We had this submission yesterday already and the title is very misleading. No one has to support Israel, but one state in Germany demands to recognize Israel's right to exist.
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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I think the sentiment currently is that they can exist, but should also allow other nations/states to exist alongside them.
Apartheid states should not exist.
Sure, but apartheid is policy. You stop an apartheid state from existing by ending apartheid.
Yeah, but then they’ll claim bullshit that giving freedom to Palestinians is the “end of Israel”
It's still something you can argue should be done even if it's not currently politically feasible. Things don't always stay politically unfeasible, but they usually don't get pushed in that direction by people not making that argument in public.
My utopian take would be that Israel should become fundamentally secular, remove references to being a 'Jewish state', grant all Palestineans citizenship and full rights, and perhaps change the name - a lot of people would say that should just be called Palestine, but frankly I think a compromise of Israel-Palestine or some other completely new name would be fine too. End the colonialism & apartheid, everyone who's there lives in peace, people who had to flee during previous wars get to come back.
I don't know that we'll ever see that, but it probably is much more unlikely if we don't try to convince people that it's a good idea.
For a possible "new" name, what do you think of Kena'an? It's been used in the past to refer to the region and nobody is currently using it so I think it'll fit; opinions?
The typical English name for that is Canaan. There's a lot of history surrounding that name in the Bible (OT, so shared by Jews, Christians, and somewhat accepted by Muslims too) and a lot of it not positive. I don't think a lot of people would appreciate that association even though it's likely based on myth.
Personally I don't really see that Palestine is a bad name as it's really just a name for the region and the only baggage it has is quite modern; Zionist Jews might prefer some acknowledgement of the land as Israel and so it would be tough to get them to accept something that doesn't include that IMO
Zionists would say that's denying Israel's right to exist and is anti Semitic. That's the kind of fucked up Orwellian world Israel has imposed on the West.
Who cares what fascists cry about?
Bavaria? I feel like you're gonna say Bavaria
Saxony-Anhalt
What's their deal?
They hate Muslims and backing Israel is the polite way to express it
Germany has had a lot of issues with refugees from those parts of the world causing mayhem that the native population did not ask for. Same with Sweden and Canada.
Not to justify universal hatred, but people shouldn't have to worry about the mass importation of poorly-fitting agents who cannot culturally assimilate and who cause harm to the everyday people who can't afford or don't want to live in gated communities and use public stuff like transit that are always the first to get hit
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What the fuck is happening? Here in Belgium they started to deny citizenship to some Palestinian kids or something. Wtf is the narrative here?
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Yikes.
Misleading title. There's a big difference between recognizing the right to exist of a country vs "supporting" a country.
That said, I also think there's a big difference between recognizing the right to exist of a country and the right to exist of a people. Human rights is one thing, but I don't think requiring agreement on international politics should be required for citizenship. I don't support a lot of things the US does, so I don't think that should be a requirement for citizenship.
The thing with Germany is, after the whole thing with that toothbrush mustache guy they really kind of swung the pendulum really far the other way. Germany takes antisemitism very seriously. And also anything that could be construed in any way to even hint at it.
So anybody who even looks a little bit goose-steppy is not getting in.
Partly jewish, german citizen here. Germany takes antisemitism so seriously that they can't even see beyound it anymore. 86% of antisemitic attacks in Germany come from the homegrown, far right extremists, yet the public narrative is that "Germany is importing antisemitism from abroad". German authorities are littered with all these far-right extremists and antisemitic theories about jews controlling the world are still common place. Antisemitic conspiracy theories about Soros and the Rothschilds are still fairly common. Neo-nazis running around spraying swastikas on walls and venerating the fascist dictatorship that killed a part of my family are still okay. Cops sharing Hitler memes and commemorating his birthday is fine with this state. The state conveniently doesn't care enough about those to take action. After WW2 most nazis got away scot free. The top leadership positions in government agencies and the biggest companies were filled with nazis. No one dared touch them. Hell, to twist the knife even more, in an almost comedic fashion the Minister for displaced persons under the first german chancellor Konrad Adenauer AFTER THE WAR was a full on nazi. He was a top guy in the SA. He was responsible for the occupation of Ukraine and the killing of countless jews there. The over 60 THOUSAND officers that were directly involved in well documented executions of jewish citizens also walked away scot free. The catholic church in Germany helped countless nazis escape prosecution by trying to get them out of the country. Hell, they even went as far as to help them get counterfeit documents.
But now suddenly Germany has somehow found this great urge to fight against what THEY say is antisemitism (No, criticising Israel isn't antisemitic). Suddenly, NOW antisemitism is sooooo problematic to Germany. Now all of a sudden Germany is this beacon of hope in the fight against antisemitism.
I am highly interested in jewish history (mostly because it's the history of my great grandparents that died in the holocaust). I do not care one ounce about Israel. Neither did my great grandparents. They were ROMANIAN jews. Not Israeli jews. If Germany wants to do a good thing, then they should help JEWS first and foremost including the ones that disagree with Israel, and stop labeling everyone as antisemitic because they oppose the massacre in Gaza. If Germany was even as charitable in the slightest as some people claim it to be, then they'd invest at least half as much energy into fighting for justice for THE OTHER people that were oppressed by the nazis: gay people, trans people, romas and sintis (hundreds of thousands of which died during the holocaust), disabled people, and so on. Yet the state barely seems to give two craps about these other groups. I guess they aren't loud enough for Germany to even care about them. Hell, they barely even started commemorating the LGBT people killed by the nazi regime just a few years ago. All of this is a farce. This is just a knee jerk reaction Germany has to try to paint itself as the good guy again. They never cared about actually changing something and working out their history.
This entire narrative that Germany is so highly interested in fighting against fascism is nothing but a farce. Almost nothing even worth mentioning has been done in Germany in regards to far right, nazi inspired extremism after WW2.
All this circus is just German guilt at play. They're trying to "make things right" by unconditionally supporting Israel, and thus they are equating Israel with jewishness (which is intself antisemitic, since there are many jews that aren't citizens of Israel). They do not have a responsibility towards Israel. They have a responsibility towards jews and towards ALL the people that are getting massacred by brutal regimes, just like Germany 80 years ago. Germany has the responsibility to stand for ALL the discriminated and oppressed people, and they are failing magnificently at that. The current situation is just a convenient way for Germany to find a way out of being the bad guys from 80 years ago without actually having to work on their history as they should.
I'm so done with this narrative. It isn't protecting jewish people. It isn't protecting the oppressed. It's just protecting this twisted german narrative because they refuse to actually take a hard look in the mirror.
This is a lot of interesting insight, and definitely goes beyond my admittedly limited understanding of things. Which is, as an outsider, mostly just gleaned in bits and pieces from German people on the internet, usually in the context of topics I'm looking at any way like overreactionary video game and media censorship, and various other insane aspects of modern German law. (Seriously. The knife laws you guys have over there are fucking weird.)
Thank you for sharing those insights! It feels like anti Zionist Jews are deliberately ignored by the media and slandered as self-hating or whatever. Zionism is completely monopolising the discourse and censoring alternative viewpoints.
Do Germans have to recognize every state's right to exist?
What makes Israel so special?
This feels like a strategy straight out of Russia's playbook. Now Germans will have 'data' that says X amount of their population stands with Israel.
but I don’t think requiring agreement on international politics should be required for citizenship
It's almost like you didn't actually read what I said.
this headline is highly misleading! First of all its only one (!) state in germany, also a very far right one and those rules only apply for that very state.
The other thing is you do not have to 'support' Israel you have to accept Israel as a independent state, their borders, that they are allowed to defend themselves and you shouldn't say or take part in antisemitism related activities.
You can still criticize Israel very much for the way they are fighting the Hamas and the civilian casualties that they are causing, you don't have to say yes and amen to everything Israel is doing and also you don't have to support them. You are just not allowed to debugger their existence...
And I highly doubt that our other states will follow this in any way...
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Why do Israelis have such a disproportionate influence over public opinion?
Germany is notorious for murdering millions of Jews. Them taking a pro-Isreal stance is not surprising. Forever guilty and all that.
Maybe it's time to grow up for them too..
Maybe everyone should read more history books (or wiki articles and reputable YouTube channels). 70 years is not ancient history.
The point is, that historical "guilt" druves them to decisions that end up supporting genocide all over again.
Germany is a nation powerful enough for politicians to make up their damn mind and do what's right.
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Israel is a Western conservative investment. They're a group of brown people, who happen to be the best of the brown people but still brown.
After WWII we carved out a piece of land in the middle east and gave it to them. Nevermind all the other people already living there though, they're the bad kind of brown people.
And how do we keep all those brown people in line?
Give boatloads of cash and guns to the "tolerable" brown people and keep them fighting amongst themselves. Keep this up for 75 years and you now have a situation that requires you keep dumping money and guns into it otherwise you destabilize the middle east, the region responsible for supplying a majority of the lubricant that keeps the global economy running.
Destabilize the petroleum supply and you destabilize a major share of the global economy.
Destabilize the global economy enough and you've created the perfect conditions for another world war.
Tl;Dr:
The United States has been meddling in Middle Eastern politics for so long that quitting cold turkey would create an uncontrollable situation.
How do we fix it?
Beats the hell out of me, I didn't make this mess and it's not my job to help them fucking clean it up.
How do we fix it? Israel shot themselves in the foot by keeping the Palestinians divided and ensuring that a two state solution can not be viable. Therefore, the UN needs to step in and implement a one state solution. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would be given citizenship and representation in a combined state. UN peacekeeping forces would have to fight against groups of terrorists (both Hamas and Israeli) who oppose this solution.
Israel has the right to exist, but no one has an inherent right to an apartied ethno-state. The combined state would have a more equal amount of Jews and Arabs, so the Israelis would be unable to oppress the Palestinians the way they currently do.
Is this a popular solution? No. Will anyone seriously argue that a two state solution is still viable and that Israel will work towards that? No.
The idea of a Palestine controlled by the UN was actually part of the original plan for the region that the British drew up, before they decided to use the Zionists as a convenient tool to screw over the Arabs.
The current state of affairs weakens the entire idea of the United Nations as a tool for preventing major worldwide conflicts. If Israel continues to get away with ignoring international law, and if the US continues to veto UN resolutions that seek to hold Israel accountable, it contributes to moving the world closer to WW3.
People will say that the situation is much more complicated than just "European colonizers oppress yet another group of brown people". Fine, if that is true then that is a good reason why the US should not be taking one side over the other, and the US government should back out and let the UN do what needs to be done.
There is a CATEGORY difference, between:
- Not supporting Hamas
vs
- Supporting what UN officials have openly called genocide.
I would have expected Germany to not require people to support genocide??
??
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German guilt...
Or maybe they just really love fascists
Or maybe they worry that if Israel fails as a nation, some of the Jews there will move to Germany and they know how they’ll react to that too well.
More likely..
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Zieschang previously said her ministry had sent a decree to all Saxony-Anhalt municipalities informing them of the policy in late November.
The decree instructs authorities to pay close attention to whether an applicant exhibits antisemitic attitudes and states that "obtaining German citizenship requires a commitment to Israel's right to exist."
In a letter to local authorities, the Saxony-Anhalt state Interior Ministry said naturalization is to be denied to foreigners who engage in activities directed at Germany's liberal democratic order as outlined in the country's Basic Law.
Local authorities have been instructed to deny an applicant's naturalization request if they refuse to sign the declaration.
Germany, which claims a special historical responsibility to protect Jews after the horrors of the Holocaust — in which Germany's then Nazi government organized the industrial-scale murder of over 6 million European Jews during the Second World War — has called Israel's security its own "Staatsräson," or "reason of state," as then Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed in an address to the Israeli parliament in 2008.
There has been considerable discussion in Germany regarding the issue of antisemitic attitudes among migrants who harbor resentment against Israel, with pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country becoming flashpoints for antisemitic behavior in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel.
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