As someone living in Germany, that philosophy of "we don't have the right to intervene or say anything" is definitely embedded in the culture here. Obviously there are plenty of people who don't follow this philosophy, and there are left-wing pro-Palestine movements here as well, but overall there's a big cultural sense of obligation to Israel due to Germany's history.
A friend of mine even ended up talking to a German diplomat in Israel, who said much the same thing: they could cosign other nations' condemnations of Israeli actions when they happened, but they couldn't condemn Israeli actions unilaterally. Obviously that was just his opinion and not an official viewpoint of the German government, but I found it fascinating that Germany still felt this sense of needing to make things right to Israel specifically.
Weird take. When does it end? Do you feel guilt and hold your tongue on subjects where your country has a history of doing bad? What’s the time limit? 100 years? 10000?
They’re rabidly and actively supporting & covering for a genocide, and have been working tirelessly to suppress all internal dissent to this position (good old Stasi days peeking from under the covers).
Further, they’re going to lengths no other European country is going to in pursuit of this goal of covering for a genocide, all out of national guilt? It is a delusional position to take.
Now, if they actually were holding their tongue on this instead of providing unconditional support and cover, no one would be bringing up that these are the grandchildren of Nazis lecturing us about the right thing to do here :)
> Germany is the absolute last country on this planet to lecture the rest of us on how to criticize Israel
What a bad take. Germany, if it learned its lessons from the Holocaust, which was a genocide they did on the Jewish population, is absolutely the FIRST country in the world to teach Israel that what it's doing is absolutely abhorrent. Don't repeat my mistakes, so to say.
> So they perpetrated the Holocaust, claimed that they learned from their mistakes and drowned themselves in guilt, and now act as holier than thou unconditional defenders of Israel as it commits a genocide in Gaza.
Yes, because they haven't learned shit from their past.
A friend of mine even ended up talking to a German diplomat in Israel, who said much the same thing: they could cosign other nations' condemnations of Israeli actions when they happened, but they couldn't condemn Israeli actions unilaterally. Obviously that was just his opinion and not an official viewpoint of the German government, but I found it fascinating that Germany still felt this sense of needing to make things right to Israel specifically.