The article was going to be titled “Quo Vadis, Germania?” with reference to the Berlin elections and previous ones in the states. However, since the issue extends far beyond that country, it would be more reasonable to take a general look at politics thrown into disarray by the electoral climate unfolding, or about to unfold, across the European continent, in almost every country. Above all, let us consider the state of a continent whose representatives saw no problem in listening eagerly to Netanyahu, the chief architect of genocide, at the UN’s annual General Assembly before the anniversary of October 7, with the exceptions of Ireland, Spain, and Slovenia…
As there is no worse case let us nevertheless begin with Germany, whose pro-Israel stance has reached the point of a total suspension of reason under the banner of “Staatsräson” meaning that “Israel’s security is among Germany’s fundamental national interests”. We are talking about the German establishment, whose predecessors were the perpetrators of the Holocaust against the Jews and whose present-day representatives are willing and fervent supporters of the genocide of Palestinians.
As is well known, the fascist AfD party won nearly 44% of the vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and, two weeks later, 38.2% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They will most likely govern both states. Then, on the same night as AfD’s second victory, Die Linke (The Left Party) came first in Berlin with 25.7% of the vote, following a campaign centered on exorbitant rents, inequality, and demands to expropriate hundreds of thousands of homes owned by giant real estate companies. It thus gained the opportunity to govern both the state and the municipality through a prospective coalition. And suddenly, the political debate in Germany began to revolve not around the problems of Berliners, but around Die Linke and accusations of antisemitism, that is, hostility towards Jews. Parties outside and opposed to Die Linke took matters as far as the delusion that “if Die Linke forms a government in Berlin, the lives of the 125,000 Jewish Germans living in the country will be in danger.” As though the sole and most urgent problem in a Germany whose political system has been turned upside down were to look after Jews and Israel…
Now let us look at France. Debates surrounding the presidential election on April 18 became the sole item on the agenda with the arrival of September. Yet this agenda revolves almost exclusively around the questions of “whether the genocide in Gaza is genocide or not, and who is antisemitic and who is not.” The overwhelming majority of candidates are pro-Israel and are campaigning on the claim that the “France Unbowed” party is antisemitic, pro-Palestinian, and pro-Islam, and therefore illegitimate as a potential governing party. The enormous problems facing the public and the question of how to reform a completely paralyzed political and economic system are hardly priorities. For example, as secondary school students who took to the streets once again at the beginning of the month to protest an education system that has become wholly unsustainable continue searching for someone accountable to address their concerns, the government has washed its hands of the matter by declaring that “France Unbowed is behind the student movement.”
In most European countries, though not to the same extent as in Germany and France, accusations of antisemitism, pro-Israel sentiment, and Islamophobia have come to overshadow societies’ own problems. This extraordinary “collaboration” is certainly no coincidence. Everywhere, the master key to xenophobia is the rumor of antisemitism. Political operators remain trapped in an endless Palestinian-Israeli problematic. Anyone who dares to utter the word “Palestine” in the public sphere can immediately be detained and subjected to an investigation.
A considerable number of Jewish academics and intellectuals who have exposed Israel and the genocide, particularly in Germany and France, the continent’s heavyweights, are being subjected to severe censorship, just like other dissenters. The bigotry has reached such a level that they look to the hereditary antisemitic fascist right for cues, do business with it when necessary, and see no objection to appearing in the same frame with it in their pro-Israel stance and in the hatred of Arabs and Muslims that underlies it.
In fact, Europeans have spent the past three years trying to define the rejection of Zionism, which lies at the heart of the ongoing Palestinian catastrophe, as a form of antisemitism and classify it as a criminal offence, as Canada has managed to do.
Let us speak plainly: in the eyes of Western rulers, having subjected Jews to genocide in Europe means granting the Jewish state the right to commit genocide against Palestinians today as it pleases, without having to answer to anyone for anything.
In 1945, following two horrific wars, the continent said “no” to both war and genocide under the slogan “Never Again.” Today, it has become clear that this grandiose claim no longer encompasses either war or genocide. And after Palestine, one cannot help but wonder: “Could the 50 million Muslims living on the continent be next?” This, presumably, is what the Israelization of the West looks like.
