Leading German daily fires Cartoonist for criticising Netanyahu.

Can't imagine why a German paper would be sensitive about one of it's writers saying negative things about Israel....
 
Grenz said:
As someone who grew up in Germany, I can tell you that to Germans in general, the two things - caring about anti-semitism and bringing in a large number of refugees - are born from the same trauma, i.e. WW2 and gaining the reputation as the most destructive bigots in Europe. It's that whole holocaust thing again....

This is a psychosis within the German cultural mindset, and thus irrational, at least to a certain degree. Number 1, barely anybody who had anything to do with the holocaust is still alive, let alone in a position of authority (actually, there was a story a few years ago how they put a 90 year old on trial when they figured out he was a guard during the war at a KZ). Number 2, Germany can now objectively laud itself as one of the least racist societies on the planet, 80 years of constant repentance for ancestral crimes committed has basically eradicated racism from anywhere but the extreme right fringes.

The point I'm trying to make is that the average German today has fuck all to do with gassing 6 millions of Jews, and furthermore the average German today is the exact opposite of the kind of person who'd think it's ok to discriminate based on race, or anything else. This has been true for decades, probably since as early as the late 60s. But the psychosis, i.e. the irrational guilt for crimes committed by another generation, is strongest within what we'd call the baby boomer generation. Of course, baby boomers, just like on this continent, are still largely the ones running things. In that context, opening the doors to more than a million refugees, was the ultimate atonement for sins of the past for Merkel and those of her generation (and also younger Germans who carry the same trauma still, albeit not to the same degree). Finally we proved to everybody that we're nothing like the Germans of the second WW, but as I said, that's been true for decades anyway.

Say what you want about Germans, but they're not a stupid people, neither do they have a tendency for dishonesty, rather they are known for bluntness in truth. There was an optimism ('We can do it!') at the heart of the refugee acceptance program that effectively nullified the already existing worries. Since then, things have obviously become clearer, starting with the attacks in Cologne. I know that the narrative in certain news sources is pushed that German media don't report on these crimes, but they absolutely do, quite openly actually. The problems associated with refugees are well known and documented objectively, but due to the past trauma, the average German will be very slow to make any sort of judgement lest they be labeled racists (same dynamic as here, but with a worse implication, i.e. being labeled a Nazi in a country where that's literally the worst thing possible.
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So why then are they much less caring about the Herrero genocide in Nambia? Is it because the victims in that case were Black Africans, while in WW2 the Germans fought and killed other White people. I mean when I was learning about Germany's past, colonialism, the Holocaust in school, and watching documentaries, the Nambia genocide was totally ignored. Kinda like how the Armenian genocide was ignored.
 
lfd0311 said:
Can't imagine why a German paper would be sensitive about one of it's writers saying negative things about Israel....
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Here's the thing: The Germans are trying to atone, by being caring and sensitive to war crimes. So then they should be critical of Israel, since the Palestinians are the victims of war crimes.
 
Kafir-kun said:
Criticism of Israel in the US is more likely to come from the left but not really the establishment left and Islrael does have bipartisan in our institutions support so fair enough.
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Yup, in the US. The critics come from the non establishment liberals and the Alt-Right, for different reasons.
 
MicroBrew said:
Here's the thing: The Germans are trying to atone, by being caring and sensitive to war crimes. So then they should be critical of Israel, since the Palestinians are the victims of war crimes.
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Whether you think they are or not is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that the Israel exists in large part because of Germany.
 
MicroBrew said:
So why then are they much less caring about the Herrero genocide in Nambia? Is it because the victims in that case were Black Africans, while in WW2 the Germans fought and killed other White people. I mean when I was learning about Germany's past, colonialism, the Holocaust in school, and watching documentaries, the Nambia genocide was totally ignored. Kinda like how the Armenian genocide was ignored.
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Valid point, my guess is that those events are far enough in the past, as well as being completely overshadowed by the atrocities of WW2. There's also the fact that Germans didn't treat the African continent nearly as bad as other Europeans, e.g. Dutch, French and Belgians. Anyway, I was just trying to explain the German mindset in order to provide some detail on how this kind of decision making makes sense to Germans.
 
lfd0311 said:
Whether you think they are or not is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that the Israel exists in large part because of Germany.
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I don't get this post, because what are you saying? That people shouldn't analyze or criticize Germany's support for Israel and the later's special treatment, allowing it to get away with major crimes?
 
Grenz said:
Valid point, my guess is that those events are far enough in the past, as well as being completely overshadowed by the atrocities of WW2. There's also the fact that Germans didn't treat the African continent nearly as bad as other Europeans, e.g. Dutch, French and Belgians. Anyway, I was just trying to explain the German mindset in order to provide some detail on how this kind of decision making makes sense to Germans.
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The Herero genocide was early 20th century, so not that long before WW2. And the Germans used their experience conducting that genocide towards the Holocaust. So it does have a direct connection the Holocaust. Here in the US 99% of people are not aware of it, but most everyone knows of the Holocaust. There is a huge double standard in recognizing genocides. Even the Roma were also victims in the Holocaust, you barely hear about them.
 
MicroBrew said:
I don't get this post, because what are you saying? That people shouldn't analyze or criticize Germany's support for Israel and the later's special treatment, allowing it to get away with major crimes?
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What major crimes are they getting away with in your opinon?
 
lfd0311 said:
What major crimes are they getting away with in your opinon?
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They ethnically cleansed the Palestinians for 1.
They torture Palestinian civilians
Their treatment of Gazans, which is just an open air prison.
The shootings of unarmed civilian Palestinians.
The attacks against Lebanese infrastructure in 2006, and killing of innocent people.
Their support for militias that slaughtered Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon.
 
MicroBrew said:
They ethnically cleansed the Palestinians for 1.
They torture Palestinian civilians
Their treatment of Gazans, which is just an open air prison.
The shootings of unarmed civilian Palestinians.
The attacks against Lebanese infrastructure in 2006, and killing of innocent people.
Their support for militias that slaughtered Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon.
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LOL at ethnic cleansing. You literally named off a bunch of things that are common in conflicts around the world. If that's a "war crime" to you literally everyone is guilty of them. Do better.
 
lfd0311 said:
Whether you think they are or not is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that the Israel exists in large part because of Germany.
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I think that's a bit of a misconception. The horrors of the Holocaust became known by the end of WWII and Israel came into being in 194. A state is not built in three years.

When it comes to the source of the drive for Zionism, Eastern European pogroms were more of a factor. The Balfour Declaration was made well before WWII so that should tell you the Holocaust was not really a primary reason Israel existed. It did give the Jews and Zionist a lot of sympathy for them to leverage but Israel as a state was well under way before the Holocaust.
 
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