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Subject: 	[Marxism] Germany: more Zionist than Israel?
Date: 	Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:49:53 -0500
From: 	Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>
Reply-To: 	Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
To: 	aorta <aorta at home.nl>



http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/fathollah-nejad300
More Zionist Than Israel?
German Policy and Media on Gaza
by Ali Fathollah-Nejad

The Gaza massacre, at least for the moment, is over -- ended just before
Barack Obama's inauguration, so as not to cast an unwelcome cloud over
his first hours as U.S. President.  The initial Palestinian death toll
is 1,300 . . . and expected to rise.  (Four times that number were
injured, and more wounded may be discovered).  The number of the Israeli
dead -- 13 Israelis, ten of whom were soldiers, lost their lives -- was
one hundredth of the Palestinian dead.  Such are the revealing casualty
statistics of this so-called war -- onslaught or even slaughter would be
a more accurate term to describe the world's fifth largest army using
the high-tech weaponry of the world's No. 1 military power against the
civilian population as well as a scant number of armed combatants.

Only two and a half years after the last Israeli onslaught in which a
comparable number of people were killed -- with the difference that the
Lebanese, unlike the imprisoned Gazans, had a better chance of fleeing
from the murderous bombs dropped on them -- much of the world found
themselves in a state of shock again as they witnessed the reemergence
of barbarity at its worst.  Israel did not allow any Western journalists
to cover the bloodbath of its "Operation Cast Lead," though the
non-Western world, watching Al Jazeera, Press TV, or TeleSur, could
witness the carnage inflicted upon Gaza.

Needless to say, the "pictures" shown by the West's "enlightened" media
were antipodal to those shown by the non-Western alternatives mentioned
above, which the same Western media promptly denounced as "propaganda."
  Let's take Germany for example, Europe's economically as well as
demographically strongest country, whose Constitution (Basic Law), as a
lesson of the terrible experiences of the Nazi period, commits the
German people, "[c]onscious of their responsibility before God and man,
. . . to promote world peace" (Preamble), emphasizing that "The German
people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as
the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world"
(Art. 1, para. 2).1  One might expect the German people's political
representatives to feel obliged to respect those principles.  Nothing of
the sort!

"Unlimited Solidarity" Reloaded

In a telephone conversation on the second day of Israel's attacks,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
"agreed that the responsibility for the development of the situation in
the region clearly and exclusively lies with Hamas."  Berlin's
spokesperson further declared: "Hamas unilaterally broke the agreement
for a ceasefire, there has been a continuous firing of . . . rockets at
Israeli settlements and Israeli territory, and without question -- and
this was stressed by the chancellor -- Israel has the legitimate right
to defend its own people and territory."2  Merkel's Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier embarked on a "peace mission" -- the German
media's description -- where he observed from a safe distance in Rafah
the "self-defending" Israeli bombs being dropped upon "self-responsible"
Palestinians.  Steinmeier, who as Schröder's chief of staff played an
inglorious role in keeping Germany-born innocents in the Guantánamo
camp,3 is running as the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) candidate for the
chancellery.  Impressive seamlessness!

Like the United States during the immediate post-9/11 days, today Israel
is the unmerited beneficiary of Germany's "unlimited solidarity" aiding
and abetting crimes.

Now, what about the German media, which in turn are bound by the German
Press Code stating that "[t]he freedom of the Press enshrined in the
Basic Law includes the independence and freedom of information, the
right of expression and criticism" (Preamble) and that "[r]espect for
the truth, preservation of human dignity and accurate informing of the
public are the overriding principles of the Press" (Section 1)?  Their
story of "civilizational" war -- comfortably embedded within the
good-versus-evil scheme -- was not surprising at all, though hardly
compatible with the above principles.

The media overwhelmingly and across the political spectrum represented
the interpretation given by the Israeli leadership, i.e. that the
"Jewish State" was fighting a "defensive war" against rocket-throwing
"Hamas terrorists," pursuing the noble cause of defending "Western
democracies," such as Israel, in the "war on terror" against Islamism.
Despite this narrative's non-sense in moral, political, and legal terms,
it was echoed in papers of every political couleur.  The only newspaper
consistently and extensively covering the "systematic nature of the
destruction" (UN humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes)4 has been the
left-wing junge Welt -- which, alas, has only a small readership. This
sole anti-imperialist German paper has been severely demonized by the
ideologues of the mainstream but has received much praise from such
respected personalities as Hans von Sponeck, a former UN Assistant
Secretary General and UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, who resigned
in protest of the UN Security Council-mandated genocide of Iraqis in the
1990s.

Embedded Narratives

The country's most prominent televised political discussion "Anne Will"
announced that it would run a show on Gaza on 11 January, but in an
unprecedented step canceled the topic only three days before the
scheduled date, replacing it by a program on "suicide" -- as if suicide
were more important than mass killings.  Seeing the freedom of press and
democracy in peril, a protest initiative was launched, signed by over
700 worldwide.5

When not outright erased as in the case of the canceled "Anne Will"
program, the Gaza coverage à l'Allemande was fundamentally composed of
(1) prescribed discriminatory terminology, with "radical Islamist Hamas"
used as a journalistic mantra to describe Israel's opponent while such
loaded terms as "radical Zionist" were never attributed to Israel; (2)
the tale of "double hostage-taking" of both Israelis and Gazans by
Hamas; and (3) the repetition of Israeli government positions even by
journalists working for the most prestigious public broadcasters.
German correspondents joining from Tel Aviv were practically embedded
with Israel's army.

What was scrupulously omitted in the media's narrative was the history
of the conflict, particularly the fact that we had, on one side, an
illegal occupying power flouting world opinion as enunciated by numerous
UN resolutions and international legal opinions and, on the other, the
brutally occupied who were being practically starved to death.  At best,
this was only considered a marginal detail diverting one's attention
from the "continuous rocket attacks" by Hamas which rendered normal
Israeli life impossible.  No mention of course was made about the
worthiness of Palestinian life.

What Lessons from the Judeocide?

Still under the long shadow cast by the monumental -- and in its
industrial fervor unique -- genocide of the European Jews, the country's
media did not provide space for any discussion worth its name about the
great ordeal that Gazans suffered while the "international community"
acted in complicit silence.  And when debated, as was done in "Anne
Will"'s competitor political talk show "Hart Aber Fair" ("Hard But
Fair"), it was carefully made sure that the talk was not "switched" to a
"discussion of facts."  Instead, in a highly obvious manner, a frantic
effort was made to connect anti-Semitism and criticisms of Israel.
While anti-Semitism certainly exists among some Germans, the more
prevalent form of racism in today's Germany is Islamophobia, which went
un-discussed, despite it being relevant as a factor that explains
official ideology and public opinion.  Hardly a fair practice.

What was even more scandalous was the fact that Jewish voices against
Israel's operation were widely ignored.  To be heard in the mainstream
mass media, Jewish critics of Israel were forced to take out an ad.  In
the Süddeutsche Zeitung, under the header "German Jews say NO to the
murder by the Israeli army," European Jews for a Just Peace (EJPJ)
Germany said: "We are appalled by this inhumanity. . . .  Do German
politicians really believe that it is a compensation for the murder of
our Jewish families and relatives that Israel can now . . . do whatever
crosses her mind? . . .  Hamas is using terrorist methods, but this is
also what the elected officials of Israel do, in fact a hundred times
more effectively."6

It is deeply disturbing, and particularly sad for someone who has grown
up in Germany, to raise the question "What have Germans learned from the
Holocaust?" and to hear either embarrassed silence or "We must not
criticize Israel."  I thought the lesson to be learned from the
Holocaust was the duty to resist any kind of racism, oppression, and
wars of aggression and to refrain from demonization which effectively
paves the way for tacit acceptance of violence and war.   That is the
lesson codified in the Basic Law, too, albeit held in contempt by the
German media and politicians.  Despite the narratives promoted by them,
however, polls suggest that a significant number of Germans are
increasingly becoming aware of the moral hollowness of such "unlimited
solidarity" and beginning to recognize that barbarity must be called
barbarity, no matter who the perpetrators are.

A Rogue State: "If the Cap Fits. . . ."

Jewish Oxford international relations professor Avi Shlaim concluded his
article on Gaza: ". . . Israel's record over the past four decades makes
it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state
with 'an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders'.  A rogue state habitually
violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and
practises terrorism -- the use of violence against civilians for
political purposes.  Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap
fits and it must wear it."7  As the leading scholar on the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Norman Finkelstein corroborates Shlaim:
"The record is quite clear."  Well, it is.

This is why it makes sense to launch a campaign against Israel in the
same way it was done against Apartheid South Africa, which was a Western
colonial state with entrenched racism, backed by "Western democracies"
and engaged in apartheid and oppression . . . much like Israel.

I agree with the historian Ilan Pappé: it is now high time to expose the
links between the Zionist ideological factor and the crimes committed by
the "self-righteous ideological state" of Israel.8  This might
conceivably awaken those Germans who remain asleep in a highly
disturbing state of moral apathy.

In the end, one awaited in vain a major German, or any other European,
newspaper headlining an article -- as Le Monde did after 9/11 with "Nous
sommes tous Américains" (We are all Americans)9 -- with "Nous sommes
tous Palestiniens," Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.  Instead, it's
as if the same headline blared, on the front pages of virtually all
papers: "We are all Zionists."



1  Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Promulgated by the
Parliamentary Council on 23 May 1949, as amended up to June 2008,
Berlin: German Bundestag, 2008.

2  Agence France-Presse (AFP), "Germany's Merkel Blames Hamas for Gaza
Violence," 29 December 2008.

3  Cf. Navid Kermani, "Wir sind Murat Kurnaz" [We are Murat Kurnaz], die
tageszeitung (taz), 23 March 2007.

4 "UN 'Shocked' by Gaza Destruction," BBC News, 23 January 2009.

5  See my report "German Media Censorship on Gaza?", Global Research,
Montreal: Centre for Research on Globalization, 22 January 2009.

6  "Deutsche Juden und Jüdinnen sagen NEIN zum Morden der israelischen
Armee," advert in Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 January 2009, p. 10.

7  Avi Shlaim, "How Israel Brought Gaza to the Brink of Humanitarian
Catastrophe," The Guardian, 7 January 2009.

8  Ilan Pappe, "Israel's Righteous Fury and Its Victims in Gaza," The
Electronic Intifada, 2 January 2009; cf. also Ilan Pappe, "Dummy or
Real," London Review of Books (online), 14 January 2009.

9  Jean-Marie Colombani, "Nous sommes tous Américans," editorial, Le
Monde, 13 September 2001.
Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a German–Iranian political scientist focusing on
the international relations of the Middle East.  For the open letter
protesting the cancelation of the TV debate on Gaza, he collected the
signatures of prominent figures outside of Germany.

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