And sometimes you can’t get away with it.
Israel, Jews voice ‘disgust’ over antisemitic imagery at German art festival – Hateful caricatures feature at Documenta art fair, despite controversy; German culture minister urges curators to ‘draw the necessary conclusions.’
“Artistic freedom ends where xenophobia begins.”
Why does everyone insist on giving state news channels euphemisms like “public broadcaster?”
Another one the Germans like is “öffentlich-rechtlich,” meaning something like “run by public authorities.” Why do they confuse things? A taxpayer-funded channel is a state-run channel that broadcasts the party line. Like down here:
Lebanese TV Station’s Antisemitic Propaganda Creates New Headache for German Public Broadcaster’s Extensive Arab Media Ties – Germany’s public broadcaster was under renewed pressure again this week over its content partners in the Arab world as evidence emerged of yet another partner channel spreading antisemitic propaganda.
Deutsche Welle (DW) — a taxpayer-funded international channel broadcasting in more than 30 languages — had already experienced sustained criticism for its links with Roya TV, a Jordanian station whose antisemitic social media posts were the subject of an investigative piece on Vice’s German language site. Those revelations quickly followed the news that several journalists and editors working for DW’s Arabic service had tracks records of making virulently antisemitic remarks — a scandal that is now the subject of an external investigation.
Is that all?
In the 1980s, he began collecting postcards, posters, leaflets, coins, newspapers, magazines, documents, stickers, figurines, photographs and films that testify to anti-Jewish sentiment with the express purpose of making them available to museums and archives as educational tools. He invested an estimated €1m in his collection, which includes an array of posters relating to the Dreyfus Affair, the armbands, diaries, passports and drawings of Jewish people imprisoned in concentration camps, and advertising material for the infamous antisemitic Nazi propaganda film Jud Süss (1940).
The collection “will help us and our visitors reach a deeper understanding of how widespread antisemitic views, images and hate propaganda were in Germany and other European countries from the middle of the 19th century,” says Raphael Gross, the director of the German Historical Museum.
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation has conducted a survey of 1,106 German academics about free speech and discovered that 20% reject Israel’s existence.
Not all that surprising really, once you consider that a German government study in 2017 found 40% of the population infected with “contemporary antisemitism.” The university folks are just more enlightened, I guess.
“Based on Israel’s policies, I can understand people having something against the Jews.”
Eingeschränkte Wissenschaftsfreiheit in Deutschland? Professoren sehen sich durch Publikationsdruck, teilweise aber auch durch “Political Correctness” gehemmt.
Of Antisemitism, I mean. Only one in four? Damn. Seriously, folks. That’s not bad at all.
One in four Germans hold anti-Semitic beliefs, study finds – More than a quarter of Germans surveyed said they agreed with anti-Semitic statements, including that Jews have “too much power over the economy.” Over 40% said they thought Jews “talk about the Holocaust too much.”
Jeder vierte Deutsche hegt laut einer neuen Studie antisemitische Gedanken.
The German literary establishment unanimously denounced it, too. It is a bad book. Bad book! It is a bad book of essays attacking said media/establishment – and the German government – for not taking citizens’ concerns about migrants seriously. Finis Germania has effectively been banned, in other words.
This is not so terribly interesting, right? I agree. But what is interesting here is that the ban has turned Finis Germania into a bestseller. What does that tell us about what is really going on in Germany today? Down here were the little people live, I mean.
Don’t worry, though. This could never happen in your country, folks. Or could it?
Through its blind embrace of Angela Merkel’s open door to Middle Eastern migrants, the German media has lost the trust of a whole section of the German public. When the press calls something extreme, many no longer listen.
“What happens when the majority of Germans lose confidence and trust in mainstream leaders? Many of the Germans becoming disillusioned with mainstream politics and turning to these groups are not hardcore neo-Nazis. They don’t want to persecute the migrants or see them imprisoned, beaten up or killed. … They are concerned about Germany’s future. But Angela Merkel’s government refuses to give serious attention to these concerns and refuses to tell the truth about the impact the migrants are having and will have on the nation.”
Never having been a country with anti-Jewish sentiment issues before, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, aka Schlafmütze (sleepyhead), just did a little research and was shocked to discover that those awful American social media companies are the reason for the increased anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany today.
“Social media often propagates the spread of hate messages and antisemitic provocation,” Steinmeier said, noting that the trend is growing across Europe. Except in Germany, of course, because trend isn’t really the right word for it here. Thanks to social media, he reiterated.
Because, well, that would be too unpleasant for the public being made to do the broadcaster’s forced funding to have to face.
Germany’s state-run television channel ARD recently decided not to air a documentary it had itself commissioned concerning the latest outbreak of antisemitism in Europe and the Middle East because the people doing the film apparently did this job much too well (after enough noise was made about this decision the ARD had to broadcast it anyway).
This could trouble viewers in a country where at least 40% of its citizens hold anti-Israel, antisemitic views. Or so the reasoning must be. ARD documentaries propagating negative views about Israel get aired here all the time, however. This having to do with balanced journalism or something. Or so the reasoning must be.
Anti-Zionism is not a legitimate political position, but rather a movement against the Jewish and democratic state. It is Antisemitism 2.0.
PS: Meanwhile… The latest boycott Israel campaign from BDS seems to be making great strides forward here in Berlin. It is unclear at this point whether the ARD will be commissioning a documentary about this campaign or not.
Observing Hermann 