this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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I think non-Germans can't understand the deep social guilt that's been drilled into them since WWII. Since childhood they're told how horrible they were to the Jews, what atrocities they committed; they're taken on field trips to concentration camps where it's explained in graphic detail what their grandparents did to the Jews; there is a deep cultural guilt around the Holocaust, and although many different people suffered, it's specifically focused on Jews. Even I don't understand it; when I was living there I asked some question I don't even remember about the Holocaust of one of my German friends, and he quite politely told me "we don't talk about that." It's a subject of guilt and embarrassment.
It's easy to criticize the West for not taking a stand against the genocide in Palestine that Israel is perpetrating; we do not, and can not, understand what Germans (in general, there always exists some racist fascists in every country) have to overcome to take such a stand. You might think they'd be champions against genocide, but what it ended up being was cultural guilt about murdering Jews.
All those Germans in power now were the children of a generation who survived the war as children, and who all had it beaten into them how horrible a people they were and how terrible the atrocity against the Jews they executed. If any country is going to struggle with condemning Israel, it's going to be Germany, and the people who the rest of the world has been using as the villain in TV and movies for 80 years; who've been beaten on the head about the Holocaust since childhood.
I don't think Germans visiting those concentration camps paid any attention and I don't think they have any guilt towards the Holocaust whatsoever.
If they did Germans would be absolutely disgusted with a new genocide happening with German support. Hell the AfD neo-Nazis are the most popular party in Germany these days.
Germany similar to the USA has a very strong Zionist lobby and that's it. They do not care about the Holocaust.
Believe me, many of us are disgusted. Not only the AfD has grown, the leftist party DIE LINKE has almost tripled their poll results over the last year. The problem is that the left half of the spectrum (SPD, Grüne and LINKE) still can't agree which flavor of "left" is the correct one so they rather blame each other than form a coalition which leaves the CDU/CSU as the strongest power that can just dictate what happens and the SPD has to go along with it out of fear that otherwise the CDU will eventually work with the AfD.
Die Linke is the only slight anti genocide party and they have like 10% of the votes. The Greens are literally saying it's OK for Israel to kill Palestinian civilians. Germany is fully doomed and the only people unable to see it are Germans.
Where? When? You can't just claim that without providing a source and expect us to believe it.
While they do state on their website that Israel has a right to defend itself and Hamas should release all remaining hostages, they immediately follow it up with this (translated by me to the best of my ability):
How is that "OK for Israel to kill Palestinian civilians"?
Edit: Rephrased the initial "They don't" to a question about the source; translated a bit more of the page.
And where does that say that it's okay to kill civilians? She very clearly says that civilian places, not people can, not must, lose their protected status if Hamas, not the civilian population, use them to hide weapons or active combatants. This is in accordance with the Geneva Conventions:
(GC (I), Article 21, emphasis mine)
Stop with the Zionist propaganda. You are literally doing the Nazi thing. "Hitler defended himself into Poland".
Also
How about you stop assuming things that I never said or meant? I fully agree that Israel has no rights to set even one foot into Gaza, that every dead civilian is one too many and that Benjamin Netanyahu needs to be dragged before the ICC as soon as possible.
But it's still important to look at facts about what some party or the other said and not your twisted interpretation based on what you want to believe the world to be. Calling everyone who even slightly deviates from your opinion Zionist and a Nazi just strengthens the actual Nazis in the AfD, the right wing of the CDU/CSU, the Republicans in the USA and so on. This is exactly what I meant by 'left half of the spectrum (SPD, Grüne and LINKE) still can’t agree which flavor of “left” is the correct one'. If we want to prevail against the flood of right-wing hatemongers who twist the narrative to their advantage, we must stick together and we must stick to the facts. Otherwise, we are, as you have phrased it, doomed.
What she is saying is not facts it is Zionist propaganda contradicting international law.
Adolf Hitler said he was defending himself into Poland. Was he? Is anyone repeating what he is saying "repeating the law"?
I never said, that what she said is factually correct. I said that what you said is not what she said and that you are interpreting things that are not in the original video you linked, let alone in the full-length unedited version.
Also, quoting someone to illustrate what they actually said does in no way mean that one agrees. What I quoted was a text straight from the Greens website as well as part of the Geneva Conventions. I clearly marked both as such and I included them to illustrate someone else's opinion, not my own.
This section of ~~the Geneva Convention~~ international law. does not apply to a belligerent occupying force. Which is what Israel is.
The line "Israel has the right to defend itself" legally does not apply to Gaza or the West Bank.
Well the Greens are still voting to send weapons to the genocide. So it really doesn't sound like they disagree with Israel to me.
Wrong, see Article 2.
Yes it triggers article 51
Wrong again, this is Protocol I which Israel isn't a signatory to. What I linked is Convention I which Israel is a signatory to.
And this also has nothing to do with the claim you made even if they were, you claimed the Convention doesn't apply to occupying forces when it explicitly states that it does apply.
Also note that I'm not saying Israel did abide by it (doubt it honestly) just that they are subject to it.
You are right I confused the Geneva Convention for international law there i will correct it.
Edit: apparently the other poster switched trom international law to Geneva Convention which caused my confusion.
I don't quite follow, the Geneva Convention is international law. All international law is essentially just contracts between nation states, and the GC is one of those.
There are different coventions and signatures. There's the Geneva Convention, ICC, UN Charter and much more.
Here's a big UN document about what Israel can and cannot do under international law..
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ceirpp-legal-study2023/#%3A%7E%3Atext=Second%2C+where+a+belligerent+occupation+follows+from%2Cproportionality%2C+the+resulting+occupation+may+become+illegal.
Well now you lost me entirely. All I wanted to say was that the Geneva Convention is (part of) international law.
Or in other words: Geneva Convention ⊊ International Law.
Hence my confusion about your confusion.
TL;DR.
Again, I wasn't agreeing with OP above, I was just pointing out that GC I Article 21 is applicable in Gaza since Israel is a signatory and thus Israel has to follow it (at least de jure if not de facto). This is the case even when Palestine isn't a signatory to GC I because of Article 2.
That's indeed correct, it's a huge problem, it's something that the Greens' base has massively criticized about the higher ranks in the party and, as a personal aside, was one of the reasons why I refused to vote for them in the last election (the other being that they were absolutely incompetent in defending their climate politics against the FDP).
Best I can do for an up-to-date source is an Article from German newspaper Die Zeit which also mentions Merz' quote that started this thread. According to the article (not myself!), Greens leader Felix Banaszak argues that Israel is surrounded by enemies that have an interest in destroying it, especially Iran and that they need weapons to defend against possible attacks on their own land. At the same time, he concedes that those same weapons being used in Gaza is a problem which why a nuanced discussion is necessary.
From here on, personal opinion:
That's why this whole thing is so difficult. If someone who says "Israel has a right to defend itself", some people (apparently including you) take that to mean they have a right to attack Gaza. I can't look into people's heads, but if "Israel has a right to defend itself" means "Israel has a right to defend its civilian population inside its pre-1967 core territory, explicitly excluding Gaza and the West Bank", things sound a lot different. We could still argue all week long if the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948/49 was a good idea. It was probably at least short-sighted. But the fact is that this region has been part of Israel for over 75 years now and not a single Israeli civilian alive today had a say in the matter. Even Netanyahu, as much as I hate him, wasn't even born when the Green Line was drawn. The world is in the difficult position where it seems almost impossible to protect Israeli and Palestinian civilians at the same time. In an ideal world, we could establish a united Palestine where Jews and Muslims can live together peacefully but let's face it, that doesn't sound very realistic. On the other hand, forcefully removing either population can't be the solution either. Palestinians/Arabs have lived in the region for millennia, as have some of the Jews. And even for those whose families got relocated after WW2, it's now the region where they, their parents, for some even their grandparents have lived their whole lives. The chance to find a better place for them was in the 1940s, the Allies messed it up and we have to deal with the consequences.
So what do we do now? How do we even talk about the topic, espcially in Germany? If one says even one positive thing about Israel, they immediately get called Zionist and Nazis because apparently it means you fully support the genocide in Gaza. If one sides with Palestine, they also get called Nazis because apparently it means you hate all Jews. And if you say nothing you get called a Nazi because saying nothing apparently means you're okay with the status quo.
So please, I beg you, stop treating everyone who tries to have a calm and nuanced discussion as the enemy, just because they disagree with you in a few points. I assure you that for the vast majority of people, saving civilian lives on both sides is the top priority. It's just that this situation is so extremely complex, has been brewing for decades (and if you really want to get into it, since the Crusades or even the Greek, Roman or Babylonian occupation), nobody has a clue how to solve it without making things even worse and everybody feels utterly helpless.
Bonus Nazi points for Baerbock participating in the große Lüge: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/german-foreign-minister-says-she-saw-nonexistent-7-oct-rape-video
"We gotta send weapons to the people committing genocide because Iran!"
Wow another bad excuse to keep sending the new Nazis weapons.
Thank you for nuancing the Holocaust. I wonder if anyone has improved their view of Hitler. I haven't.
Remember that you were originally citing the electoral success of the Greens to evidence that Germany wasn't all in support of the genocide. That doesn't' really work when you admit that the Greens are, in fact, in support of the genocide.
Yes, that's because that's what it was coined to mean, and overwhelmingly used to mean.
Technically true of the Holocaust as well, but you still rightfully accuse anyone of saying so of trying to obfuscate a very clear case of right and wrong. The same applies to the Gaza genocide.
I assure you that this is not true; the lives of Palestinian civilians are very much not top priority. For many westerners, they are a negative priority.
Yes, the Nazi's said the same thing about the Jews. And then they came to the same solution that Israel has come to.