Germany’s guilt undermines its ability to fight racism
JVL Introduction
A long and fascinating account of developments in Germany where guilt for the Holocaust has been inscribed in Germany’s national identity.
What is defined as antisemitism is integrally connected to criticism of Israel. Indeed, commissioners appears hesitant about accusing white Germans of antisemitism because this does not involve criticism of Israel!
The single most highlighted criterion for identifying antisemitism is support for BDS – as Kamila Shamsie discovered in 2019 when Dortmund shamefully withdrew its award of a literary prize to her on these grounds.
With this mindset it is no surprise to find Palestinians and left-wing Jews increasingly falling foul of the bureaucratic vigilance its many “antisemitism commissioners” – and police – choose to exercise.
Needless to say, this prioritising of antisemitism – or at least a distorted version of it – is disabling Germany’s fight against racism in general with the super sensitivity to what is counted as antisemitism matched by a tone-deafness with regard to other forms of racism.
This article was originally published by Jewish Currents on Mon 7 Aug 2023. Read the original here.
The Strange Logic of Germany’s Antisemitism Bureaucrats
An army of antisemitism commissioners was supposed to help Germany atone for its past. Critics say it is evidence of a memory effort gone haywire.
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When Roger did The Wall Live tour (in six stages) between September 2010 and September 2013 consisting of 219 shows – five in Germany on the first European leg, and three on the second – he donned the trenchcoat etc and no-one said a dickybird, and THAT tells you how bogus and fraudulent the claims made this year were. I found two of the shows on youtube, one from 2010 and the other from 2012, and in the latter the relevant bit starts at 64mins 50secs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrzD_5jubJE
And here’s the wikipedia entry for the tour:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Live_(2010%E2%80%932013)
Just a couple of observations on this unnecessarily long article. Kuras seems to believe that the system of ‘antisemitism’ commissioners and their work is an attempt to combat antisemitism gone astray. It’s nothing of the sort.
The German state was a continuation of the Nazi state in many ways. The same judges who presided over Nazi courts took their place in Germany’s courts. The ranks of the CDU/CSU were stuffed with ex-Nazis. The closest advisor to Chancellor Adeneur Hans Globke played a pivotal role in both the construction of and interpretation of the Nuremburg Laws. Ben Gurion ensured that Globke’s name was kept out of the Eichmann trial.
What Germany is doing is simply not about antisemitism. It is about weaponising antisemitism in order to cement Germany’s alliance with the West and NATO via its relations with the Israeli state. That was always the case.
When anti-Zionist Jews are a target how is that different from the position that the Nazi state took to favour Zionist over non-Zionist Jews? The mere fact that demonstrations commemorating the Nakba are banned woulid suggest that the German state has learnt very well from its Nazi predecessors about respecting democratic rights.
All of this kicked off with the Bundestag resolution against BDS. Israel is the personification of the Jew, the ‘new Jew’ as oppose to real Jews. Hence Jews opposed to the Jewish state are just as much targets as anyone.
At this Bundestag session the AfD, which gets a cursory mention in the above article, was the most vehemently opposed to BDS which it wanted to make illegal. Think about this. A party riddle with neo-Nazis, and arguably a neo-Nazi party itself, is the foremost supporter of this ‘antisemitism’ campaign.
Kuras says that ‘the system of antisemitism commissioners exists less to ensure the safety of Jews than to placate Germans’ feelings of guilt for the Holocaust’. I don’t agree that their function is to placate feelings of guilt, rather it is to channel those feelings in a pro-imperialist/pro-NATO direction. It is the exploitation of such feelings.
‘antisemism’ is a code word for opposition to the role and self-perception of the German state and its foreign policy as expressed in its alliance with Israel. That is why any other victims of the Holocaust or any serious analysis of how Hitler came to power and who was his supporters are elided over
Reading this very interesting piece, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for today’s Germans, they sadly cannot separate the wood from the trees and I’m sure that they are almost terrified of condemning Israel, because they know it will cause a massive backlash from the Israeli Government, as we have seen for decades how Israel battles to protect itself from criticism and its main weapon of defence is, anti Semitism one that the Germans could well do without.
Instead of being angry at their stance, I find myself sympathising because of the position they are in.
If I was in a position to openly speak to them, I would discuss a way forward where they could condemn the heinous crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians, just as they condemn those Germans that created and carried out the Holocaust, where not only Jews were murdered but lots of other groups.