After World War II, as the camps were liberated and the world found out what the Jews of Central Europe had suffered, it was inevitable―and probably necessary―that antisemitism would be a major focus for the civilized world. The problem is that we seem to have gotten special pleading and nothing else. It should go without saying but still needs to be said that persecuting Jews for being Jewish is wrong. The obvious corollary, both logical and moral, is that the same should hold for any other ethic and/or religious group. And the past few months have made it obvious just how many people just can't make that leap.
Germany is where this gets most bizarre. The government is investigating the two filmmakers behind the documentary No Other Land for being antisemitic and overly sympathetic to Palestine, despite one of the two being not only Jewish but Israeli. In fact the Deutsch have clamped down on criticism of Israel all over, and dissident Jews have been disproportionately targeted.
Germany has a rich history, has made many contributions to poetry and music, etc. But if they think sending the Unteroffizier out to reeducate those they find guilty of Jewish self-hatred is any kind of path to redemption, they're fooling themselves.
2 comments:
One of my complaints about life on Earth is that nobody is born knowing how to ride a bicycle. Apparently, all little babies know how to swim but I for one wouldn't throw one into the deep end to see what happens.
What happened in the internment camps in ww2 was horrific and should be rightfully abhorred. Although it's usually seen as an extermination specifically targeted at Jews, in actuality there were millions of Gentiles who suffered at the hands of the Nazis - including approximately 8 million Russians. Had the suffering of all of them been declared as loudly we could be living in a better world now. Instead, they were largely ignored. You're right, persecuting anyone should be wrong.
Occupied by the US military since 1945, the German public was shamed mercilessly after the war as though they were the only ones who had committed atrocities. Now they suffer from inherited guilt and overcompensate to a massive degree.
The movie No Other Land has been widely praised but, since it's still unreleased, very few people have watched it. When you have Zionists in Israel declaring anyone who disagrees with their policies as being anti-Semitic and this is promoted by the media and Western leaders in general it's hard to see how the violence against the Palestinians can be stopped without a war in the Middle East. It's sheer madness.
Ah well, let's enjoy a laugh while we still can - this is an old favorite.
Maybe thousands of more years of evolution will produce humans who are born knowing how to ride a bike, although it seems like there could be downsides to that as well. As for babies swimming, that's definitely a "measure twice, cut once" situation.
There were different root causes. Jews were a convenient scapegoat for domestic political problems, and also a pet peeve of Hitler's. Same with Gypsies. Russians were punished because Russia could frustrate Germany's conquest of the East, which ultimately they did. Of course once they were in the camps the exact reasons why became academic. It's more than a little frightening that this was the go-to solution.
I hope No Other Land gets seen widely enough to make a difference. The thing is that Israel's policies and propaganda are themselves antisemitic because they promote grubby temporal politics as the essence of Judaism. I don't know what's going to happen in Israel/Palestine and the Middle East, but things are really at a breaking point.
That's a good skit. I've tried watching Mitchell and Webb in Spaced but found it wasn't quite my speed.
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