What is the excuse for Germany? The US won't, but can blame AIPAC for holding them hostage. Is there something similar going on there or is it some remnant of guilt from the Holocaust that compels them to assist Israel after all they've done?
It is partly guilt from the Holocaust, as in Germany is a big part of the reason Israel exists. So this entire Israel antisemitism plays very different in Germany. Also Scholz Ukraine response was weak and he got a lot of bad press for it, so he tried to go hard pro Israel. At the same time new export permits have not been issued for months, as there is a refusal to deliver any weapons, which could be used for war crimes, while being the largest donor to Palestine.
So a weird situation. The US going hard on Israel would help a lot though, to clean that up.
Thanks for the insight! I wish we could go harder on Israel here, but with our outrageously stupid ruling that corporations are people and money is speech, we now have all political parties beholden to large money influence because you can't limit the freedom of speech... :(
It is also a veil for anti-muslim racism, painting antisemitism as "imported" by muslims (despite German Nazis being the main perpetrators of antisemiticm crime) and taking the support for Israel as "proof" of not being bigoted.
Bonus points for using it to attacked progressive leftists and label them as antisemitic or terror supporters without having to engage with their demands. Also the fascists from the AfD and now the CDU are using it to push around the less fascist parties. They made "unconditionally supporting Israel" a ritual to prove how good or bad people they are. So when the AfD demands something in regards to Israel the SPD, Green and others try to top it. Can't be that the Nazis are better friends of Israel than they are...
Meanwhile these things are used to repress non zionist Jews, who get disproportionately affected by getting their funding cut in culture and science, being excluded from events and even being attacked by "anti-antisemitism commisioners", with accusations like being "allegedly jewish". So Germany is back to classifying who are "good" and who are "bad" Jews.
It has nothing to do with logic or consistent values. It is a psychotic hysteria.
"We have not decided not to supply weapons. We have supplied weapons and we will supply weapons," Scholz told parliament
So the word "soon" that is in the title — did that come from Scholz or is it an invention on the part of Reuters?
Scholz used the word "soon", but referring to deliveries in general, not weapons. Character-wise it should be noted that Scholz is an absolute master at not saying anything as well as saying things: If he did want to say something we wouldn't be discussing whether he said something.
The government is overall quite keen on not explicitly saying that they've stopped weapons exports, for the time being. Reason being that they can't legally issue export licenses. They can't go to parliament, either, saying "erm we should scratch those paragraphs about not exporting weapons when there's signs they could be used in a genocide", that's political suicide, and they can't overrule the ministerial level (which makes those assessments) either, any such attempt would be a) illegal and b) leak instantly and thus be c) political suicide. Also I don't think any of the ruling parties is in any way keen on exporting weapons to Israel. Stuff like air defence systems, sure, but even that must be weighed against Ukraine's needs.
And they also can't say that Israel is committing genocide. That wouldn't be straight-out political suicide but it would force a discussion that noone wants to have, sitting things out, hoping that Israelis get their shit together and get rid of that Kahanite government, looks way more inviting.
I wonder if repeatedly attaking un peacekeepers will affect this?
Well, the announcement came as Israel made a new offensive into northern Gaza, ethnically cleansing the area and slaughtering more journalists and doctors and after UNFIL made statements about being threatened by the IDF.
So it seems to be about showing support for these actions in a plausibly deniability kind of way.
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