this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] febra -2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

How is that? I'm a gay, partly jewish guy, that is strongly left leaning and cares a lot about the climate and social issues. I have voted for the green party. I agree with their stance on Ukraine and Russia, which is why I am so confused by their stance on Israel. I never expected them to act in such a way. I agree with their climate policy. I agree with their urbanism policies. But the complete disregard they have shown towards palestinian lives is simply disgusting. But whatever, you tell me who I voted for.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, this bullshit definitely makes your story and disinformation even more believable. You understand that people can actually check his words for themselves, right?

[–] febra 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Look. I went and listened to the speech again, because I don't want people to claim that I'm spreading misinformation here.

What I gathered from his speech, the main points:

  1. antisemitism is bad. Yes, every single moral human being should agree with that. Hating people based on their ethnicity and other traits they cannot change is absolutely never acceptable.
  2. people should condemn acts of terrorism. Again, yes. I fully agree with that. Killing innocents is absolutely never acceptable, be it terrorism or not. It's horrible.
  3. the right is holding back from attacking jews. I agree with that, but I don't think it's the time and place for these comments. He's talking about horrific acts of terrorism, he's talking about the fear some people live with right now and at the same time he finds the time to talk about his opposition. It feels like he's hijacking the situation for political points and feels insensitive. It makes it look like he doesn’t realistically care about this situation.
  4. iran is somehow behind this. I don't think anyone has produced any evidence regarding that yet which just makes it sound like a weird conspiracy theory, and again, it feels out of place for a speech about antisemitism and acts of violence against innocents
  5. he's doing everything he can along his American partners to protect the lives of civillians in Gaza. This is where it's getting nasty in my opinion. The US has vetoed a call for a ceasefire in the UN security council. That is definitely not what I'd consider to count as "protecting the lives of civillians". And the fact taht he associates with the US here is even worse, since they were the only ones to veto any form of intervention on the side of the UN. This is why I left my original comment. I guess it was fairly inflamatory of me to comment that, but it felt extremely insensitive to see him say that while looking at the reality of the situation on the ground in Gaza right now, with so many innocents dying. Just "making sure water and medicine gets to Gaza" won't save those kids from being blown to pieces. Mind you, the water, food, electricity, and medicine that was cut off from these civillians by Israel in the first place. Not only that, but he goes as far as to say that he is reminding Israel of their commitment to international law, BUT no one expects that from Hamas... I'm sorry? He is literally relativising the deaths of civillians here just because Hamas are a bunch of fucking genocidal maniacs. He is litearlly adding a BUT after saying how Israel should respect human rights. You can't make this shit up. There should be absolutely no buts after talking about respecting human rights.
  6. all muslims in Germany are expected to publicly denounce Hamas. This one is straight up weird. It's like asking all jews to publicly denounce Israel for bombing kids. It’s like asking all Germans to publicly denounce every terroristic act every time a neonazi in the US shoots up a school. It simply isn’t related and shows a great disconnect from the reality of the situation. Hamas, a terrorist organization, doesn't represent all muslims and it's straight up racist to expect every muslim to talk about whatever Hamas is doing right now. No one expects Germans to talk about neonazis across the world. Which brings me to the next point I gathered from his speech
  7. Germany has to support to Israel. Here he starts equating all jews with Israel somehow. Which is again, straight up weird, and partly antisemitic. Jews aren't all the property of Israel. Just as not all muslims are the property of Hamas. Treating an entire ethnic group as a monolithic collective is extremely problematic to me. I am partly jewish and german-romanian and do not agree with that. I feel more German and Romanian than I feel Israeli. I've never been to Israel and wouldn't call Israel my home country. Even though I could get an israeli citizenship any day by proof of my ancestors and gain access to live in a land that my ancestors probably didn't even know how to point on a map. With that being said, I fully support helping civillians affected by violence everywhere, anywhere, on all sides of this horrible conflict. I fully support the fight against antisemitism and stand by it, and stood by it for ages now. But offering critique of Israel is somehow deemed as problematic. It’s trying to be painted as “relativism”. One can easily condemn acts of terrorism while also putting them in a historical context. That doesn't mean you are relativising anything. One can condemn the state of Israel for the shit they're doing to civillians in Gaza and the West Bank. I know he also says that everyone is allowed to criticize Israel, but for some reason his government falls short of doing so. Sure, individual civillians can, but I'd expect government officials with a spine to actually do it too when they see all the completely unjust suffering in Gaza right now.
  8. the two state solution. He then briefly mentions the two state solution, but falls short of going deeper into that highly complex subject. Why even mention it in the first place? He throws all the blame on Hamas here while conveniently ignoring that Israel is also straight up refusing the two state solution, just as Hamas does. Not only that, but Israel even has hopes in expanding their illegal settlements (which he of course briefly criticizes, but again, not much substance in his criticism there). This can be easily found in their government's policy guidelines where they clearly state that "The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.". Those are the current Israeli government’s policy guidelines. Germany is hereby supporting a full on far-right theocratic regime of ultraorthodox lunatics that are openly calling for the expansion of their lands in the detriment of the innocent civillians living there that happen to be non-jewish.

I'd rather have a Germany that works towards a humanitarian solution, not a Germany that is straight up supporting some very horrible people and supports the US in blocking any kind of UN intervention. I don't mind calling out antisemitism, I've been doing that my entire life. And I have read more than enough books on jewish history, dug through archives to learn about my great great grandparents that died in the holocaust, and much more. I don't mind calling out terrorism either, every sane human should. But I very much mind this kind of rhetoric towards unconditional support for a far-right expansionist regime. Especially one represented by a far-right religious zionist coalition, that claims that some biblical lands that currently happen to be under palestinian control should be owned by them because their book says so. Here you can read more about them. Is this really who we want to throw our unconditional support at? A cabinet filled with people like Itamar Ben-Gvir that literally has a poster of a terrorist that killed a bunch of people in his office? The guy that put a billboard of arab opposition politicians in a town and called for their expulsion? Man I'm so over this. Believe what you want. I voted green for a reason. Now I don't know who to vote for anymore. I sure as hell don't want to vote for the putinists further to the left, and the more to the right you go than the green party the worse it gets.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@febra @DarkThoughts First of, kudos for taking the time to watch the entire thing and writing a comprehensive answer. It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate this platform. So a sincere thanks.

Two, actual substance: For all its faults and sometimes procecutable actions I dont think Israël is pursuing the eradication of the Palestine people, this as opposed to the attempted eradication of the Israelie AND Jewish (Kindly note the two of them) populace by Hamas/Hezbollah/ISIS/etc. Survival

[–] febra 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I used to have a very similar opinion up until the far-right has hijacked the Israeli government, and thereby officially making it state policy that the Land of Israel is first and foremost jewish. That the government should first and foremost work by jewish laws and traditions. That the state policy will be that of settling all the jewish lands, and keep in mind, we're talking about the ultraorthodox religious zionist coalition here, so those lands are the ones described in the holy texts. This means settling even in territories that currently count as palestinian. This government has made expansionism state policy. This same government talks a lot about the jewish identity, promoting that. All of these policies do not scream diversity to me in any way shape or form, and they surely don't seem intended to make the lives of non jews easier. "The government will preserve the Jewish character of the state". Settlements are mentioned everywhere throughout their official policy.

Please, I beg you to go read that link. It's not even from a weird anti-Israel website. It's on the Times of Israel website. We are looking at a far-right theocratic state in the making here. Israel already had too many disturbing laws, and this will only make it worse.

With that being said, you're right, they might not try to eradicate the palestinian people, but they sure will try to make their lives hell under the current government. And by state policy, since they don't represent "the jewish character" of the state, they surely won't have a nice life there either.