Antisemitism, Selectively Applied: The Erasure of Palestinians in Germany
The terms “Semitic” and “Hamitic” originate from Biblical classifications based on the sons of Noah—Shem and Ham. In historical linguistics and early ethnography, Semitic peoples were associated with the Middle East (Arabs, Jews, Babylonians, Canaanites), while Hamitic peoples referred to groups in Africa, including ancient Egyptians, Berbers, and Ethiopians.
In the 19th century, Wilhelm Marr, a German racial theorist, coined the term “anti-Semitism”—a term now almost exclusively applied to Jews, despite Arabs being equally Semitic. This limited definition has profound political consequences today, particularly in Germany.
Never Again – Except When It’s Convenient: Germany’s Memory Politics Exposed
Germany enforces some of the strictest antisemitism laws in the world, primarily aimed at combating Holocaust denial and protecting Jewish communities. While noble in origin, critics—including Jewish intellectuals, human rights groups, and civil society organizations—argue that these laws now disproportionately suppress Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim voices.
One major point of contention is Germany’s adoption of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism. This definition has been used to conflate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitic hate, even when such critiques are grounded in human rights law or solidarity with oppressed Palestinians.
In 2024, Germany reaffirmed its resolution barring public funding to organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This policy effectively criminalizes peaceful Palestinian advocacy and stifles free expression—particularly within Arab and Muslim communities. In practice, antisemitism laws are being selectively enforced, mostly used to silence dissent against Israeli state violence and to marginalize voices demanding justice, fairness, and racial equity.
Recent polls send a clear signal from the German public: three-quarters oppose continued arms deliveries to Israel. This overwhelming rejection endures despite the near silence of German media on the daily killing of Palestinian children, women, and elderly people by Israeli forces.
Palestinian suffering is systematically marginalized in Western media coverage. A recent study revealed that the BBC reports on Israeli deaths 33 times more frequently than on Palestinian deaths—an extraordinary imbalance that distorts public understanding and shields governments from accountability.
Yet despite a growing body of irrefutable evidence of war crimes, Germany’s political leadership and mainstream media persist in supporting arms exports to Israel—openly defying the will of the majority. This disconnect exposes a deep failure of democratic representation, a collapse of moral responsibility, and a persistent unwillingness to confront Germany’s historical legacy with honesty and courage.
Violent Foundations: How Zionist Terrorist Groups Laid the Groundwork for Greater Israel
Before the establishment of Israel in 1948, three paramilitary Zionist groups—Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi (Stern Gang)—waged an often brutal campaign against British authorities, Arab civilians, and each other in pursuit of a Jewish state.
These groups were at various points condemned as terrorist organizations by the British and were responsible for high-profile terror attacks:
- Irgun’s 1938 attacks killed around 80 civilians in marketplaces.
- The 1946 King David Hotel bombing killed 91.
- Lehi’s 1947 assassination attempt on U.S. President Truman.
- The 1948 Semiramis Hotel bombing killed 25.
- Deir Yassin massacre (April 1948): Over 100 Palestinian civilians killed in a joint Irgun-Lehi operation.
- The assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, a UN peace mediator who had negotiated the release of over 30,000 prisoners from Nazi concentration camp, by Lehi in September 1948.
Leaders of these terrorist groups later became Israeli prime ministers: David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, and Yitzhak Shamir. Their violent methods and ideological visions laid the foundation for what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba (“catastrophe”)—the mass expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians, the slaughter of countless people and the destruction of hundreds of villages.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, referenced expansive territorial ambitions in his diaries, including land stretching from the Sinai to the Euphrates. Religious-nationalist factions—including members of the Israeli cabinet—continue to envision a “Greater Israel” that includes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, alongside all of historic Palestine. This vision is far from symbolic; many Israeli politicians and settlers are actively working to realize it—often treating brutal violence as a justified means to that end.
1948 Was Only the Beginning: The Relentless Violence of the Israeli State
The terror did not stop with Israel’s founding. The following is a partial record of major massacres of Palestinians:
- Deir Yassin (1948): Over 100 civilians slaughtered.
- Abu Shusha (1948): 60 villagers killed, including reports of sexual violence.
- Tantura (1948): 200 killed after surrender.
- Lydda and Ramle (1948): Over 400 killed and tens of thousands expelled.
- Al-Dawayima (1948): 455 killed, including women and children.
- Qibya (1953): 69 killed under Ariel Sharon’s command.
- Kafr Qasim (1956): 49 killed for unknowingly breaking curfew.
- Khan Yunis (1956): 275–400 killed in Gaza.
- Sabra and Shatila (1982): 3,000 Palestinians slaughtered with Israeli complicity.
- Ibrahimi Mosque (1994): 29 killed by a Jewish settler.
More recent events include the 2008, 2012, and 2014 Gaza wars, the Great March of Return (2018–2019), and the 2021 Sheikh Jarrah escalation—all resulting in massive Palestinian civilian casualties, including countless children, and raising credible accusations of war crimes by international observers.
October 7 and the Media Blackout: What Germany Doesn’t Want You to Know
Just as with the war in Ukraine—officially framed as beginning with Russia’s invasion in February 2022, if one accepts the Western narrative that omits the Western-backed coup against a democratically elected government in 2014 and the rise of an illegitimate ultranationalist regime hostile to Russian speakers and bombing them in the Donbass since then—the story of the Palestinian conflict is similarly distorted.
According to mainstream Western politicians and media, the violent clashes began on October 7, 2023, with what they described as an “unprovoked terrorist attack” on peaceful Israel. On that day, the military wing of Hamas launched a large-scale operation from the sealed-off Gaza Ghetto and crossed into southern Israel.
But before this, Hamas had repeatedly called for the release of thousands of Palestinians—many of them women and children—imprisoned by Israel, often without trial and under harsh, inhumane conditions. Numerous human rights reports had documented cases of torture and sexual violence in Israeli detention centers. These appeals were ignored by the Israeli government—and largely buried by Western media. Contrary to wide-spread propaganda, the operation on October 7 was therefore not intended to murder Israeli civilians. Rather, Hamas’s aim was to take hostages in order to force the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel’s initial narrative of the October 7 attack—alleging mass rapes, beheaded babies, and other atrocities—was widely circulated in international media but has since been questioned or debunked by Israeli journalists and independent investigations. What stands out is that German media remain largely silent about this.
Meanwhile, Israel reportedly invoked the Hannibal Directive, which allows the use of lethal force in areas where Israeli hostages are being held in order to prevent their capture – resulting in numerous civilian deaths, including its own citizens. This includes the fact that Israel shot and killed its own festivalgoers.
One bereaved Israeli family even threatened legal action against the government, accusing it of exploiting their relatives’ deaths for propaganda, amid mounting evidence that an Israeli airstrike, not Hamas, was responsible. In one tragic case, an Israeli hostage recorded on video said Hamas fighters moved him ten times in an effort to shield him from Israeli attacks. Nevertheless, he was ultimately killed—by an Israeli strike.
Contrary to popular belief, Hamas has accepted the idea of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders—an implicit acknowledgment of Israel’s existence alongside it. The group has also explicitly distinguished between Zionism and Judaism, stating that it could coexist peacefully with Jewish communities. Yet calls for Palestinian liberation are all too often—and deliberately—misrepresented as genocidal antisemitism.
Meanwhile, genuine acts of genocidal, antisemitic violence against Palestinians continue unabated and without accountability. As of June 2025:
- Over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
- More than 131,000 have been injured.
- Over 12,000 have been detained.
- Nearly 1,000 have been killed in the West Bank.
These figures, reported by mainstream media, are almost certainly significant underestimates. They do not, for instance, include the many victims still buried beneath the rubble of Gaza’s obliterated buildings.
In a recent publication, Nature—one of the world’s most prestigious and widely cited scientific journals—highlighted the findings of the first independent mortality survey of the conflict. The study, posted on the preprint server medRxiv, estimates: “Almost 84,000 people died in Gaza between October 2023 and early January 2025 as a result of the Hamas–Israel war. More than half of those killed were women aged 18–64, children, or people over 65.”
Merz’s Crusade: Armed Rhetoric, Distorted Truths, and Germany’s Haunted Past
Friedrich Merz, the current German Chancellor, adopts an aggressively pro-Israel stance and harbors more hostility toward Russia than any German leader since Chancellor Adolf Hitler. His statements, which downplay Israeli war crimes and deny Ukraine’s attacks on Russian civilians—while simultaneously preparing Germany for a possible war against Russia—evoke deeply disturbing historical parallels.
Most disturbing is Merz‘s unwavering defense of Israel’s 12-day war against Iran in June 2025—an unprovoked attack where it not only killed hundreds of Iranian military personnel and murdered nuclear scientists and their families, but also brazenly targeted other civilians and peaceful nuclear facilities.
To frame such brutality as necessary or righteous is nothing short of obscene. His characterization of Israel’s illegal war of aggression as a “dirty war on behalf of the world” chillingly echoes the dangerous militarism that marked Germany’s darkest era.
Merz also has referred to Iran’s government (often called the “mullah regime”) as brutal and oppressive toward its own people, emphasizing alleged human rights abuses, suppression of dissent, and authoritarian control.
What the German chancellor conveniently omits is that Iran—home to the second-largest Jewish population in the Middle East—grants its Jewish community constitutional protections. Iranian Jews not only worship freely and maintain synagogues but also prosper and hold a reserved seat in parliament. Prominent Jewish-American journalists like Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil have documented vibrant Jewish life in cities such as Isfahan.
Furthermore, contrary to Merz’s claims, Iran has a more inclusive form of democracy than Israel, which systematically denies equal rights and representation to millions of people under its control, as Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has noted.
Germany’s First Dirty War: Chemical Weapons against Iran
During the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), Iraq deployed chemical weapons against Iranian civilians and soldiers—using components and technology supplied by German firms. Nerve agents such as sarin and mustard gas killed at least 20,000 Iranians. More than 80 German companies have been implicated in facilitating these atrocities. Once again, Germany found itself at the forefront of industrialized mass killing.
The silence and complicity of the West—including Germany—reveal a disturbing pattern of double standards in which, despite all claims to the contrary, geopolitical interests regularly take precedence over justice and human rights.
Instead of holding Germany accountable for its role in these crimes, Berlin and other Western powers now lend support to what may become the next great crime against the Iranian people.
Renowned Jewish-American scholar Professor Jeffrey Sachs offers a sobering perspective on this broader Western posture. He argues that U.S. foreign policy has long been dominated by neoconservative and pro-Israel agendas that favor regime change and military intervention over diplomacy and international law. Citing former General Wesley Clark, Sachs recalls a post-2001 Pentagon plan to topple seven governments in five years—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran—targeting countries that resist Israeli and Western hegemony or support the oppressed Palestinian people. Six of those wars have already unfolded, leaving a trail of chaos and bloodshed. Sachs describes this approach as reckless, morally bankrupt, and devoid of strategic coherence.
Germany’s enthusiastic alignment with this agenda makes it complicit—then and now.
Unchecked and Unpunished: How the West Enables Israel’s Nuclear Exceptionalism
Germany and other Western nations continue to demonize Iran’s peaceful nuclear program—used for energy and medical applications—while ignoring Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal. Iran has complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and hosted IAEA inspections. In contrast, Israel has refused all inspections and holds a sizable nuclear arsenal with zero transparency.
Even after assassinating Iran’s top nuclear negotiator—just days after he agreed to limit uranium enrichment to below 5% ahead of a pivotal diplomatic meeting with the United States—Israel faced no international condemnation. Instead, distorted narratives continue to portray Iran as an existential threat, despite the fact that Iran has not initiated a war in centuries. In stark contrast, Israel routinely launches strikes against countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran, and has issued threats against Tehran for over three decades.
Biblical Myths, Modern Bombs: Taking Antisemitism Seriously Means Defending All Semitic Lives—Including Palestinians
Antisemitism is real, dangerous, and must be confronted. But integrity demands that we acknowledge its full scope.
A growing chorus of Jews across America, Britain, and beyond declare: “Not in my name!” They insist that Zionism and its transgressions must not be equated with Judaism—because doing so is, in itself, a subtle form of antisemitism. They would also agree that
- The Palestinian people are Semitic too.
- Fighting antisemitism means protecting all Semitic groups—Palestinians and Jews alike.
- Criticism of Israel’s racist policies and violence is not antisemitism; it is a moral imperative.
Germany’s one-sided focus on antisemitism silences Palestinian voices and obscures the ongoing genocide of a Semitic people. An honest reckoning with history requires confronting all forms of racism and injustice—no matter how uncomfortable that may be. And, of course, German arms deliveries to a state committing a new Holocaust must be stopped immediately.
If Germany truly means “never again,” it must reject all forms of racial supremacy—whether disguised behind biblical myths or modern geopolitics. Only then can the ghosts of the past finally rest.