[News] Why German state racism is now directed at the Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/germany-palestinians-state-racism-directed-why>
Why German state racism is now directed at the Palestinians
Jonathan Cook - November 23, 2022
------------------------------
The Holocaust serves, paradoxically, as an alibi for Europeans to assume
they are morally superior to others, as the cancellation of an arts prize
to Caryl Churchill shows

[image: image.png]

There are troubling insights to be gained into modern European racism from
the German arts community’s decision to revoke
<https://www.schauspiel-stuttgart.de/download/38097/schauspiel_stuttgart_european_drama_award_caryl_churchill_01._nov_22_pm_en.pdf>
a
lifetime achievement award to the respected British playwright Caryl
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pTznPXvtwM> Churchill
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pTznPXvtwM> over her trenchant support
for the Palestinians <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine>.

On 31 October, Churchill was stripped of the European Drama Prize she had
been given in April in recognition of her life’s work. The decision was
backed by Petra Olschowski, the arts minister of the state of
Baden-Wurttemberg, who said
<https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/nov/17/cancellation-of-award-for-playwright-caryl-churchill-condemned>:
“We as a country take a clear and non-negotiable stance against any form of
antisemitism. This is all the more reason why a prize funded by the state
cannot be awarded under the given circumstances.”

The jury - comprising eminent figures in German cultural life - said they
had had their attention drawn, since making the award, to two problems.
First, Churchill had backed BDS <https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/bds>,
a Palestinian grassroots movement calling for a boycott of Israeli
institutions directly involved in Israel
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel>’s decades-long oppression
of the Palestinians.

Criticism of Israel is not criticism of Jews. And those who claim it is are
playing with fire

Back in 2019, an overwhelming majority of the German parliament designated
support for BDS as “antisemitic”
<https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-bds-israel-idUSL5N22T4OA>.

And second, the panel had been reminded of a short play called *Seven
Jewish Children
<https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/feb/26/caryl-churchill-seven-jewish-children-play-gaza>*,
written 13 years ago in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s savage and
extended bombardment of Gaza <https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/tags/gaza>’s
besieged Palestinian population in the winter of 2008-09. In a statement,
the German jury said
<https://www.schauspiel-stuttgart.de/download/38097/schauspiel_stuttgart_european_drama_award_caryl_churchill_01._nov_22_pm_en.pdf>
the
play could "be regarded as being antisemitic".

In Churchill’s now largely forgotten play, Jewish parents articulate their
trauma generation by generation.

Palestinians are not present. They are shadows. They are the referred pain
of a wound from Europe. Instead, the play contextualises the suffering in
Gaza through a series of monologues as each generation of Jewish parents
struggles to decide what they should tell their children and what realities
they should hide - be it about the horrors of Europe
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/europe>, the crimes involved in the
creation of Israel, or the bombardment of Gaza.

The play hints at uncomfortable truths: that the oppressed can turn into
oppressor; that traumas do not necessarily heal or enlighten; and that
their effects can be complex and paradoxical.
Friends to tormentors

One conclusion to draw from the revocation of Churchill’s award - the
latest episode in Europe’s endless “antisemitism rows” - is that German
elites, who control the public discourse, have signally failed to
internalise the Holocaust’s key lesson.

It is a universal one: that we should never tolerate the demonisation of
oppressed and marginalised groups, or those who stand in solidarity with
them, especially when the state itself or its representatives are behind
such demonisation. That way lies pogroms and gas chambers.

How has support for the Palestinian cause of BDS - for boycotts of those
directly involved in Israel’s decades-long oppression and ethnic cleansing
of the Palestinians - come to be reinterpreted as racism against Jews?

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/boycott-documentary-intersection-american-free-speech-and-palestinian-rights>

Boycott: How anti-BDS legislation is impacting free speech in America

This, of course, is not a uniquely German failing. Most western states -
including the US
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/22/frightening-us-appeals-court-upholds-arkansas-anti-bds-law>,
France
<https://www.france24.com/en/20160120-france-boycott-israel-bds-law-free-speech-antisemitism>
and Britain
<https://www.thejc.com/news/news/government-takes-first-historic-step-to-ban-bds-in-britain-3PwdQKkL5Kqg9FlohA5pQW>
- have willingly conflated criticism of Israel over its oppression of
Palestinians with antisemitism, and sought to silence or criminalise calls
to punish Israel through boycotts.

But this failure ought to be all the more surprising given the enormous
efforts Germany has expended over many decades in Holocaust education
<https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/germans/germans/education.html>,
supposedly to eradicate the susceptibility of Germans to state-sponsored
racism. How have they switched - so easily, it seems - from one kind of
state-sanctioned racism, antisemitism, to another kind, anti-Palestinian
racism?

But even more paradoxically, Germany has smeared not just Palestinians and
their supporters through its crackdown on BDS, but Jews too. It treats them
all as inherently responsible for the actions of Israel, a state that no
more represents all Jews than Saudi Arabia
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/saudi-arabia> represents all
Muslims.

Germany’s ostentatious philo-semitism - expressed in its reflexive support
for Israel - is simply antisemitism-in-waiting. If Jews are viewed as
intrinsically tied to Israel’s actions, then their fate depends on how
Israel is viewed at any particular moment. Should western elites support
Israel, as they do now, then Jews are safe. Should western elites turn
against Israel, then Jews are not safe.

Crucially, what Caryl Churchill and the vast majority of Palestinians and
their supporters are highlighting is that Israel and “the Jews” are not the
same. Criticism of Israel is not criticism of Jews. And those who claim it
is are playing with fire. They are providing the conditions for those they
now regard as friends to later become their tormentors.
‘Reeks of fascism’

So how has Germany reached the point where it can cancel an award to a
renowned playwright - and smear her as antisemitic - because she supports
the right of Palestinians to freedom and dignity and because she wishes to
speak out against their silencing in Europe? How has Germany so casually,
so unthinkingly, become racist towards Palestinians and their supporters,
and once again to Jews?

As Mike Leigh, a famous British film director who is Jewish, has observed
<https://twitter.com/Art4PalestineUK/status/1593227957044404224> in
Churchill’s defence, the decision to revoke the prize “reeks of the very
fascism it affects to oppose”. There is a wider context to Germany’s
repurposing of its racism.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/germany-guilt-used-silence-palestinians>

How German guilt is being used to silence Palestinians

The same elites who were attracted to a worldview that blamed the Jews, and
others, for the subversion of a supposed “Aryan civilisation” are now
attracted to a worldview that blames Muslims - including Palestinians (not
all of whom are Muslim, it is too often forgotten) - for the subversion of
European civilisation.

This monochrome worldview is appealing because it sweeps aside complexity
and offers simple solutions that turn the world upside down and place the
oppressor, western elites, on the side of Good and those they oppress on
the side of Evil. Back in the 1930s and 1940s those solutions propelled
Germany towards the horrors of the death camps.

The same racism that fuelled the Holocaust does not, of course, have to
lead precisely to another industrial-scale genocide. That supreme crime has
nephews and nieces, some of whom ostensibly look less ugly than their older
relative. It can lead to exclusion, demonisation and McCarthyism, all of
which serve as a prelude to worse crimes.

In our supposedly more enlightened age, the same Manichean impulse divides
the world into camps of good and evil. Into “white” European natives versus
Muslim and Arab invaders. Into moderates versus extremists. And somehow,
conflated with these other categories, it pits supporters of Israel against
“antisemites”.
To the dark side

This is no accident. Israel has helped to cultivate this divide, while its
supporters have richly exploited it. Israel has provided the cover story
for western elites to engineer a supposedly civilisational confrontation
between West and East, between the Judaeo-Christian world and the Muslim
world, between humanism and barbarism, between good and evil.

This morality tale, paradoxically with the Holocaust serving as its
prequel, has been written to reassure western publics of their leaders’
benevolence. It suggests that through its repentance, Germany - the
epicentre of the genocide of the Jews - cleansed itself and the rest of
Europe of its sins.

This morality tale suggests that, through its repentance, Germany - the
epicentre of the genocide of the Jews - cleansed itself and the rest of
Europe of its sins

Perversely, the industrialised crime of the Holocaust serves as the alibi
for an enlightened Europe. The barometer of German and European atonement
and redemption is their reflexive support for Israel. To back Israel
uncritically is supposedly proof that today’s Europe is morally superior to
a global south in which many condemn Israel.

Through Israel’s creation, according to this morality tale, Europe did not
perpetuate its racism - by relocating its victims to another region and
turning them into the tormentors
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/britain-still-proud-its-shameful-role-patron-israels-occupation>
of the native population. No, Europe turned over a new leaf. It made
amends. Its better nature triumphed.

To bolster this improbable story, to breathe life into it, a yardstick of
difference was needed. Just as “the Jews” once served that purpose by
contrasting a pure Aryan race from a supposedly degenerate Jewish one, now
the Muslim world is presented as the antithesis of an advanced white
European civilisation.

And anyone who sides with those oppressed by Israel - and by a colonial
West that inserted a self-declared Jewish state into the Middle East by
destroying the Palestinians’ homeland - must be cast out, as Churchill has
been by Germany. Such people are no longer part of an enlightened Europe.
They have gone over to the dark side. They are traitors, they are
antisemites.
‘Confected outrage’

This story, absurd as it sounds, carries great weight outside Germany too.
One need only remember that a very short time ago a British political
leader, Jeremy Corbyn <https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/jeremy-corbyn>,
came within sight of power before he was crushed by the same antisemitism
smears
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/antisemitism-claims-have-one-goal-stop-corbyn-winning-power>
faced by Churchill.

But there is a notable difference.

[image: Members of the Jewish community protest against Jeremy Corbyn and
antisemitism in the Labour party, outside the British parliament, London,
26 March 2018 (AFP)]
Members of the Jewish community protest against Jeremy Corbyn and
antisemitism in the Labour party, outside the British parliament, London,
26 March 2018 (AFP)

In the case of Churchill, it has been harder to contain the backlash - at
least outside Germany. Prominent artists, including Jewish actors,
directors and writers, have rushed to her defence
<https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/2022/11/17/leading-lights-of-british-theatre-accuse-european-drama-prize-of-modern-day-mccarthyism/>
.

Perhaps more surprising still, so have liberal media outlets in Britain,
such as the Guardian, which, according to research, was as deeply invested
<https://www.medialens.org/2018/blanket-silence-corporate-media-ignore-new-report-exposing-distorted-and-misleading-coverage-of-corbyn/>as
the rest of the establishment media in undermining Corbyn and the
anti-racist, anti-imperialist left he briefly led.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/uk-labour-antisemitism-why-it-has-become-impossible-criticise-israel>

Labour antisemitism: Why it has become impossible to criticise Israel

Take, for example, this comment from Dominic Cooke, an associate director
at the National Theatre, defending Churchill’s play *Seven Jewish Children*,
which he directed at the Royal Court.

He is quoted sympathetically
<https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/nov/17/cancellation-of-award-for-playwright-caryl-churchill-condemned>
by the Guardian: “The confected outrage about Caryl’s play was designed to
divert attention away from this fact [the large Palestinian death toll
caused by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in 2009] and scare possible critics
of it into silence.”

He is right. But the “confected outrage” directed at Churchill is exactly
the same confected outrage that was directed at Corbyn - a confected
outrage designed in Corbyn’s case both to divert attention from the former
Labour leader’s anti-imperial opposition to Israel’s oppression of the
Palestinians and to scare leftwing critics of Israel into silence.

In Labour’s case, simply noting that the outrage had been “confected” – or
weaponised – was sufficient grounds to suspend
<https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49340347>or expel party members for
antisemitism. In fact, it was precisely Corbyn’s comment about the problem
of antisemitism being “dramatically overstated" for political reasons that
ultimately served as the pretext to oust him from the Labour parliamentary
party.
Timid cultural world

There are reasons why prominent artists and establishment media outlets
such as the Guardian are coming to the defence of Churchill in a way, and
using a forthrightness, they avoided with Corbyn.

In a very real sense, the fight to stand up for Palestinians culturally and
artistically is now largely a lost cause. Who can imagine *Seven Jewish
Children* being produced in the West End now, as it was 13 years ago? Or
Peter Kosminsky, another Jewish signatory of the letter defending
Churchill, being allowed to make *The Promise*
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oR4jtQGIYc&ab_channel=DigitalCinemaMedia>,
as he was 11 years ago by Channel 4, a drama series that revealed the full
panorama of violence associated with Israel’s creation and its occupation?

Our cultural world is once again far more timid, more intimidated, in
exploring and representing the realities of Palestinian suffering,
paradoxically even as those realities are better understood than ever
before because of social media.

Caryl Churchill has been stripped of her award because state-sponsored
racism still lies at the heart of the European project. Europe’s racism was
never cleansed

The other reason Churchill is receiving the kind of support denied to
Corbyn is that the cancellation of her award is really a skirmish on the
margins of the fight to give voice to Palestinian oppression - the reason
the Guardian can afford to indulge it. Defending a respected, elderly
playwright from the accusation of antisemitism for a play that was quickly
erased from memory incurs no real cost.

Far more was at stake in the battle to defend Corbyn. He had the potential
power - had he become prime minister - to make real amends for European
colonialism, to really atone, by denying British support and arms for
Israel to perpetuate that colonialism in the Middle East and continue its
oppression of the Palestinians.

More likely, however, had Corbyn been able to form a government, and been
in a position to challenge Europe’s collusion
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-EU-shameless-complicity-crimes>
in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, he would have faced even more
savage resistance than he endured as Labour leader - and not just from the
British establishment but from a wider western one.

That would have risked exposing as a myth the morality tale Europeans have
been encouraged to tell about themselves. It would have risked highlighting
the absurdity of the Holocaust alibi for European moral superiority.

Caryl Churchill has been stripped of her award because state-sponsored
racism still lies at the heart of the European project. Europe’s racism was
never cleansed. The seeds of fascism did not go away. They simply need a
new time and purpose to flourish once more.

*The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.*
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