Israelis have been demonstrating weekly for months, and at the same time violence in the West Bank is escalating. But Germany is silent. Our author says: stop it!
Israeli police officers try to evict protesters during a demonstration against the government’s controversial judicial reform law in Tel Aviv March 9, 2023. JACK GUEZ/AFP
Israel has been burning for over two months. The small country is experiencing the most violent demonstrations in its history these days. Small, far-right parties like Ha-Ikhud HaLeumi and Otzma Yehudit have been given disproportionate leverage by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a coalition and allow Netanyahu to escape the trial that is still pending against him. The parties mentioned, next to which the AfD sounds like the Berlin Greens, are celebrating it.
Uncharacteristically, they are working to wrest power from the Israeli judiciary. Previously, Israel’s Supreme Court could veto laws passed by Parliament if it deemed them unconstitutional. No one would be so excited to strip Israel’s Supreme Court of that right if they didn’t already have unconstitutional laws in mind that need to be implemented. As I write these lines, the death penalty is being discussed in the Israeli parliament. The rabbinic courts are also given authority over many areas of civil society.
In short, Israeli democracy will be destroyed. And Israel’s best friend, Germany? silent. The Central Council of Jews in this country met in this country, as did Foreign Minister Baerbock, with the new Israeli Foreign Minister of this new government, Eli Cohen, and smiling photos were taken. They are thus legitimizing a coalition that is currently causing an incredible amount of damage in Israel. They legitimize the coalition against which everyone, from Holocaust survivors to the Tel Aviv high-tech class to students, is taking to the streets.
Germany’s special responsibility
Germany has no special responsibility towards Israel. Germany sent Jews to the concentration camps, not Israel. However, Germany does have a special responsibility towards the Jews – and thus, if you will, also numerous Israelis. Not against a state led by radical right-wing forces. That is all too often forgotten in Germany. It seems as if the policy of reparations is being used in order to be able to openly show otherwise hidden affinities for nationalism that has become stronger.
Just over a week ago, radical settlers rioted in the small Palestinian town of Huwara in the West Bank. They burned houses and cars, slaughtered sheep. The next day, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it was up to the state to wipe out Huwara, not individuals. The US government has made it clear that Netanyahu should distance himself from Smotrich’s testimony. Jewish organizations in the US appealed to the State Department to revoke Smotrich’s US visa. They understand that the connection some make between them and this government will hurt them. In Germany against it? Blank silence.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are currently leaving their jobs and taking to the streets. The police, whose new minister is former Jewish terrorist Itamar Ben Gvir, used stun grenades for the first time (a protester in Tel Aviv lost his ear). The Central Council of Jews in Germany is silent. Apparently, Jewish life is not important enough to sacrifice the much more powerful idea of Jewish nationalism.
Men walk past burnt and wrecked vehicles in Huwara. After a deadly attack on two Israelis, radical Israeli settlers rioted there.Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa
A blind flick of the demos: Palestine
But there is a problem with the demos in Israel. Why are people demonstrating in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem against de-democratization and for maintaining the separation of powers in Israel, against the police use of stun grenades, against the violence of the settlers, but not for the Palestinians, who are demonstrating these issues at the same time on their streets in the Deport West Bank?
This is the big blind spot of the Israeli demos: the idea that you can scandalize state violence when there is violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories. Here in Germany, people seem to understand that, both at state level and in the institutions of the Jewish communities: If you support Jews in Israel with their demos, you would have to explain tomorrow why it should be okay if what is being demonstrated against , done to Palestinians. And why they have been living under military law for over 55 years, where there is no apparent separation of powers, where any protest is illegal.
A common thread connects the Palestinian struggle for freedom from illegal occupation with the Israeli demonstrations against the de-democratization of their country. The great lack of understanding of many Israeli demonstrators regarding this connection is blatant. If this connection is not made, it becomes difficult to counteract anti-democratic tendencies effectively.
Are people in Germany still interested in Israel-Palestine getting better? Is that what German Jews want? It doesn’t seem that way these days. The United Nations has condemned the pogrom in Huwara. The US government was also under pressure – especially from the Jews living there. In Germany and on the part of the Central Council, which is supposed to represent our interests, one cannot expect such courage. Here you invite people to the Passover festival and post pictures of flowery events on Instagram. Jews in Germany, they explain, shouldn’t have to think about Israel all the time. But when it comes to Palestinian flags, the use of the word Nakba, or performances by certain academics or artists criticizing Israel, the Central Council is quick to respond.
It is cowardice to only engage in something for reasons of power politics, not because the moral standard dictates it. It is time that Germany and the Jews in Germany showed courage: courage against right-wing and radical nationalism. It doesn’t matter who it comes from.