To be fair to the Germans, I can understand how the Holocaust is integrated into them as a kind of “original sin”. What was done to the Jews under the Nazis was so unspeakable terrible, and German society as a whole has done an enormous job at ingraining in themselves that nothing of the sort should ever repeat itself.
The problem is that “nothing of the sort” has translated into “opposing Jews in any way”. It seems to me like Germany sees itself as bound to support Jews (and thereby the Jewish state Israel) no matter what in order to “atone for their sins”, and I can understand that. However, right now, Israel is suddenly the state committing the closest thing we’ve seen to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust. It’s very hard for Germany to oppose Israel without tickling a part of their history that they’ve done a laudable job at condemning.
What Germany needs now, is to separate their history from their current politics. I understand that it’s difficult, and I don’t have an answer to how it should be done, but it needs to happen, lest the same crimes are committed again.
To be fair to the Germans, I can understand how the Holocaust is integrated into them as a kind of “original sin”. What was done to the Jews under the Nazis was so unspeakable terrible, and German society as a whole has done an enormous job at ingraining in themselves that nothing of the sort should ever repeat itself.
The problem with Germany is that they learned the wrong lesson out of WW2.
Instead of learning “genocide is bad”, it’s “Jews are always on the right side of history”. And that’s why Germany is completely uncritically supporting Israel with everything that it does.
Israel is suddenly the state committing the closest thing we’ve seen to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust.
I don’t say this to excuse anything Israel is doing, but this is gross recency bias that is glossing over numerous genocides that have occurred since the Holocaust, including:
It’s laudable of you to bring attention to these other atrocities. Without creating a “race to the bottom” regarding what was worse, I still want to point out that the horror of the Holocaust was not only in the number of killed.
I’m aware of a couple of the atrocities you mentioned, but as far as I’m aware, they don’t carry the clinical state-sponsored efficiency that is a hallmark of the Holocaust. When I compare Gaza today to the holocaust, that’s what I’m comparing, rather than the number of killed. It’s about the way Isreal has decided to wipe out the population of Gaza, and systematically does so completely unhindered.
To be clear, aside from the part I quoted, I agreed with everything else in your post and thought it was an interesting take, but again I have to take issue with this:
as far as I’m aware, they don’t carry the clinical state-sponsored efficiency that is a hallmark of the Holocaust.
I’m not going to analyze every single atrocity since 1945, but the Cambodian genocide was certainly state-sponsored, efficient, and horrific:
“20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21, one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated,[4][28] and only seven adults survived.[29]”
"The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes.[6] … In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees, and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents. The rationale was “to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents’ deaths.”
“People were imprisoned and tortured merely on suspicion of opposing the regime or because other prisoners gave their names under torture. Whole families (including women and children) ended up in prisons and were tortured because the Khmer Rouge feared that if they did not do this, their intended victims’ relatives would seek revenge. Pol Pot said, “if you want to kill the grass, you also have to kill the roots”.[169]”
"There are many accounts of torture in both the Security Prison 21 records and the documents of the trial; as told by the survivor Bou Meng in his book (written by Huy Vannak), tortures were so atrocious and heinous that the prisoners tried in every way to commit suicide, even using spoons, and their hands were constantly tied behind their back to prevent them from committing suicide "
“all medical experiments were systematically conducted without proper anesthetics.[173] A medic who worked inside S-21 said that a 17-year-old girl had her throat slit and her abdomen pierced before being beaten and put into water for an entire night. This procedure was repeated many times and carried out without anesthetics.[174] In a hospital of Kampong Cham province, child medics cut out the intestines of a living non-consenting person and joined their ends to study the healing process. The patient died after three days due to the “operation”.[173]”
“Twenty-six-year-old John D. Dewhirst, a British tourist, was one of the youngest foreigners to die in the prison.[17] He was sailing with his New Zealand companion, Kerry Hamill, and their Canadian friend Stuart Glass when their boat drifted into Cambodian territory and was intercepted by Khmer patrol boats on August 13, 1978. Glass was killed during the arrest, while Dewhirst and Hamill were captured, blindfolded, and taken to shore. Both were executed after having been tortured for several months at Tuol Sleng. Witnesses reported that a foreigner was burned alive; initially, it was suggested that this might have been John Dewhirst, but a survivor would later identify Kerry Hamill as the victim of this particular act of brutality.”
Germany doesnt care about Jews. The moment Jews are not fitting the box Germany designed for them by not blindly supporting Israel, those Jews are facing the same repressions like anyone else who challenges Germanies blind support for Israel.
German politics, media and parts of civil society think that blind support of Israel is serving certain interests of Germany and they do it purely for these reasons. In particular we see it being used to justify racist discrimination against Arabs and other “brown” people and to crack down with increasing authoritarianism on leftist and ecological political positions.
Like Israeli society they have deluded themselves into thinking that they know better than everyone else in the world what is right and wrong and fail to see, how this actually harms Germany tremendously.
They could’ve gone down the Humanist route of “Never again shall this be allowed to happen to anyone”, making it about the victims and their human suffering rather than their race, but instead they chose to make it about Race, keeping the way of seeing other human beings from before, just with different untermenschen and ubermenschen.
The visual artifacts of NAZIsm might have been forbidden, but the whole judging and treating people differently depending on their race is a strong as ever.
Their continued support for Israel whilst they’re trying to commit a new Holocaust, shows that Racism as a way of viewing and relating to others in Germany is as strong today as it was in the 1930s.
This is a classic problem of going into one ditch, then oversteering and hitting the opposite ditch.
Germany has worked so hard on “The Holocaust was terrible, we will forever support the Jews to make up for it” that they’re now supporting a genocidal Jewish state.
My point is that I understand why this is hard for them. For them to oppose Israel invokes some associations that they really want to keep far away. However, now, supporting Israel invokes the same associations. This puts them in a kind of catch-22 situation, where no matter what they do, they’re invoking associations to the Nazis.
To be clear: I think the only right thing to do now is to oppose Israel. I just understand why that is exceptionally hard for Germany.
Well put! It’s a shame that they put all focus on supporting their primary victim and so little on never again allowing their actions. Their word would weigh heavy thou if they ever stepped on that land mine.
Don’t you see that if you want to effect change, it helps to understand why Germany is doing what they’re doing now?
I have no idea what brings the ICC into this, I’m not aware of cases against any other country than Isreal here.
By the way, how does trying to understand why people are doing what they do make me an asshole? I’m trying to be civil here, and I think you’re being very impolite.
The Nazis were just as brutal to Russians as they were to Jews, and yet modern Germany has no trouble understanding it shouldn’t support Russia today. The “holocaust guilt” excuse for supporting Israel seems like an excuse
It’s absolutely true that the Holocaust hit several groups with the same brutality as the Jews (Slavs, Romani, Gays, etc.). However when the Holocaust is taught about, it’s usually with a strong focus on Jews and antisemitism. Additionally, Russia has been built up as an adversary throughout the past 50-70 years. With that in mind, I don’t see it as strange that the “Holocaust guilt” is centred around Jews, and that Germany finds it easier to oppose Russia than Isreal.
Germany is Europe’s biggest supporter of Israel.
The biggest issue is that we, the EU, are on the side of Germany now. And their track record with world wars isn’t great.
To be fair to the Germans, I can understand how the Holocaust is integrated into them as a kind of “original sin”. What was done to the Jews under the Nazis was so unspeakable terrible, and German society as a whole has done an enormous job at ingraining in themselves that nothing of the sort should ever repeat itself.
The problem is that “nothing of the sort” has translated into “opposing Jews in any way”. It seems to me like Germany sees itself as bound to support Jews (and thereby the Jewish state Israel) no matter what in order to “atone for their sins”, and I can understand that. However, right now, Israel is suddenly the state committing the closest thing we’ve seen to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust. It’s very hard for Germany to oppose Israel without tickling a part of their history that they’ve done a laudable job at condemning.
What Germany needs now, is to separate their history from their current politics. I understand that it’s difficult, and I don’t have an answer to how it should be done, but it needs to happen, lest the same crimes are committed again.
The problem with Germany is that they learned the wrong lesson out of WW2.
Instead of learning “genocide is bad”, it’s “Jews are always on the right side of history”. And that’s why Germany is completely uncritically supporting Israel with everything that it does.
I don’t say this to excuse anything Israel is doing, but this is gross recency bias that is glossing over numerous genocides that have occurred since the Holocaust, including:
Not technically genocides, but also worth mentioning in the same vein:
So ya, other than those events, this is the closest thing to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust.
It’s laudable of you to bring attention to these other atrocities. Without creating a “race to the bottom” regarding what was worse, I still want to point out that the horror of the Holocaust was not only in the number of killed.
I’m aware of a couple of the atrocities you mentioned, but as far as I’m aware, they don’t carry the clinical state-sponsored efficiency that is a hallmark of the Holocaust. When I compare Gaza today to the holocaust, that’s what I’m comparing, rather than the number of killed. It’s about the way Isreal has decided to wipe out the population of Gaza, and systematically does so completely unhindered.
To be clear, aside from the part I quoted, I agreed with everything else in your post and thought it was an interesting take, but again I have to take issue with this:
I’m not going to analyze every single atrocity since 1945, but the Cambodian genocide was certainly state-sponsored, efficient, and horrific:
“20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21, one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated,[4][28] and only seven adults survived.[29]”
"The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes.[6] … In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees, and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents. The rationale was “to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents’ deaths.”
“People were imprisoned and tortured merely on suspicion of opposing the regime or because other prisoners gave their names under torture. Whole families (including women and children) ended up in prisons and were tortured because the Khmer Rouge feared that if they did not do this, their intended victims’ relatives would seek revenge. Pol Pot said, “if you want to kill the grass, you also have to kill the roots”.[169]”
"There are many accounts of torture in both the Security Prison 21 records and the documents of the trial; as told by the survivor Bou Meng in his book (written by Huy Vannak), tortures were so atrocious and heinous that the prisoners tried in every way to commit suicide, even using spoons, and their hands were constantly tied behind their back to prevent them from committing suicide "
“all medical experiments were systematically conducted without proper anesthetics.[173] A medic who worked inside S-21 said that a 17-year-old girl had her throat slit and her abdomen pierced before being beaten and put into water for an entire night. This procedure was repeated many times and carried out without anesthetics.[174] In a hospital of Kampong Cham province, child medics cut out the intestines of a living non-consenting person and joined their ends to study the healing process. The patient died after three days due to the “operation”.[173]”
“Twenty-six-year-old John D. Dewhirst, a British tourist, was one of the youngest foreigners to die in the prison.[17] He was sailing with his New Zealand companion, Kerry Hamill, and their Canadian friend Stuart Glass when their boat drifted into Cambodian territory and was intercepted by Khmer patrol boats on August 13, 1978. Glass was killed during the arrest, while Dewhirst and Hamill were captured, blindfolded, and taken to shore. Both were executed after having been tortured for several months at Tuol Sleng. Witnesses reported that a foreigner was burned alive; initially, it was suggested that this might have been John Dewhirst, but a survivor would later identify Kerry Hamill as the victim of this particular act of brutality.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields
Germany doesnt care about Jews. The moment Jews are not fitting the box Germany designed for them by not blindly supporting Israel, those Jews are facing the same repressions like anyone else who challenges Germanies blind support for Israel.
German politics, media and parts of civil society think that blind support of Israel is serving certain interests of Germany and they do it purely for these reasons. In particular we see it being used to justify racist discrimination against Arabs and other “brown” people and to crack down with increasing authoritarianism on leftist and ecological political positions.
Like Israeli society they have deluded themselves into thinking that they know better than everyone else in the world what is right and wrong and fail to see, how this actually harms Germany tremendously.
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They could’ve gone down the Humanist route of “Never again shall this be allowed to happen to anyone”, making it about the victims and their human suffering rather than their race, but instead they chose to make it about Race, keeping the way of seeing other human beings from before, just with different untermenschen and ubermenschen.
The visual artifacts of NAZIsm might have been forbidden, but the whole judging and treating people differently depending on their race is a strong as ever.
Their continued support for Israel whilst they’re trying to commit a new Holocaust, shows that Racism as a way of viewing and relating to others in Germany is as strong today as it was in the 1930s.
The problem is that Germans now just look generally pro-genocidal.
This is a classic problem of going into one ditch, then oversteering and hitting the opposite ditch.
Germany has worked so hard on “The Holocaust was terrible, we will forever support the Jews to make up for it” that they’re now supporting a genocidal Jewish state.
My point is that I understand why this is hard for them. For them to oppose Israel invokes some associations that they really want to keep far away. However, now, supporting Israel invokes the same associations. This puts them in a kind of catch-22 situation, where no matter what they do, they’re invoking associations to the Nazis.
To be clear: I think the only right thing to do now is to oppose Israel. I just understand why that is exceptionally hard for Germany.
Well put! It’s a shame that they put all focus on supporting their primary victim and so little on never again allowing their actions. Their word would weigh heavy thou if they ever stepped on that land mine.
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You’re wilfully ignoring the historical context that makes it hard for Germany to oppose Israel. By doing so, you’re not helping anyone.
If that were the reason, Germany would also have trouble opposing Russia. Yet they don’t.
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Don’t you see that if you want to effect change, it helps to understand why Germany is doing what they’re doing now?
I have no idea what brings the ICC into this, I’m not aware of cases against any other country than Isreal here.
By the way, how does trying to understand why people are doing what they do make me an asshole? I’m trying to be civil here, and I think you’re being very impolite.
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The Nazis were just as brutal to Russians as they were to Jews, and yet modern Germany has no trouble understanding it shouldn’t support Russia today. The “holocaust guilt” excuse for supporting Israel seems like an excuse
It’s absolutely true that the Holocaust hit several groups with the same brutality as the Jews (Slavs, Romani, Gays, etc.). However when the Holocaust is taught about, it’s usually with a strong focus on Jews and antisemitism. Additionally, Russia has been built up as an adversary throughout the past 50-70 years. With that in mind, I don’t see it as strange that the “Holocaust guilt” is centred around Jews, and that Germany finds it easier to oppose Russia than Isreal.
Maybe it’s time for a redemption arc.