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441

Award ceremony suspended after writer compares Gaza to Nazi-era Jewish ghettos (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 years ago by Silverseren@kbin.social to c/world@lemmy.world

64 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A German foundation has said it will no longer be awarding a prize for political thinking to a leading Russian-American journalist after criticizing as “unacceptable” a recent essay by the writer in which they made a comparison between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.

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[–] Silverseren@kbin.social 199 points 2 years ago (5 children)

The hypocrisy of the Heinrich Böll Foundation (and the German government in general) is incredible.

Here you have a Jewish person who is a journalist and a renowned political thinker who was being given the award for being someone who "reports on power games and totalitarian tendencies as well as civil disobedience and the love of freedom".

They 100% have the position, right, and accuracy to be comparing the state of Gaza currently to the WWII ghettos.

Edit: Something else to note. The Foundation made this statement ""But Masha Gessen's views should not be honored with a prize intended to commemorate the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt".

And I can't help but laugh. Do they not know Arendt's past stance on Israel? She was literally one of the first world-renowned Jewish anti-Zionists.

She literally compared the Likud party to the Nazis!

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 54 points 2 years ago

This is the real, actual cancel culture, and usual suspects are silent, as expected.

[–] febra@lemmy.world 22 points 2 years ago

Do they not know Arendt’s past stance on Israel?

Partly jewish, German citizen here. I'll answer this for you. No, they don't. They never worked out their own history. It's all just teathre.

[–] ShroOmeric@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Hannah Arendt would be punished as antisemite in today Germany. What a cesspool that country is becoming once again.

[–] throwaway007@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 2 years ago

Someone had commented that, in today's Germany, she would not have received the award which is named after her own name.

[–] detalferous@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago

That is incredible

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 61 points 2 years ago

Hannah Arendt prize for political thought

Genocide Expert Award Rescinded After Genocide Expert Compares Genocide To Genocide

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 2 years ago

It's very very much like the Polish ghettos. You tell me, did Jews in Warsaw get put into an open air prison? Did Jews in Warsaw have their food and water and electricity taken away? Were the Jews in Warsaw allowed to leave the ghetto? Were the ghettos bombed and terrorized by Nazis?

[–] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I wonder if in 100 years we'll be looking at Israel like we look at Nazi Germany nowadays.

[–] SattaRIP@kbin.social 32 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, if history is indeed cyclical, then in a 100 years Palestinians will have their own ethnostate and oppressing a different peoples. My guess is Kurds. /s

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not likely. Conjuring new nations out of former colonies isn't really doable anymore.

[–] pufferfischerpulver@feddit.de 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In a 100 years it might, after our current world order has been consumed by the effects of unimpeded climate change. There's hope yet for the Palestinians to have a go. /s

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 points 2 years ago

Damn, I forgot about climate change. I don't do that often these days.

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

100 years from now the MENA region will be uninhabitable due to climate heating and I doubt that anyone will want to visit it in some spacesuit.

[–] Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

That's not what any of the worst case scenario in climate studies I've seen seem to think, what are you basing it on?

[–] jack@monero.town 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The difference is that this time USA supports the fascists

[–] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

This time?

America supports whoever we think will benefit us the most geopolitically lol. Israel is a centerpiece in the MENA which can't really be ignored for how much pressure they put on their neighbors.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

This time

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_non-interventionism#Non-interventionism_before_entering_World_War_II

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 years ago (10 children)

I've got some bad news.

The US was fully prepared to support the Nazis right up until it looked like they'd probably lose the war.

[–] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Do you have a source for that? I tried searching but didn't seem to find what you're referring to.

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 3 points 2 years ago

I think they're talking about American Nazi party involvement in the 1930's (sources in the comment below the question) at the time leading up to America's involvement, not necessarily official American foreign policy.

it's certainly an interesting revisionist question (i.e. if America had been on the axis side of the war), but it's definitely a-historical.

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[–] Limitless_screaming@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

If they end up losing.

[–] julianschmulian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I‘m German, currently living in Switzerland and when I recently visited Germany I was appalled by the amount of unconditional support for Israel, for example a HUGE (maybe 10x10m?) israeli flag on the offices of the Grünen party and official posters calling for solidarity. I don‘t even think this is stemming from (however undifferentiated and misguided) historical considerations, rather than geopolitical considerations. Also on the subject of the article, I think that‘s a pretty apt and carefully done comparison.

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 11 points 2 years ago

As just some asshole in America, the fierce blind support here seems to come from one of two places:

1- good old racism. just like the Irish, Italian, etc before them, jews have their "white card" with the bigots especially when the "enemy" are darker.

2- Religious nuts who think war around the holy land = the second coming and are going to root for anybody who keeps the war flowing.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I feel this really is because of plucking the historical guilt strings and "if you're against Israel's actions you're an anti-semit"

But I am not in the know of the local German situation, so might as well be a wrong impression

[–] pufferfischerpulver@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago

Pretty much. It's incredibly tiring

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

He's not wrong. Been saying this since week 1 of this new stage of the conflict. Others have been saying this for decades.

[–] AshMan85@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago

100% accurate

[–] not_that_guy05@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago

Honestly what timeline are we on. I wonder if they've even asked themselves "are we the baddies?".

[–] ShroOmeric@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Germans learned nothing from their Nazi past. Still love censorship and still love to consider some lives more important than others. They'te just acting like an Israel's colony now.

[–] Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world 43 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think Germany has actually accepted a lot more responsibility for the atrocities they've committed, compared to nearly every other European nation guilty of colonialism and genocide. I have British friends who were taught almost nothing about Britain's colonial past in school, while every German has to learn about the Holocaust in school.
In a way I understand Germany's reluctance to compare a Jewish ethnostate to Nazism, considering what they did to the Jews 80 years ago. But I think that comparison is completely justified and Germany should know better. Israel is an apartheid state, and Netanyahu is one Auschwitz away from being just like Hitler.

[–] ShroOmeric@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

They did accept responsability, but in itself has no value if they cannot raise their voices against another genocide that is happening right now. Totally agree with the res you say.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 2 points 2 years ago

It still has value if it stops then from committing another genocide themselves. But yeah, they could be doing a lot better.

[–] Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah I completely agree. They know better than anyone what fascism looks like, and the fact that they choose to do nothing is sickening.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A German foundation has said it will no longer be awarding a prize for political thinking to a leading Russian-American journalist after criticising as “unacceptable” a recent essay by the writer in which they made a comparison between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.

In the paragraph the HBS draws attention to, Gessen wrote that “ghetto” would be “the more appropriate term” to describe Gaza, but the word “would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews.

At the time it stated that “as an analyst of decline and hope, Gessen reports on power games and totalitarian tendencies as well as civil disobedience and the love of freedom”.

Supporters of Gessen, who is Jewish, and whose grandfather and great-grandfather were among family members murdered by the Nazis, have been quick to point out the irony of suspending a prize awarded in memory of Arendt, the German-born Jewish-American historian, philosopher and antitotalitarian political theorist who coined the phrase “the banality of evil”, in connection with the trial of leading Nazi Adolf Eichmann, which she covered as a journalist for the New Yorker.

In an interview with Die Zeit published on Tuesday, Gessen spoke of the backlash Arendt had faced as one of Israel’s initial critics, warning against establishing a purely Jewish state in Palestine and in so doing excluding the Arab population.

In an open letter written with Albert Einstein and other Jewish intellectuals in 1948, Arendt had, Gessen pointed out, even compared the Israeli Freedom party to the Nazis after they used racially motivated violence against civilians.

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