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Kristin Helberg: Never again is now in Gaza! Only when we understand our historical guilt (as Germans) as individual responsibility can we help prevent or end genocide!



‘Those who remain silent are complicit,’ warned Holocaust survivor Eva Szepesi in the Bundestag on 31 January 2024. Currently, such statements are being made by UN representatives speaking about the starvation and killing of children in Gaza: ‘If we do nothing about it, we are complicit.’ According to this logic, German politicians have long been accomplices. For they not only fail to name, condemn and stop the crimes committed by Israel – they even support them with arms deliveries. Israel's actions have long since ceased to follow a secret plan, but rather an official strategy: Palestinian life is to be suppressed and destroyed, Palestinian land occupied and settled. No matter what we call it – war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide – all UN members, and especially the signatories of the Genocide Convention, are obliged to stop it. Instead of celebrating closeness and friendship with Israel's representatives on the 60th anniversary of German-Israeli relations, Germany should therefore support all those who courageously oppose Netanyahu and the fascists in his cabinet – hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, relatives of the hostages, reservists and ex-soldiers, academics such as Amos Goldberg and Omar Bartov, and prominent figures such as Daniel Levy, Yuval Abraham, Ofer Cassif, Michael Sfard and Omri Boehm.

Commentary for the Berliner Zeitung from the homepage of Kristin Helberg



Only when Germans understand their historical guilt as individual responsibility can they prevent genocide. A column.

Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, Germans are prisoners of their past. Their inability to acknowledge the guilt of their own (great-)grandparents during the Nazi era – people who went along with it, remained silent or looked away – is rightly criticised. ‘Those who remain silent are complicit,’ warned Holocaust survivor Eva Szepesi in the Bundestag on 31 January 2024. Currently, such statements are being made by UN representatives speaking about the starvation and killing of children in Gaza: ‘If we do nothing about it, we are complicit.’


According to this logic, German politicians have long been accomplices. For they not only fail to name, condemn and stop the crimes committed by Israel – they even support them with arms deliveries. In doing so, they are taking a high personal risk. For anyone who still signs export licences for tank parts to Israel will eventually have to answer for their actions in court, according to lawyers. International law experts, former ambassadors, Jewish intellectuals and human rights organisations are therefore calling for a change in German policy towards Israel. What might this look like?


First, German politicians must recognise that Benjamin Netanyahu's ethno-nationalist government is not an ally. It is destroying not only the Palestinian existence, but also Israel from within. It fights the UN and its institutions, undermines the international rules-based order alongside US President Donald Trump and allies itself with Europe's right-wing populists. Nineteen months of ‘dialogue’ with Netanyahu have not crushed Hamas, rescued the kidnapped hostages or prevented the blockade of Gaza.


Instead of celebrating closeness and friendship with Israel's representatives on the 60th anniversary of German-Israeli relations, Germany should therefore support all those who courageously oppose Netanyahu and the fascists in his cabinet – hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, relatives of the hostages, reservists and ex-soldiers, academics such as Amos Goldberg and Omar Bartov, personalities such as Daniel Levy, Yuval Abraham, Ofer Cassif, Michael Sfard and Omri Boehm. Organisations such as Breaking the Silence, B'Tselem, Combatants for Peace and Standing Together should receive greater financial support and their representatives should be invited to the Bundestag – because their messages are those of the Holocaust survivors.


To end the blockade of Gaza, the EU could suspend its association agreement with Israel and impose sanctions on the politicians responsible. The Israeli ambassador should no longer be courted, but summoned. Unilateral bans on speech (‘From the river to the sea’) must be lifted, and anti-Semitism resolutions must be revised in cooperation with academia.


Israel's actions have long since ceased to follow a secret plan and are now part of an official strategy: Palestinian life is to be suppressed and destroyed, Palestinian land occupied and settled. No matter what we call it – war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide – all UN members, and especially the signatories of the Genocide Convention, are obliged to stop it.


In the case of Germans, freeing ourselves from the past means not understanding historical guilt as collective guilt towards another state, but as individual responsibility for our own actions. Eighty years after the Holocaust, we must overcome our self-imposed paralysis in the face of Israeli human rights violations; we must not make ourselves guilty again through silence. Never again is now – everywhere, and especially in Gaza.





Kristin Helberg (born 1973 in Heilbronn) is a German journalist and non-fiction author.

Life

Helberg was born and raised in Heilbronn. After graduating from Theodor-Heuss-Gymnasium Heilbronn[1], she studied political science and journalism in Hamburg and Barcelona. She began her career in journalism in 1994 with an internship at the Heilbronner Stimme.[2] From 1995 to 2001, she worked for NDR. From 2001 to 2008, she lived in Damascus, Syria, where she was the only officially accredited Western correspondent for a long time.[3] She works as a freelance journalist for ARD, ORF, Schweizer Radio DRS and Schweizer Fernsehen.[4]

Kristin Helberg was married to a Syrian doctor.[5][6] She has three




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