. Israel statehood's only fair foundation is bloodied by their own hands by forcing their statehood with stolen land, off-driven Arabic people, and cultural genocide. Hard to accept such poisonous machines as a useful tool.
One more thing: The strongest already ousted the previous strongest, demonized them and made them the only focus, all the while making the current rules to ensure their own prosperity. They are also making sure these rules continue to be obeyed by the less powerful by enforcing them with waepons of war and purpose-built indirect weapons like exploitative economic implementations.
Lastly, Putin has a lot of people like you that think harmful tools be kept harming people for the sake of keeping the tool/machine on. Putin also has his own circumventions of a just and fair, reason and rules based world order, and subsequently suck dick together with all the democratically-elected de facto western hegemons and the ancestral eastern tyrants.
Please don't put words into my mouth. I have never made any qualitative claims about the UN and international law.
Also, to put the word infallible and any political organisation into the same sentence is absurd, hardly warranting a response.
Original claim is "all of the below can be true: [...] c) Israel has a right to exist."
My counterpoint is a Israel is a state, states are tools, tools don't have a right to exist, and harmful tools shouldn't be kept working so they continue harming people.
Your counterpoint to mine is "If we reject the UN and international law by rejecting Israel's right to statehood, we go back to the rule of the strongest." by which the underlying implication is going backwards in human rights development and betterment of humanity.
Were you championing that we reject UN and international law, and go back to the rule of the strongest? Or were you just stating that UN and international law attached Israel an undeniable right to statehood? How do you make a connection with this to what I'm saying being possibly liked by Putin, without making any implications, then?
Please explain yourself.
Oh man, you're confused. Let's take it step by step.
The existence of a state is recognised theough the UN. UN rrcognises your state? It exists. Like France. It's not recognised? It doesn't exist, like Northern Cyprus, or South Ossetia. This is how international law works. We don't have to argue whether it is a good system - but we can certwinly agree that it is better than the previous one, where militarily strong states imposed their will upon their neighbours. Like Putin is trying and failing now, or like the British and Spanish empires did centuries ago. If it is "right of the strongest", we shall have wars.
If you reject the UN, you are arguing for war, because that is the only other option we have.
Get it now?
UN is a political entity as you have hinted before in your previous comment. A state existing can best be measured by its acceptance through the UN usually, but even then one of the 5 imperialist powers can veto a state's recognizance proposal on their whims, and this completely nullifies it as a dependable metric. It comes to the example "All animals are equal, but some are more equal." from Animal Farm without any complexity governing it at all. It just doesn't cause many wars currently, although it does not help ease the stressful atmosphere. And where it causes war and suffering due to some imperial power on the other side of the planet exerting undue and unfair power over the peaceful talks between the sides, it becomes hell on Earth.
It is not better than the previous system if the already powerful can exert influence and claim interest in a local conflict it is not anywhere nearly part of. The strong still strongarm land-grab and killing, without the borders on the map not changing to their own name, but their pawns'. Adding a subterfuge element to it does not make the lives of the victims of the exploited region any more better, just suffocates through removal of oxygen rather than outright stabbing. In the case of Palestine, openly turns it into a concentration camp.
If only the US didn't veto any remotely fair resolution, or failing that proposals for heavy military sanctions against Israel for its genocide, the world could easily have ended this conflict decades ago. US could keep aiding Israel with technology and supplies related to prosperity rather than for one-sided war. Israel could still be a major powerhouse if their sugar mommy wanted, without having to actively expand land and kill innocent babies all around.
How is simply asking for Israel's statehood to be questioned and scrutinized, in the light of its continued genocide and invasion throughout generations and leaders, is asking for war? No such nation has a right to exist!
The full assembly votes on such a matter, not the security council
Ok, now do Palestine
The State of Palestine hasn't been doing more harm than good, at least in a way that it isn't repaired or kept in check, like continuous genocide and land-grab, is it? You can argue it is run by terrorists and thus it is a malevolent tool, but nevertheless its harm is contained via use of other tools like anti-missile systems and proper border defense. I don't see anyone equipping Palestine with such defensive weapons, which they can use to defend lives and land against Israel while not having to resort to guerilla tactics that necessarily involve offensive strategies for defense.
I'm assuming your first thought at the next response would be the pedantic "But Israel produces its own defensive Iron Dome and nobody gives it to them. So should the decades-long oppressed and deliberately-impoverished Palestine do while under the most heavy bombardment since WWII !. That shows the difference between how civilized world and 3rd world savages deal with threats.".
They don't, but you are making it seem as if Israel's right to exist and security is not endangered much less than that of Gazans, and as if Hamas' crimes are in any way comparable.
That is, your are lying without actually saying a direct lie, which is a valid combination, really not unusual for Germans I might add.
You are putting words into my mouth in order to be able to disagree. Also, I'm not German. You might want try to keep the racist stereotyping in check.
Fair, that's naturally easier to do when the stereotype or the target is unusual.