I don’t know what is so hard about letting people express their opinion about a war. You are allowed to have an opinion and make some noise. No one has to agree with you and everyone can think you are a dumbass.
And if you are really worried about bigotry just use all that surveillance tech and record everyone there. If you really think that protests against a government means you are one step away from shooting up a temple wouldn’t you want to know exactly who is likely to do it? When people are still talking you still have a chance to convince them that they are wrong, when people aren’t talking is when you should be afraid. That means they are figuring out another way to get their point across.
Israel is making things difficult. The number of civilians killed is 10000+, that’s very uncomfortable for our governments. It’s also not like our countries can just quickly say, “whoa, those are blatant war crimes you’re committing with our weapons!” It’s impossible to pretend that we couldn’t know what the IDF would do with them based on the ongoing history of the conflict. In the end it’s a situation similar to Yemen, Iran and some others feed support into one side and atrocities are committed. The west feeds weapons into the other side and atrocities are committed. At this point the only thing that makes our ethical situation tenable is if everyone would just ignore it. Hence, no protesting please, you’re pointing out some deeply shameful policy, please stop.
Here’s the unpaywalled link: https://archive.li/U4YZr
Everybody is talking about German guilt standing in the way of recognizing faults with Israel and I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. It’s rather that now all the actual anti semites are coming out of their holes and mix with people rightfully opposed to Israel’s actions, amplifying the hate against Jews in general.
It’s also becoming very clear, that many immigrants from that region and with that cultural background do not share our values and believes, in fact, many of them are opposed to it, making it even more muddy, because being opposed to Israel’s action doesn’t mean approving ofnHamas and the Palestinian situation either. And for many of these people there’s only two sides of the coin.
It’s the paradox of tolerance all over again…there is no right way to do it, all ways to get over this are going to be messy and probably also a bit violent. Free speech also only works, if people are willing to accept different opinions. Which is increasingly difficult with the rising extremism.
That also means that stifling some things is necessary, because free speech isn’t absolute. There are things that are simply not covered by free speech, because it goes against every value or believes. Sometimes it’s also instigating…and we’re back at the paradox of tolerance. To be tolerant of different values and free speech, some things have to not be tolerated.
I couldn’t read the whole article because of the paywall but I had the feeling from the beginning that Germany because of his historical guilt throws all considerations that Israel might be doing something wrong over board and suppresses every voice which try to point that out, even the moderate voices.
Don’t think for a moment that the US or any country is safe from stifling free speech under the guise of antisemitism. The ADL and other Zionist organizations will do everything in their power to enact the same laws here in the US. When you outlaw a phrase calling for equality and dignity for all people, don’t be surprised when you get fascism.
Here’s the unpaywalled link: https://archive.li/U4YZr
People are critical of Israel here, too.
When Netanjahu pushed for his justice reform there were a lot of articles pointing that out. Very regularly people spoke up against the settlers-movement.
Israel for sure is not a white knight in this conflict but given that it’s a war that Hamas clearly started in the worst possible way and that Hamas is misusing their civilians as shields to produce public outcry when those people they hold hostage around their command centers die it’s hard to see how while still shitty in the big picture Israel is clearly in the right in this specific war right now.
Let’s hope that the Israeli people kick out Netanjahu asap (since they still can other than the people in Gaza that have no chance to kick out Hamas without outside intervention) and that there is a way to find a peaceful 2 state solution - but saying stuff like the statement that was banned won’t help with peace either as it’s just a wish to flip the war on the other side and genocide all the Jews from Israel.
Fueling hate against a group of people like this is not protected by freedom of speech in Germany in general. If someone repeated that statement of the Israeli minister about flattening Gaza with an atomic bomb in Germany that probably would also be illegal. This now is just making it clear where the line that’s always been there is in this conflict.
and that there is a way to find a peaceful 2 state solution
I doubt it, the Israeli government and the settlers have been working relentlessly to prevent this from happening to a point where this is not possible anymore. The settlements are so interwoven with Palestinian territories that it would be political suicide for any Israeli government who would tell the settlers to leave their homes, universities, roads and all the infrastructure behind for the Palestinians to take over. And this has been the goal from the start.
Also Hamas has been a asset to the Israeli government since the beginning to prevent a Palestinian state from happening: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ I doubt once they get rid of Hamas they will suddenly change direction, they will double down on it.
As far as I can tell, Germany perpetrated no crimes against the white supremacist settler-colonialist state called Israel. In fact, Germany has been complicit in enabling the crimes perpetrated by said white supremacist settler-colonialist state.
The Holocaust was not perpetrated against Israelis - it was perpetrated against Jewish folk that happened to live in Europe (both it’s western and eastern parts) as well as northern Africa. And, instead of doing anything to prevent the kind of white supremacist colonialist slaughter that Germany indulged in (both before and during the rule of the Nazi-regime and that was in no way just restricted to Jewish people), Germany has instead aided and abetted it ever since.
Same old Germany… same old “western civilization.”
