> Promoting Nazism is banned. It’s not a slippery slope, and the country hasn’t devolved into authoritarian groupthink.
But it is and it has. E.g. Germany is cracking down on the Palestinian solidarity movement. Banning slogans, symbols, events wholesale. Currently trying to sign IHRA Antisemitism definition into law and shut out groups critical of Israel from cultural funds every body else has access too (including right-wing extremist Israel solidarity groups).
Ideally Germany should be cracking down on any form of extremism, doesn't matter if from the right or left.
And tbh, especially West Germany has turned a blind eye towards extremism from the left for far too long (there's this weird fascination and solidarity with the RAF in West German intellectual "Alt-68er" circles).
That Israel has a bit of a special status in Germany shouldn't come as a surprise considering Germany's history between 1933 and 1945.
But that special status should not extend giving Israel a pass for its policies of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing, considering Germany's history between 1933 and 1945.
> That Israel has a bit of a special status in Germany shouldn't come as a surprise considering Germany's history between 1933 and 1945.
It absolutely must. That history involved concentrating, starving, murdering people en masse, and blaming them for it in huge media campaigns, after all. Genocide isn't about about Germans that to Jews, and it's not okay to treat it this superficially.
Taking German history seriously and trials for Netanyahu and the people who supplied and supply him with weapons are inseparable.
But it is and it has. E.g. Germany is cracking down on the Palestinian solidarity movement. Banning slogans, symbols, events wholesale. Currently trying to sign IHRA Antisemitism definition into law and shut out groups critical of Israel from cultural funds every body else has access too (including right-wing extremist Israel solidarity groups).