Thursday, January 23, 2025

Is Germany incapable of learning from its past?

 

Germany Zionism dehumanization Palestine genocide Elnet racism white supremacy oppression history war crimes

Of all the nations that facilitated the Gaza genocide, the harshest censure should be reserved for the US and Germany.

The US and Germany manufactured 99 percent of the weapons imported by Israel in the decade before the genocide got underway. Both continued to supply arms when the genocide was at full tilt.

As well as offering practical support, Germans and Americans drive propaganda activities that help Israel to get away with its crimes.

Some of those activities are focused on ensuring that the smear campaign against UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine rights, culminates in the agency’s closure.

Earlier this month, the European Leadership Network (Elnet) – a pro-Israel group reliant on donations from the US – arranged for Hildegard Bentele, a German member of the European Parliament, to visit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Bentele has claimed that the trip exposed her to information she would not be able to find in Brussels.

Yet it is questionable how many solid facts she learned. Her interlocutors included Itamar Marcus from Palestinian Media Watch, which has been spreading lies about UNRWA for many years.

Speaking in the European Parliament this week, Bentele said that it was time “to stop teaching children to glorify terror.” She did not present evidence that UNRWA does such a thing.

Nor did she disclose that she was just back from a propaganda trip.

It is not hard to see why a pro-Israel group like Elnet courts Bentele.

She has been following discussions on foreign aid programs since first being elected to the European Parliament in 2019. Her party, the Christian Democrats, has a large bloc in that assembly and is expected to form or dominate Germany’s next national government following a February election.

Bentele could, therefore, prove influential when future funding to Palestinians is debated at European Union level.

Her Middle East trip took place just a few weeks before Israeli legislation that will ban UNRWA from the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza comes into force.

As UNRWA provides essential services such as education and healthcare, the ban is a deliberate attempt to dispossess Palestinians even more than they have been already.  (more...)

Is Germany incapable of learning from its past?


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