Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

One o f the lessons o f the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness.  How many were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood  of Hitler's rise, when it was already as clear as daylight. I recall a  conversation with an economist who demonstrated the impossibility of  Germany's militarization from the interests of Bavarian brewers. And in  any case, according to the clever people, fascism was impossible in the  West. Clever people have always made things easy for barbarians, because they are so stupid.  It is the well-informed, farsighted judgments, the prognoses  based on statistics and experience, the observations which begin: "I  happen to be an expert in this field," it is the well-founded, conclusive  statements which are untrue. Hitler was against intellect and humanity. But there is also an intellect  which is against humanity: it is distinguished by well-informed superiority. —Max Horkheimer and Theo...

Viktor Orbán will this week host Benjamin Netanyahu on a five-day visit to Hungary, becoming the first European leader to defy the International Criminal Court arrest warrant on the Israeli premier for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Germany’s expected next chancellor Friedrich Merz said after the general election last month that he would find the “ways and means” to have Netanyahu visit. “I think it is a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany,” Merz said. Financial Times , 30 March 2025

“As a podcaster and freelance journalist, Ole Nymoen admits he enjoys freedom of expression and other democratic rights in his home country of Germany. But he would not want to die for them. In a book published this week, Why I Would Never Fight for My Country, the 27-year-old argues ordinary people should not be sent into battle on behalf of nation states and their rulers — even to fend off an invasion. Occupation by a foreign power might lead to a “shitty” life, he told the Financial Times . “But I’d rather be occupied than dead.” Refereshing in times of national chauvinism, rampant capitalism, neo-fascism… “A quarter of the 18,810 men and women who signed up in 2023 left the armed forces within six months. So far top officials “from the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, the two parties likely to form the next government, have ruled out a revival of traditional conscription. “Since Russia’s full-scale Ukraine invasion, Germany has had a steep rise in the number of conscie...

“ The political and moral deformations and intellectual helplessness of Germany today are more dangerous than at any other time since 1945…  The country that laid waste the moral structure of western society looks feeble again before the economic crises and social breakdowns of capitalism that first produced fascism. Revealingly, the binary of the enlightened west and unenlightened east – once used to authorise the Nazi quest for  Lebensraum  in the east and then adapted to serve cold war policy agendas – is the currency today of far-right nationalists across Israel, Europe and America…  And there was much about western democracies – especially their foundations in white supremacy, and cultures of racism and antisemitism – that allowed Hitler to believe that they would welcome his extermination of Jews.” Related The new German chauvinism  ( an essay in two parts) Germany's reckoning with its past is no longer a model

“The surgeon and former Labour health minister found England had spent almost £37bn less than peer countries on health assets and infrastructure since the 2010s. Twenty per cent of the NHS estate predates the founding of the service more than 75 years ago, and some of NUH’s facilities date back to the Victorian era .” In 2022 healthcare expenditure in Germany and France was equivalent to 12.6% and 11.9%, respectively. In 2023, the UK spent 8.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public healthcare.  This is a decrease from 2020 and 2021, when the UK spent 10.1% of its GDP on healthcare.

“[O]ver time, Holocaust memory in Germany progressively transformed into a policy of unconditional support for Israel. What was once an example of historical reckoning has become a framework that, in my view, contributes to the erasure of critical perspectives and enables actions that contradict the very principles of justice and accountability that this memory was meant to uphold. “The focus on the Holocaust, while important, has overshadowed or minimized the memory of colonialism, creating a tension that became more apparent after October 7. “This ‘aporetic’ memory politics is the premise for ignoring the colonial dimension of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. In the German and Western European discourse, Netanyahu is depicted as the representative of the Jews as victims. Therefore, Palestinians are not a dispossessed people, but a new embodiment of antisemitism. “Germany is today complicit in the genocide in Gaza, just like France, Italy, and the UK. However, Germany’s ...

Alice is superior than Marine and Georgia

Gaza and censorship Related The new German chauvinism:  An essay in two parts

'International law' and 'democractic order' ?  A contnious and deliberate denial of history by journalists.

“By reducing the entirety of its brutal history to the singular crime of the Holocaust, Germany has failed to account for its settler-colonial  violence  against other people and, therefore, has not learnt any lesson at all. “The übermenschentum “mentality is still pervasive, though its existence is officially denied, and thus, its roots have gone unexamined. “We see a deeply-rooted settler colonial mindset in Germany's institutions and organisations that have not been confronted in a century.”

A liberal view that reflects liberal anxiety of a phenomenon of their own creation  The author’s profile says it all. Note that there is not a single word about Palestine and Germany’s complicity in a genocidal war.  “While in the Weimar Republic a century ago, demagogues and populists thrived on “othering” German Jews, today this “other” is the migrant - more specifically,  those with Muslim backgrounds .”

One wants to break free of the past: rightly, because nothing at all can live in its shadow, and because there will be no end to the terror as long as guilt and violence are repaid with guilt and violence; wrongly, because the past that one would like to evade is still very much alive.    —Theodor W. Adorno

“ The speech that I could not deliver because German police burst into our Berlin venue to disband our Palestine Congress (1930s style).”

A British-Palestinian surgeon speaks after had refused entry to take part in a conference.

Nancy Fraser

It is not Europe but some of Europe. “In essence, the EU and major member states have thrown their lot in with one of the most brutal and repressive dictatorships in the Middle East, standing firmly against the democratic aspirations of Egyptians. This policy has garnered mass profits for European corporations and states , at the expense of the Egyptian poor and middle classes.” Related A window into Egyptian general’s past

Ever since its founding after World War II the German Federal Republic, to gain acceptance into the family of “western democracies,”  while denouncing Hitler and his most famous henchmen, almost completely restricted condemnation to the horrifying annihilation of the Jewish people while distorting or ignoring the earlier, intense fascist attacks against the Left, especially the Communist left, which so often ended with a noose or a guillotine. Largely forgotten were also Nazi crimes against almost every country in Europe, beginning in Spain in 1936-1939 and climaxing in the killing of an estimated 27 million people of the USSR. In fact, a large number of the perpetrators went unpunished or regained influence and prosperity. Meanwhile, the policy-makers built up connections with any and every Israeli government, including large financial support, often in the form of armaments (like submarines). But since such support served as evidence that Germany had “overcome its past,” tot...

On reading Ghassan Kanafani’s “Letter from Gaza”

Axel Springer

More than a month old article. It is brief but a good summary . Related The betrayal of Gaza