Germany has become one of the world’s most repressive states in cracking down on legitimate speech in support of Palestine, empowering the far-right in the process, says Antony Lowenstein in his latest documentary.
By Antony Loewenstein
Substack
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the West has seen an explosion of state-backed repression, intimidation, deportations and violence against protests for simply backing Palestine. From the U.S. to U.K., Western elites have shown their contempt for free speech, democracy, accountability and opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. All in the service of their favourite proxy, Israel.
The result? A massive decline in public backing for Israel and surging support for Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond shows no sign of stopping. In fact, Israel’s extremist government (and far too many Israeli Jews) are determined to ethnically cleanse all of historic Palestine. And so far, much of the world is doing little tangible to stop it.
The ramifications will be felt for generations.
Germany is one of the most oppressive countries in the Western world around Palestine. By fundamentally misunderstanding the lessons from history, a people whose ancestors committed genocide should learn that backing a present-day genocide in Gaza will be a stain on their name.
As a German Jew, I take this issue incredibly seriously and personally but my new film, Germany’s Israel Obsession, isn’t just about me. Instead, it’s an investigation into how Germany has become the state that it has, the empowering of the fascistic far-right and attempts to erase Palestinian and Arabs voices.
Made in collaboration with the wonderful U.K. production company Black Leaf Films and director Dan Davies, I’m incredibly proud of this documentary, released last week by Al Jazeera English, and already generating a huge global response.
Watch it now:
The Germans and British are in a race to the bottom – both countries actively and openly suppressing free speech, protest and ‘dissent’!
In the UK, people are being arrested for placards or T–shirts saying they oppose genocide. How exactly is that a bad thing, I’d like to know? But somehow, it has been criminalised, and these people face fines or prison sentences.
Orwell must be turning in his grave, saying, ‘I warned you it might happen!’
Guess we Krauts will beat you this time: I already smell the dust of rock bottom.
Cheers to the UK!
Synopsis of Pre- and Historical Complexity
Why were most Germans willfully blind during the Nazi era?
For the same reason Israeli Jews are blind to what their regime is doing contemporaneously, in their name, unto those they consider as unwanted ‘others’.
Apparently, historically speaking, inhumane hatred is a highly contagious, incurable universal malady.
Does every person of the international contemporaneous era, “in the diaspora”, when referring to “historic Palestine” have the same understanding of the extent of the term Palestine? Are they all talking about the same territorial space?
Definitely not! Subjective biases override factual truth.
According to current international thinking, Historic Palestine refers only to the geographical region that roughly corresponds to present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, encompassing areas on the eastern Mediterranean coast.
As the world is witnessing today, most Israeli Jews have been persuaded otherwise, by their Fuhrer.
Apparently, the current pretext, as it was for Schicklgruber in his day, is the same for Netanyahu and his deranged coterie, today – Lebensraum!
Obviously, ‘evolutionary advancement’ alone, in human beings, is a flawed concept, especially where it concerns the ‘erudition of wisdom’.
In the year 2025, it is historically apparent; ‘evolutionary advancement’ alone is definitely NOT a curative.
Well said, and hopefully the Russians will never forget the tens of millions of their people were killed by the Germans in WW2 and if the former flunky of Larry Fink’s financial empire, Black Rock decides to wage war on the “Bear”, then the Germany in ruins by 1945 seem like child’s play when the Russkie’s retaliate.
Capitalism, Imperialism and Zionism is the real axis of evil.
I could not agree more.
Until very recently we in the West heard little of the Chinese and USSR huge contributions to the defeat of Nazism in WWII
We even have the high foreign policy chief of the EU denying it!! 6 million Jews are the only acceptable victims even 80 years later!!
Hatred cannot be fought by more hatred.
Accept others and try to understand them
The Germans are cowed puppies who will never get over their guilt. It’s desperately in need of some massive nationwide therapy.
And let’s not forget how Russophobic these stubborn Germans are.
I’d chalk it up to decades of US indoctrination, not helped by all those US military bases on German soil and the Chancellor Act. Doesn’t sound like a country whose Israel policy was made on its own initiative. At least East Germany was pro-Palestinian.