Reply to Jews and Germans

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "Jews and Germans"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Today, many Germans reject any guilt/responsibility because they were not alive when this happened but I don't take that position.  [/quote]

I find this odd. How can one feel guilty or assume responsibility for something one has not done nor facilitated?[/quote]

Another German here (born in the 70s, with parents born after WWII). I agree, but there is a line to walk for Germans. I don't feel guilty or responsible for the Holocaust, but I do think that Germany and Germans have a special responsibility to remember it, and also have a particular responsibility towards the Jews and Israel. I do feel that I should not be personally resented for something neither I nor my parents were involved in, but the topic is certainly deeply uncomfortable. I don't know any Germans who aren't deeply disturbed by our country's history, and nobody I know would reject this type of responsibility.[/quote]

Curious, do Germans feel any responsibilty towards Palestinians? 
Also, what were your grandparents doing during the war? This is not meant to be a threatening question. [/quote]

There is a tradition among the radical German left to side with the Palestinians. Otherwise I'm not aware that Germans feel more responsibility towards Palestinians than any other nation.

Regarding my grandparents - as far as I know, they were not actively involved in any atrocities. They certainly were the types who looked the other way if they knew anything. My one grandfather was wounded early and returned to his farm, my other grandfather was in Italy. Maybe they sympathized with the Nazis, I don't know. It wasn't something they liked to talk about after the war. They were politically conservative, there were the typical tensions with my leftist, 1968'er generation parents, and I learned early they weren't the ones with whom to discuss politics or social issues. Why do you ask? What they did or didn't do doesn't affect what I wrote above in any way.[/quote]

OP here, also German, a few years older than you.

Being historically conscious and feeling compassion for Palestinians is no contradiction to me. Messy conflicts such as the Israeli-Paletinian one know (too) many victims and few heroes. But the Palestinian civil population is suffering the most, and it is natural that one's sympathy would be with them.

At the same time, Israel's right to exist and the right of Israelis to live self-determined, in peace and in safe borders is beyond question to me - but the same holds for Palestinians.

Then again, the fact that the Palestinians don't have their own state today is in part their own fault. A couple of times, serious and brave Israeli statesmen - Jitzchak Rabin, Ehud Barak - made reasonably fair peace offers that could have much improved the Palestinians' plight, but the vain and incompetent Palestinian leadership did not take them. The Palestinians would have needed a Nelson Mandela or at least a Gerry Adams, all they had was Yassir Arafat. It takes two to tango, and also two to make peace.

At the same time, and in contrast to the Rabins and Baraks, I do not consider today's Israeli Prime Minister a figure with whom progress could be achieved. Loyalty to Israel does not mean that one needs to agree with its political leadership at every juncture. At this juncture, I don't. [/quote]

Gerry Adams the terrorist? Interesting selection as Mandela was at some point considered a terrorist as well.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics