Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.
Last year, Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth 326.5 million euros ($363.5 million), including military equipment and war weapons, a 10-fold increase from 2022, according to data from the Economy Ministry, which approves export licences.
And hopefully, the Germans will respond with something along the lines of “our eternal obligation to you does not give you carte blanche to perpetrate the same evil our forefathers perpetrated upon you”. But we’ll see, I guess. I am fully aware that it’s an understandably touchy subject in Germany.
It’s been such a shit show. Even my beloved tagesschau is just going fully blind on it. It’s been a disgrace. Never again my ass.
It would have actually been a great opportunity to show where full support of Jewish people and support of a government differ. It was the perfect opportunity to back out of this card blanche idea which was too vague to be a good idea to begin with. Instead Germany decided to assume its citizens have no cognitive ability to differentiate these two ideas - Jewishnes and Israel.
In the long run they are doing so much damage to the Jewish people. Effectively they’re (and by they mean anyone who is shouting “antisemitism” now) creating a situation where you are either supportive of Israel’s actions, or against Jews. It’s such a destructive approach.
Ich kann dir nur das aktuelle Interview der Lage der Nation mit Baerbock empfehlen. Es werden die Waffenlieferungen kritisch angesprochen. Ich finde es wichtig, ihre Position zu diesem Thema zu hören, um so die eigene Meinung besser bilden zu können. Hier der Link zur Online Version, falls kein Spotify genutzt wird.
Basically: The stance of the government is much more nuanced than usually appreciated in Germany, much less the world,
What she didn’t mention, and that’s also part of the nuance, is that Germany basically dropped all support that can be dropped without leaving the Israeli moderates and the left-wing hung out to dry. And not just now, it only took a couple of days or weeks for much support to drop, after it became clear that the Kahanites are using the opportunity to get the genocide they always wanted. Which is, according to Germany’s reading, against Israel’s self-interest and therefore against Germany’s interest. Fascism in general, just for the record, not just Kahanites.
It’d also be a hell of a nightmare for the chancellery to try to override bureaucrats in different ministries saying “well no we shouldn’t because there’s a not negligible probability that those weapons would be used in a genocide”: Those bureaucrats are only doing their duty, following the law, analysing things as they’re supposed to. Press would quickly get wind of it and all hell would descend upon the governing coalition. In more ways than one: Press and the people would be talking about topics that the government would rather not have anyone think or talk about loudly, because, well, nuance. You never want nuanced topics to be discussed loudly and heatedly, never ends well.
Switching countries: The same nuance and need for tact comes into play when it comes to not losing the deep ties into Israeli politics and civil society over knee-jerk moralising. There are a fuckton of Israelis out there protesting the government, don’t want to lose them over not delivering air defence, they need all the support, moral or otherwise, that they can get. The Israeli left already lost enough Hippie Kibbutzim inhabitants in the September attacks (in case you ever wondered why the Israeli government gives less than a shit about the hostages: They’re largely lefties). Artillery shells? Different topic.
Danke, ich werds mir anhören!
I can guarantee you right now, that that sure will never be the response. In fact, that will get you labeled an antisemite.
Which, bluntly, is absolutely insane, and betrays a fundamental (and for some, likely intentional) misunderstanding of the true intent and meaning of that eternal obligation, to the extent that it has deeply disturbing jingoistic echoes of the Nazi party itself.
It’s odd you mention jingoism, because I was surely thinking about jingoism and revanchism in this context, over the last couple of weeks.
Damn, hit him with the Swanton Bombs. Poor guy