• Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Germany is Europe’s biggest supporter of Israel.

    The biggest issue is that we, the EU, are on the side of Germany now. And their track record with world wars isn’t great.

    • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      To be fair to the Germans, I can understand how the Holocaust is integrated into them as a kind of “original sin”. What was done to the Jews under the Nazis was so unspeakable terrible, and German society as a whole has done an enormous job at ingraining in themselves that nothing of the sort should ever repeat itself.

      The problem is that “nothing of the sort” has translated into “opposing Jews in any way”. It seems to me like Germany sees itself as bound to support Jews (and thereby the Jewish state Israel) no matter what in order to “atone for their sins”, and I can understand that. However, right now, Israel is suddenly the state committing the closest thing we’ve seen to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust. It’s very hard for Germany to oppose Israel without tickling a part of their history that they’ve done a laudable job at condemning.

      What Germany needs now, is to separate their history from their current politics. I understand that it’s difficult, and I don’t have an answer to how it should be done, but it needs to happen, lest the same crimes are committed again.

      • p3n@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Israel is suddenly the state committing the closest thing we’ve seen to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust.

        I don’t say this to excuse anything Israel is doing, but this is gross recency bias that is glossing over numerous genocides that have occurred since the Holocaust, including:

        Not technically genocides, but also worth mentioning in the same vein:

        So ya, other than those events, this is the closest thing to the Holocaust since the actual Holocaust.

        • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          It’s laudable of you to bring attention to these other atrocities. Without creating a “race to the bottom” regarding what was worse, I still want to point out that the horror of the Holocaust was not only in the number of killed.

          I’m aware of a couple of the atrocities you mentioned, but as far as I’m aware, they don’t carry the clinical state-sponsored efficiency that is a hallmark of the Holocaust. When I compare Gaza today to the holocaust, that’s what I’m comparing, rather than the number of killed. It’s about the way Isreal has decided to wipe out the population of Gaza, and systematically does so completely unhindered.

          • p3n@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            To be clear, aside from the part I quoted, I agreed with everything else in your post and thought it was an interesting take, but again I have to take issue with this:

            as far as I’m aware, they don’t carry the clinical state-sponsored efficiency that is a hallmark of the Holocaust.

            I’m not going to analyze every single atrocity since 1945, but the Cambodian genocide was certainly state-sponsored, efficient, and horrific:

            “20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21, one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated,[4][28] and only seven adults survived.[29]”

            "The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes.[6] … In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees, and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents. The rationale was “to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents’ deaths.”

            “People were imprisoned and tortured merely on suspicion of opposing the regime or because other prisoners gave their names under torture. Whole families (including women and children) ended up in prisons and were tortured because the Khmer Rouge feared that if they did not do this, their intended victims’ relatives would seek revenge. Pol Pot said, “if you want to kill the grass, you also have to kill the roots”.[169]”

            "There are many accounts of torture in both the Security Prison 21 records and the documents of the trial; as told by the survivor Bou Meng in his book (written by Huy Vannak), tortures were so atrocious and heinous that the prisoners tried in every way to commit suicide, even using spoons, and their hands were constantly tied behind their back to prevent them from committing suicide "

            “all medical experiments were systematically conducted without proper anesthetics.[173] A medic who worked inside S-21 said that a 17-year-old girl had her throat slit and her abdomen pierced before being beaten and put into water for an entire night. This procedure was repeated many times and carried out without anesthetics.[174] In a hospital of Kampong Cham province, child medics cut out the intestines of a living non-consenting person and joined their ends to study the healing process. The patient died after three days due to the “operation”.[173]”

            “Twenty-six-year-old John D. Dewhirst, a British tourist, was one of the youngest foreigners to die in the prison.[17] He was sailing with his New Zealand companion, Kerry Hamill, and their Canadian friend Stuart Glass when their boat drifted into Cambodian territory and was intercepted by Khmer patrol boats on August 13, 1978. Glass was killed during the arrest, while Dewhirst and Hamill were captured, blindfolded, and taken to shore. Both were executed after having been tortured for several months at Tuol Sleng. Witnesses reported that a foreigner was burned alive; initially, it was suggested that this might have been John Dewhirst, but a survivor would later identify Kerry Hamill as the victim of this particular act of brutality.”

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields

        • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          This is a classic problem of going into one ditch, then oversteering and hitting the opposite ditch.

          Germany has worked so hard on “The Holocaust was terrible, we will forever support the Jews to make up for it” that they’re now supporting a genocidal Jewish state.

          My point is that I understand why this is hard for them. For them to oppose Israel invokes some associations that they really want to keep far away. However, now, supporting Israel invokes the same associations. This puts them in a kind of catch-22 situation, where no matter what they do, they’re invoking associations to the Nazis.

          To be clear: I think the only right thing to do now is to oppose Israel. I just understand why that is exceptionally hard for Germany.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        11 days ago

        The Nazis were just as brutal to Russians as they were to Jews, and yet modern Germany has no trouble understanding it shouldn’t support Russia today. The “holocaust guilt” excuse for supporting Israel seems like an excuse

  • tresspass@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    I’d find Germany less responsible for WWIII if maybe they ya know didn’t support a genocidal terrorist ethnostate at the expense of domestically suppressing speech calling out that foreign policy, but I guess it just be like that sometimes

    • albert180@piefed.social
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      8 days ago

      It’s very mean of Germany that foreigners who trash University property and threaten their staff violently face deportation.

      How can they do such a suppression of free speech?

      • tresspass@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        foreigners who trash University property and threaten their staff violently face deportation

        What are you referring to here?

        • albert180@piefed.social
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          7 days ago

          About the handful “poor and innocent protestors” which the Berlin government tried to deport for taking part in a violent occupation of the Berlin Free University, which then tried to claim this was a retaliation for “simple demonstrating against Israel.”

          https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/besetzung-an-der-freien-universitat-berlin-beendet-vermummte-anti-israelische-aktivisten-sturmten-prasidium--70-polizisten-vor-ort-12550436.html

          Here are some pictures of the damages caused inside the university

          https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2025/04/berlin-humboldt-universitaet-hoersaal-besetzung-protest-schaden-bilder-zerstoerung.html

          • tresspass@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Awesome. And it worked because it got the media to focus on the genocide even if it took further escalation and even if it was negative press. This is an entirely righteous and historically common way to raise attention that hey our government and university is complicit in the murder of 10s of thousands of kids and civilians. This is no different than the white rose resistance. Good for these students. They are heros who are risking their education, rights, and careers to give a voice to those who may not have one.

            • albert180@piefed.social
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              6 days ago

              Oh so threatening innocent people with violence and thrashing public universities is righteous?

              Completely disgusting. Cheering criminal activities is also a criminal offence in Germany

              Also the Weiße Rose never attacked innocent people. So don’t dirt their name by comparing them to these people

              • tresspass@lemmy.world
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                6 days ago

                While I don’t tend to idolize America be any means, at least we have of freedom of speech. You focus on a protest in the context of a native ethnic group getting wiped off the face of the earth. There is mass starvation and civilian targeting. Its terrible that one person was injured and it’s terrible this is what it takes for people to pay attention, but compared to genocide? You need to take a look at your priorities.

                • albert180@piefed.social
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                  5 days ago

                  Wow, another comparison dumb as a rock. So if I murder an innocent person to get attention for Palestine, it’s also okay, because compared to Genocide it’s also not that bad?

  • kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    12 days ago

    Germany is the second largest provider of weapons to Israel, and a huge longtime consumer of Russian gas, this is a tonedeaf as hell meme.

    • gibson@sopuli.xyz
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      12 days ago

      They also ditched nuclear energy and stayed over reliant on russian fossil fuel, funding the Russian war machine

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        11 days ago

        The nuclear rods in Europe are mainly made with Uranium from Kazakhstan processed in Russia.

        The German failure was not expanding renewables. Getting out of nuclear energy is geopolitically and financially sound.

      • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Now we’re funding the US regime war machine after they blew up NS2 and ‘sanctions’.
        Paying extortion prices for dirty US fracking gas that make companies uncompetitive and causing the economy to collapse.
        The US leeches always profit from war, same as in WW2.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    12 days ago

    Do people actually think the middle east conflict will start ww3?

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      11 days ago

      there’s a low likelyhood.

      The key question is what will happen to Israel in the future?

      In my opinion, Israel cannot stay in the middle east for much longer. They have to move out.

      Israel is so universally hated in the middle east, it’s difficult to put into words. (at least that’s what i got from other people’s messages). it’s difficult/impossible to conceive a long-term stability in the region with Israel in it. and israel knows this, of course.

      The question is: what will israel do? Will it escalate the conflict to try to grasp to power through military dominance in the area? Or will it soften its grip and let go of control in the middle east?

      • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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        11 days ago

        I think your souces for whats actually happening is clouding your judgement. There is no world where isreal is forced out of the middle east. They’ve made the strategic moves to take those options off the table.

        Isreal is more than capable of defending themselves with us support. They have destroyed almost all major threats in rhe region with Iran being the last one.

        Arabs in the region will never forget this war. But Arabs also hated isreal before so I doubt much has changed on the perception front.

        Most likely isreal will go back to normalisation with governments in the region since all major terrorist factions are virtually eliminated. If they can get regime change in Iran there is a good chance things will stabilise. Maybe they will need to destroy the houthis as well.

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Could easily be the start of it. If the US civil wars with the orangutan and his ilk, and China starts to fuck with Russia because Xi recognises Putin as a paper tiger dumbass (though China’s army is also paper tigery, so…) or just escalates their fighting with India…

      Then… That’d be most of the world involved in war.

      • Corn@lemmy.ml
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        11 days ago

        China has absolutely no reason to invade the pile of self-extracting resources that currently can only sell to them.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          I imagine Xi would if he thought he could take over Russia. It should be obvious China does not respect other nations’ boundaries or sovreignty. If Russia shows it’s that much weaker than China after the Ukraine BS, I would not put it past Xi.

          • Corn@lemmy.ml
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            10 days ago

            Even if they could, they wouldn’t get the resources as cheaply as theyre getting them now. Also China has recall elections, if Xi went mad and unilaterally decided to go to war with a country so important to Chinas economy, he’d be booted so fast.

            • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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              9 days ago

              Ehhhh, you’re only describing the other side of the calculation that we both know Xi is making. The moment that calculation shows invading Russia/India would maybe work, he’d probably go for it.

              If the US removed itself from the global stage, I’d suspect Xi would focus more on the Pacific and Thaiwan, but if the calculations show he could own Russia/India too? Yeeaaaaa he’s not passing that up.

              Also, we all should know how China’s votes go after Hong Kong… China is a dictatorship that calls itself communist. Nothing more.

  • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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    10 days ago

    Last time, germany at least had the guts to spearhead the reich. This time they’re just a bootlicker, following their imperialist friends.

  • xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 days ago

    They have a big share in the current state of affairs, whether it is the genocide of the Palestinian people or the complete failure of Europe. the German state hasn’t changed a fucking bit

  • vga@sopuli.xyz
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    11 days ago

    Fuck Iran. Their government is way worse than Israel’s. Do I need to remind everyone that they’re feeding Russia with the drones that they use to attack civilians in Ukraine?

    Here’s hoping that Iran’s next revolution won’t end up in a total disaster like the previous one did.

    • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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      10 days ago

      As much as you hate Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Israel is literally committing a genocide, how can you say that’s not worse than giving drones to Russia?

        • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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          10 days ago

          I don’t abide by ICJ rulings, I abide by credible reporting and evidence. Compare the civilian deaths ratio in the Ukraine invasion (however bad they may be) to the one in Palestine

          • sqgl@sh.itjust.works
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            10 days ago

            Yes a higher civilian death ratio in Gaza but the Ukraine military are not in civilian areas.

            Admittedly Russia actually targets civilians but it is with long range missiles and drones, most of which get intercepted.

            That article says Ireland is also trying to expand the definition of genocide to include Ukrainian deaths. I don’t know why it does not fit the definition currently; perhaps because Russia are not trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population? I dunno. Get back to us if you find out.

            • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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              10 days ago

              Yeah but according to the current legal definition, looking at the evidence, I can confidently claim it’s a genocide

              • sqgl@sh.itjust.works
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                10 days ago

                No, not according to the current definition. That is why Ireland is trying to change it. Words change all the time so it is possible.

                That would equate Gaza and Ukraine with the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, the nature and magnitude of which were very different. Perhaps they could create a new word for those?

                • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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                  10 days ago

                  equate Gaza and Ukraine with

                  Huh? Gaza and Ukraine are completely different conflicts. Ukraine is a military invasion, Gaza is a genocide.

                  No, not according to the current definition

                  Can you post the current definition? I’m happy to argue about that, because i do maintain that it’s a genocide in the case of Gaza because there’s a manifest intent to eliminate an entire people, unlike the case of Ukraine.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      9 days ago

      Their government is way worse than Israel’s.

      You can just come out and say you don’t think non-white people are human.