Peter E. Gordon in the Boston Review:
In Germany, public discussion of Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack and Israel’s devastating counterassault has been uniquely constrained. The horrors of the Shoah and the genocide of nearly six million Jews—nearly a third of the world Jewish population at the time—left German citizens with a singular burden of responsibility to ensure that the Jewish minority would never again be exposed to such crimes. Since its founding in 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany has upheld what amounts to an official policy of unequivocal support for Israel. This remains largely the case even today, despite marked changes in Israel’s political culture and the rise of far more militant voices on the religious right over the last few decades—voices that claim all territories (including both Gaza and the West Bank) for the Jews alone and at times have called for the expulsion of Palestinians, even the 20 percent who are officially Israeli citizens and have their own political parties.
At the same time, many in the Palestinian diaspora—including the descendants of those who fled their homes when Israel was founded in 1948—live in Germany. Berlin alone is home to an estimated 35,000–45,000 individuals of Palestinian descent. The historical irony is striking: the region once home to a flourishing Jewish subculture, which was targeted for extermination, is now home to the largest Palestinian community in all of Europe.
More here.