Berlin Diary
JVL Introduction
Adam Shatz discusses movingly how “memory culture” in Germany has developed in recent decades, overwhelmingly restricted as it is to German-Jewish relations between 1933 and 1945. The policy of Staatsräson, to which it is intimately linked, makes defence of Israel a central pillar of the German state.
The lesson of the Holocaust seems to be that Jews are the only minority worthy of protection.
This has crippled Germany’s ability to respond to the predations of Israel over the decades and questioning of it is barely tolerated even today.
Shatz shows some of the many ways in which critics of Israel have been persecuted as a result. Numerous people – often left-wing Jews – have lost funding or not been hired for jobs for having been seen at a demonstration or having signed a petition on behalf of Palestine; Muslims are seen as potential perpetrators of genocide against Jews rather than victims of racism themselves.
And almost half a billion euros military equipment was sent to Israel after 7 October.
Now, finally, cracks are appearing: exports of ‘military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip’ has been halted.
Too little too late, as Shatz wonders “Will anyone be left in Gaza to benefit from the supposed turning of the tide?”
RK
This article was originally published by London Review of Books, Vol. 47 No. 14 on Thu 14 Aug 2025. Read the original here.
Berlin Diary
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This is a well-observed description from an academic/intellectual perspective of Germany’s cult of ‘Staatsräson’, its unconditional support for the Zionist project. For the exiled Palestinians in Germany and those who support them and their brothers and sisters in Palestine the practical reality is vicious. Not only are they at the receiving end of routine violence at the hands of police who have become an international byword for brutality, but they also suffer the insult of being portrayed as the villains.
Shatz rightly references Esra Özyürek’s book, which describes how Muslim immigrants are expected to identify with the perpetrators of the Holocaust and not, as would be natural, its victims. An insightful observation comes from the German journalist Emily Dische-Becker, members of whose family were murdered by the Nazis, that for Germans Israel is the Holocaust’s happy ending. Or as Ursula von der Leyen put it without self-awareness, “Seventy-five years ago, a dream was realised, with Israel’s Independence Day. After the greatest tragedy in human history, the Jewish People could finally build a home in the Promised Land,”. All’s well that ends well. How convenient.
Muslim immigrants and their descendants, especially Palestinians, are not just supposed to adopt German collective historical shame for the Holocaust, even though it was not their forefathers who were the perpetrators. That’s not enough. They have to be declared guilty of spoiling the happy ending, the dream come true, not only in the Middle East, but in Germany too. German politicians routinely speak of ‘imported antisemitism’ and claim that ‘Free Palestine’ is the new ‘Heil Hitler’. These are the real Nazis.
So Germans may indeed burst into tears if they discover the fairy tale they have told themselves is untrue, that there really isn’t a Santa Claus. For the Palestinians this awakening comes far too late.
“Staatsrason” doesn’t seem to be working as it used to … a recent poll says 65% Germans support a partial ban on supplying arms to Israel.
And 58% Americans support statehood for Palestine.