A Boring Dystopia

The news in Germany is also shockingly biased. Obviously things like the Bild were going to be, but even on more mainstream news, you don’t hear about Palestinian casualties, nor do you hear interviews with Palestinians or Israelis against of the war (at most you get an Israeli who’s slightly critical of methods, but still thinks Israel should be actively defending itself). If you’re a German who doesn’t look at international sources for news, it would be very strange not to support Israel, based on what you’re hearing. It’s infuriating, but it’s also difficult to change. I don’t know what it would take for the German media to stop supporting them.

I’m guessing they’re feeling guilty for the holocaust and as an apology, they’re letting the jews in Israel do one of their own.

As a German: Our government, as an apology, is letting the Israeli government do a genocide of their own. You were so close, and then you took the anti-semitic turn by referring to "the jews" :(

However, also as a German: While I do absolutely wish Israel was forced to stop the atrocities they commit, and pay reparations, I believe that - given our specific history with the state of Israel and what Germans did to the Jewish population of Europe just ~80 years ago, there are plenty of states in the world that are better candidates to take an aggressive political stance towards Israel, before Germany does.

Some of us are still very much committed to absolutely defending the absolute right of Israel to exist as a state, while also (albeit sadly less of us) there are people who at the same time see the war crimes committed by the Israeli army and secret services against civilian populations of Gaza & Lebanon.

But the German government can not just take the side of Palestinians here, not because the current Israeli administration does not belong in jail, but because there are those who will - should the pendulum swing to the other side again - ask for revenge / war on Israel / commit crimes against Israeli civilians. Or, as we already see, use the violence in the middle east to justify hate crimes against Israelis or Jewish people in other countries.

Those who do the killing are evil on both sides, and those who do the suffering and dying are mostly not the same group of people - neither in Israel, nor in Gaza or Lebanon.

Long story short - Germany is stuck between a rock and a hard place in this, and it is MUCH easier for virtually any other country in the world to speak on behalf of the Palestinians. Doesn't mean we shouldn't speak out, but I can understand why German politicians are very carefully weighing their options on this.

A lot of Germans still remember the 1972 Summer Olympics massacre in Munich and the aftermath like the plane hijack to free the captured perpetrators and are therefore biased against Palestinians, suspecting a lot of violent people among them. It's not a good environment to protest.