Edana
10-21-2004, 05:35 PM
Jewish moralizing on Germanic Islamophobes. Decent talk here about Israelis biting the hand that grovels and feeds, only to be drenched in babble about the poisecuted Muslims, of all people!
Mired in victimhood - and blame (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=holocaust%20denial&itemNo=489032)
BERLIN - The ugly part of Israeli discourse about Germany is its demand for a German "soul-searching." Of whom do Israelis demand this? Of Nazis who murdered the Jewish people? Of the obedient generation? Of those of that generation who gave their Jewish neighbors the cold shoulder? Of those of that generation who went to lay waste to other peoples and countries? The answer in all of these cases is no. This demand is being made of Germans who were not even born at that time. But above all, these discussions lack an answer to one question: Why does it pay to write about the relationship between Israel and Germany? Why do Israelis accept German money - generous academic scholarships, fat research grants, etc. - in order to fling all sorts of accusations at the Germans for acts committed by their fathers and grandfathers?
.....
German "soul-searching" of the past, with Israel as the intermediary, is not the same as taking stock of the present. In fact, that is the secret of soul-searching, in Germany and anywhere else: It pulls a veil over the present. Germany is neither better nor worse than any other country in this respect. Sad to say, in many parts of the West, the Holocaust has become a wholesale symbol of evil that is drilled into other persecuted minorities as if it were their own ultimate evil. The Holocaust Museum in Washington is an excellent example. The slaughter of Native Americans has no such monument dedicated to them because the Holocaust of the Jewish people supposedly speaks in their name.
It is enough to calculate how much money flows into the pockets of the Israeli intelligentsia from Germany, as opposed to the sums transferred by other European countries, to understand just how much the German cultural establishment loves this business of "settling accounts with the past." The main thing is that it doesn't touch the present. In the present, it is hard to be a Muslim in Germany. It is hard to be born in Germany to Turkish parents, even if they, too, are German-born. The neo-Nazis won only a small percentage of the total vote, but xenophobia is on the rise, and it is shared by parties across the political spectrum.
The obsession with headscarves worn by Islamic women is a perfect illustration of what the Israeli flag is doing in the BZ report on a Christian rally. It is a battle that has elegantly skipped over the Jews at every stage of the game. No Jew, let alone Israeli, has confronted the Germans with the Jewish point of view. In a noisy debate that continued into the night, I asked a German woman (no racist, I assure you) if she would dare to impose this kind of "modernization" on the Jews. Would she tell a Jew to shave his beard, remove his skull cap, and adopt the appearance of a "universal man," which is to say, a German or French Christian? Her answer was clear: No, I wouldn't ask that of the Jews. I would feel uncomfortable about it. "Unbequem" is the word she used.
In Germany (where the issue was limited to head coverings worn by male and female teachers), the Jews kept a revoltingly low profile throughout the fray, just as they did in France. No one bothered to mention the outward religious symbols of Jews. Neither did any of the "modernists" breath a word about Jewish beards or head coverings worn by Jewish women. These were removed in the past - this same past that can be dealt with "soul searching" with the help of "modern" Israelis - i.e., people who "look like us."
But the past has continued into the present. In Germany, it does not exist in the form of Nazism - Nazism is dead - but in the demand to "look like us," to be monochromatic. The Gypsies who perished? We piss on their graves. The Gypsies who are still alive? They can drop dead. Turkish girls? "Political Islam," that is potential Islamic terrorists.
But Germany's present, including what still lies ahead for "foreigners," in the wake of the country's fall from the pinnacle of economic power, comes with a solid warranty. Emotional blackmailers from Israel, who collect royalties from the suffering of our parents and grandparents, provide German politicians, from the Greens to CSU, with a seal of kashrut as certified humanists. Some legacy, that.
Full Article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=holocaust%20denial&itemNo=489032)
Mired in victimhood - and blame (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=holocaust%20denial&itemNo=489032)
BERLIN - The ugly part of Israeli discourse about Germany is its demand for a German "soul-searching." Of whom do Israelis demand this? Of Nazis who murdered the Jewish people? Of the obedient generation? Of those of that generation who gave their Jewish neighbors the cold shoulder? Of those of that generation who went to lay waste to other peoples and countries? The answer in all of these cases is no. This demand is being made of Germans who were not even born at that time. But above all, these discussions lack an answer to one question: Why does it pay to write about the relationship between Israel and Germany? Why do Israelis accept German money - generous academic scholarships, fat research grants, etc. - in order to fling all sorts of accusations at the Germans for acts committed by their fathers and grandfathers?
.....
German "soul-searching" of the past, with Israel as the intermediary, is not the same as taking stock of the present. In fact, that is the secret of soul-searching, in Germany and anywhere else: It pulls a veil over the present. Germany is neither better nor worse than any other country in this respect. Sad to say, in many parts of the West, the Holocaust has become a wholesale symbol of evil that is drilled into other persecuted minorities as if it were their own ultimate evil. The Holocaust Museum in Washington is an excellent example. The slaughter of Native Americans has no such monument dedicated to them because the Holocaust of the Jewish people supposedly speaks in their name.
It is enough to calculate how much money flows into the pockets of the Israeli intelligentsia from Germany, as opposed to the sums transferred by other European countries, to understand just how much the German cultural establishment loves this business of "settling accounts with the past." The main thing is that it doesn't touch the present. In the present, it is hard to be a Muslim in Germany. It is hard to be born in Germany to Turkish parents, even if they, too, are German-born. The neo-Nazis won only a small percentage of the total vote, but xenophobia is on the rise, and it is shared by parties across the political spectrum.
The obsession with headscarves worn by Islamic women is a perfect illustration of what the Israeli flag is doing in the BZ report on a Christian rally. It is a battle that has elegantly skipped over the Jews at every stage of the game. No Jew, let alone Israeli, has confronted the Germans with the Jewish point of view. In a noisy debate that continued into the night, I asked a German woman (no racist, I assure you) if she would dare to impose this kind of "modernization" on the Jews. Would she tell a Jew to shave his beard, remove his skull cap, and adopt the appearance of a "universal man," which is to say, a German or French Christian? Her answer was clear: No, I wouldn't ask that of the Jews. I would feel uncomfortable about it. "Unbequem" is the word she used.
In Germany (where the issue was limited to head coverings worn by male and female teachers), the Jews kept a revoltingly low profile throughout the fray, just as they did in France. No one bothered to mention the outward religious symbols of Jews. Neither did any of the "modernists" breath a word about Jewish beards or head coverings worn by Jewish women. These were removed in the past - this same past that can be dealt with "soul searching" with the help of "modern" Israelis - i.e., people who "look like us."
But the past has continued into the present. In Germany, it does not exist in the form of Nazism - Nazism is dead - but in the demand to "look like us," to be monochromatic. The Gypsies who perished? We piss on their graves. The Gypsies who are still alive? They can drop dead. Turkish girls? "Political Islam," that is potential Islamic terrorists.
But Germany's present, including what still lies ahead for "foreigners," in the wake of the country's fall from the pinnacle of economic power, comes with a solid warranty. Emotional blackmailers from Israel, who collect royalties from the suffering of our parents and grandparents, provide German politicians, from the Greens to CSU, with a seal of kashrut as certified humanists. Some legacy, that.
Full Article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=holocaust%20denial&itemNo=489032)