The Middle East conflict and its victims
The Middle East is igniting a linguistic and ideological war in Western societies, exposing the misuse of the concept of solidarity and inviting all sides to spread their own resentments in the context of the pretext of a fight for good. Whether it be blatant Islamophobia or latent antisemitic narratives, rhetoric of annihilation and selective outrage are diametrically opposed to any alleged concern for the fate of civilians.
By Bent Erik Scholz
By Bent Erik Scholz
The mechanisms are always the same: the first shot fired begins the international propaganda spectacle, and soon all sense of what the loud statements actually mean is lost. In the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, over 1,100 people were murdered, including 695 civilians, as well as 36 children and adolescents. The youngest victim was ten months old at the time of the massacre. In addition to the murders, there were mass rapes; videos and photos show the bodies of young women, some with their genitals mutilated. 250 hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.
In Berlin, the liberation effort is celebrated on this day, and in Neukölln, baklava is given away on the streets. The first thing that came to mind for many was to put up posters and chant "Free Palestine," before pausing for a moment to consider that they were celebrating what they would accuse the State of Israel of just hours later: the systematic murder of completely innocent people based on their nationality or religion. Many of the "Free Palestine" posters, T-shirts, profile pictures, and sharepics show a map of the territory of Palestine, from which the State of Israel has been completely erased.
Some of the attacks on October 7 took place in more left-wing kibbutzim, where pro-Palestinian positions are not uncommon. Even relatives of the hostages have loudly and publicly criticized Netanyahu. Huge demonstrations against the policies of the Netanyahu government, with four-digit numbers of participants, regularly take place in Israel. Netanyahu's role in the rise of Hamas is a key theme here: he played a key role in enabling the terrorist organization to establish itself as a political force in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu even allowed financial support for Hamas, for example, from Qatar - according to his own statements, in the interest of improving living standards in the Gaza Strip, but primarily for reasons of disruption: Hamas was intended to create a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority, also to delay possible negotiations on a two-state solution.
Even before that, Netanyahu, known as a hardliner, was politically primarily concerned with preventing Palestinian independence, keeping the territory under Israeli control, and even partially torpedoing the peace efforts of his predecessors. The fact that October 7 was able to take place is also linked to a failure of Netanyahu's security and intelligence policy, as now seems relatively obvious.
The role of this prime minister and his government, which also includes several members of right-wing extremist parties, is therefore at least ambivalent. The fact remains, however: criticism of this government is taking place and has always taken place, especially in Israel itself. Anyone who rightly complains that countless civilians are dying in the Gaza Strip at this very moment due to war violence and hunger, including many minors who were not involved at all in Hamas's takeover in 2007 (the average age in the Gaza Strip is 17.7 years), must also acknowledge that a gruesome terrorist attack on Israeli civilians has nothing to do with a "fight for freedom."
When one participates publicly in certain debates, one often reads in comment sections the often extremely emotional call to speak out about the Middle East conflict and the "genocide" in Gaza - one has a responsibility to do so, silence is unbearable, and in case of doubt, consent. What is actually being demanded here is that one should clearly take a side in this conflict, and this is usually not Israel's side. It is quite remarkable that these demands and positions often originate from the left wing. While people there are otherwise quite rightly very precise when it comes to historically accrued "guilt," here, for some, history seems to begin only on October 8, 2023. Yet we are talking about a conflict whose background, depending on the definition, stretches back centuries. The history of the Middle East conflict is also the history of Western anti-Semitism since at least the 19th century, and the history of many Jewish migrations to the "promised land" of Palestine, fleeing oppression and murder.
The State of Israel itself was founded from the British Mandate for the territory of Palestine; in fact, with the end of the British occupation on May 14, 1948, the Jewish state was born. This is probably one of the core problems of this conflict, because different religions have coexisted in Palestine for centuries. This coexistence still exists to some extent within the State of Israel itself - about 20% of the population is Muslim, and isrIsraeli Muslims enjoy the same rights as any other citizen of Israel, and they are largely free to practice their religion. Nevertheless, racism and discrimination also exist in Israel, which are also frequently reported.
Practically from the very beginning of its existence, Israel has been under attack and ultimately at war. There have been repeated attacks by neighboring countries, and Israel has frequently launched preemptive strikes. The Jewish state won most of these wars. This has led to a relationship with its own military that is difficult to understand from a German perspective. Traditionally, the IDF has been associated with great pride and trust within Israel, although this trust has already crumbled in some places. The result of these wars was the expansion of Israeli territory and also--yes--a comprehensive settlement policy that also included the oppression of the people living in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, especially the Arabs. Even in the current war, one could observe a certain destructiveness on the part of the IDF in the Gaza Strip, especially in comparison to the high-precision strikes in Iran.
Is this solely the malice of the Israelis? Or isn't it also true that the terrorist regime in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, has no problem accepting civilian casualties when in doubt? The IDF traditionally announces rocket attacks in advance to leave a window open for evacuation. The fact that this is not successful is also due to the role of neighboring countries. Egypt and Jordan have so far shown little interest in accepting Palestinian civilians as refugees. The border fence between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is higher than that of Israel. Egyptian President al-Sisi justifies this, among other things, by saying that he wants to prevent the Egyptian social system from being overwhelmed, but there are also concerns that refugee Palestinian terrorists could become a threat to Egypt. Jordan, meanwhile, has made peace with Israel and is striving to avoid becoming involved in regional conflicts. The country even partially supported Israel during attacks by Iran last year.
Caught in the middle of this are the Palestinian civilians, many of them born into this complicated situation and mostly victims of circumstance. Like the Israeli civilians who fell victim to October 7 and have also been subjected to regular attacks for decades, the residents of the Gaza Strip, by virtue of their location, are buffeted on the one hand by the rule of a terrorist organization and on the other hand by Israel's military response, the proportionality of which, a year and a half after the mass murder, is at least questionable. The Palestinian Authority, notorious for its corruption and also not entirely popular among the population, also plays a problematic role here. Similar to Hamas, the president of the PA has ruled by default since 2005 without any elections in the meantime. In defense of Israel, it is constantly and rightly argued that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. However, the question must also be asked: how responsible can today's Palestinian population be held for the dictatorship in which they live? Above all, however, the question arises: wouldn't it be appropriate, especially in a democracy, to specifically criticize human rights violations?
Problems in water distribution, the destruction of infrastructure, the history of Israeli settlement construction - all of these are measures that not only affect terrorists, who may also use this infrastructure as a human shield or storage facility. They also affect innocent people and are therefore met with massive criticism from the Israeli civilian population. The blockade of humanitarian aid, despite all attempts at rational explanation, inevitably has gruesome consequences for innocent civilians. As in any other war, this is what always remains at the bottom line: hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of ordinary people, who have no inherent interest in expansion or destruction, but are only interested in their own survival, find themselves at the mercy of a government that represents other interests. In Palestine as in Israel, in Russia as in Ukraine.
The last peace efforts toward a two-state solution, which continues to be pushed for internationally, were long ago. Neither Hamas, whose charter includes the destruction of Israel, nor Netanyahu, who has already announced that the release of the hostages is no longer a prerequisite for ending the war. Donald Trump has already flirted with the creation of the "Riviera of the Middle East" in the Gaza Strip. The conflict region once pand rebuild it like a kind of Disneyland, and what happens to the people who might still be living there is someone else's concern.
The role of Israel's international partners is a difficult one. Germany, as part of its raison d'état, is committed to unconditional support of Israel's right to exist. This is a historically well-founded and important value, but it doesn't necessarily mean endorsing all of the government's actions. The reactions from German politicians are therefore sometimes simplistic, sometimes strangely pained. Weapons are also being sold to Israel by German arms companies like Rheinmetall - the question arises as to how necessary this is, given the relative strength of the Israeli military. In the Global Firepower Index and in the list of armed forces, Israel ranks exactly behind Germany, even though Germany has eight times the population.
More sophisticated criticism of the Israeli government is sometimes met with preemptive obedience in Germany. As grotesque as the distribution of sweets on Sonnenallee or posters depicting an erased Israel are, these are merely extreme manifestations of a much more diverse debate, even within the left-wing spectrum. Among other things, in the wake of the police response to university occupations in Berlin, scenes have also emerged that deserve criticism. Even if quite a few of the critics' criticisms of Israel at least border on latently anti-Semitic theories, it must also be said: many of the critics do not. The mistake, which has been repeatedly made in debates since the Corona period at the latest, of trying to categorize any tendency of an opinion into one of two camps and thus equate it with radical positions, must not continue here either.
It is true that Netanyahu is clearly not interested in a quick pacification of the Middle East conflict. The Israeli daily newspaper Ha?aretz has been writing regularly for a year and a half about how the Israeli government is undermining agreements on the return of the hostages. It's simply not as simple as saying that "Hamas" could simply "end the war at any time," just as Russia couldn't end the war in Ukraine at any time. It's not necessary to draw Holocaust comparisons or potentially over-inflate the concept of genocide to acknowledge human rights violations in this war. Nor is it right to equate every critic of Israeli policy with anti-Semitic cross-fronters who would prefer to see the Jewish state wiped off the map. Any siding with one side or the other should be automatically prohibited in a rational society.
The only side to take is the one against war and for humanity, for a world in which people can live together and allow each other to live, regardless of their history, origin, or religion. This is currently being prevented by Hamas, but also by Netanyahu, as well as other neighboring states in the Middle East, which, like Egypt, obviously have no problem watching the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip die, or which, like Iran or Lebanon, are just as flirting with the destruction of Israel.
June 20, 2025
*Bent-Erik Scholz works as a freelancer for RBB
In Berlin, the liberation effort is celebrated on this day, and in Neukölln, baklava is given away on the streets. The first thing that came to mind for many was to put up posters and chant "Free Palestine," before pausing for a moment to consider that they were celebrating what they would accuse the State of Israel of just hours later: the systematic murder of completely innocent people based on their nationality or religion. Many of the "Free Palestine" posters, T-shirts, profile pictures, and sharepics show a map of the territory of Palestine, from which the State of Israel has been completely erased.
Some of the attacks on October 7 took place in more left-wing kibbutzim, where pro-Palestinian positions are not uncommon. Even relatives of the hostages have loudly and publicly criticized Netanyahu. Huge demonstrations against the policies of the Netanyahu government, with four-digit numbers of participants, regularly take place in Israel. Netanyahu's role in the rise of Hamas is a key theme here: he played a key role in enabling the terrorist organization to establish itself as a political force in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu even allowed financial support for Hamas, for example, from Qatar - according to his own statements, in the interest of improving living standards in the Gaza Strip, but primarily for reasons of disruption: Hamas was intended to create a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority, also to delay possible negotiations on a two-state solution.
Even before that, Netanyahu, known as a hardliner, was politically primarily concerned with preventing Palestinian independence, keeping the territory under Israeli control, and even partially torpedoing the peace efforts of his predecessors. The fact that October 7 was able to take place is also linked to a failure of Netanyahu's security and intelligence policy, as now seems relatively obvious.
The role of this prime minister and his government, which also includes several members of right-wing extremist parties, is therefore at least ambivalent. The fact remains, however: criticism of this government is taking place and has always taken place, especially in Israel itself. Anyone who rightly complains that countless civilians are dying in the Gaza Strip at this very moment due to war violence and hunger, including many minors who were not involved at all in Hamas's takeover in 2007 (the average age in the Gaza Strip is 17.7 years), must also acknowledge that a gruesome terrorist attack on Israeli civilians has nothing to do with a "fight for freedom."
When one participates publicly in certain debates, one often reads in comment sections the often extremely emotional call to speak out about the Middle East conflict and the "genocide" in Gaza - one has a responsibility to do so, silence is unbearable, and in case of doubt, consent. What is actually being demanded here is that one should clearly take a side in this conflict, and this is usually not Israel's side. It is quite remarkable that these demands and positions often originate from the left wing. While people there are otherwise quite rightly very precise when it comes to historically accrued "guilt," here, for some, history seems to begin only on October 8, 2023. Yet we are talking about a conflict whose background, depending on the definition, stretches back centuries. The history of the Middle East conflict is also the history of Western anti-Semitism since at least the 19th century, and the history of many Jewish migrations to the "promised land" of Palestine, fleeing oppression and murder.
The State of Israel itself was founded from the British Mandate for the territory of Palestine; in fact, with the end of the British occupation on May 14, 1948, the Jewish state was born. This is probably one of the core problems of this conflict, because different religions have coexisted in Palestine for centuries. This coexistence still exists to some extent within the State of Israel itself - about 20% of the population is Muslim, and isrIsraeli Muslims enjoy the same rights as any other citizen of Israel, and they are largely free to practice their religion. Nevertheless, racism and discrimination also exist in Israel, which are also frequently reported.
Practically from the very beginning of its existence, Israel has been under attack and ultimately at war. There have been repeated attacks by neighboring countries, and Israel has frequently launched preemptive strikes. The Jewish state won most of these wars. This has led to a relationship with its own military that is difficult to understand from a German perspective. Traditionally, the IDF has been associated with great pride and trust within Israel, although this trust has already crumbled in some places. The result of these wars was the expansion of Israeli territory and also--yes--a comprehensive settlement policy that also included the oppression of the people living in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, especially the Arabs. Even in the current war, one could observe a certain destructiveness on the part of the IDF in the Gaza Strip, especially in comparison to the high-precision strikes in Iran.
Is this solely the malice of the Israelis? Or isn't it also true that the terrorist regime in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, has no problem accepting civilian casualties when in doubt? The IDF traditionally announces rocket attacks in advance to leave a window open for evacuation. The fact that this is not successful is also due to the role of neighboring countries. Egypt and Jordan have so far shown little interest in accepting Palestinian civilians as refugees. The border fence between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is higher than that of Israel. Egyptian President al-Sisi justifies this, among other things, by saying that he wants to prevent the Egyptian social system from being overwhelmed, but there are also concerns that refugee Palestinian terrorists could become a threat to Egypt. Jordan, meanwhile, has made peace with Israel and is striving to avoid becoming involved in regional conflicts. The country even partially supported Israel during attacks by Iran last year.
Caught in the middle of this are the Palestinian civilians, many of them born into this complicated situation and mostly victims of circumstance. Like the Israeli civilians who fell victim to October 7 and have also been subjected to regular attacks for decades, the residents of the Gaza Strip, by virtue of their location, are buffeted on the one hand by the rule of a terrorist organization and on the other hand by Israel's military response, the proportionality of which, a year and a half after the mass murder, is at least questionable. The Palestinian Authority, notorious for its corruption and also not entirely popular among the population, also plays a problematic role here. Similar to Hamas, the president of the PA has ruled by default since 2005 without any elections in the meantime. In defense of Israel, it is constantly and rightly argued that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. However, the question must also be asked: how responsible can today's Palestinian population be held for the dictatorship in which they live? Above all, however, the question arises: wouldn't it be appropriate, especially in a democracy, to specifically criticize human rights violations?
Problems in water distribution, the destruction of infrastructure, the history of Israeli settlement construction - all of these are measures that not only affect terrorists, who may also use this infrastructure as a human shield or storage facility. They also affect innocent people and are therefore met with massive criticism from the Israeli civilian population. The blockade of humanitarian aid, despite all attempts at rational explanation, inevitably has gruesome consequences for innocent civilians. As in any other war, this is what always remains at the bottom line: hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of ordinary people, who have no inherent interest in expansion or destruction, but are only interested in their own survival, find themselves at the mercy of a government that represents other interests. In Palestine as in Israel, in Russia as in Ukraine.
The last peace efforts toward a two-state solution, which continues to be pushed for internationally, were long ago. Neither Hamas, whose charter includes the destruction of Israel, nor Netanyahu, who has already announced that the release of the hostages is no longer a prerequisite for ending the war. Donald Trump has already flirted with the creation of the "Riviera of the Middle East" in the Gaza Strip. The conflict region once pand rebuild it like a kind of Disneyland, and what happens to the people who might still be living there is someone else's concern.
The role of Israel's international partners is a difficult one. Germany, as part of its raison d'état, is committed to unconditional support of Israel's right to exist. This is a historically well-founded and important value, but it doesn't necessarily mean endorsing all of the government's actions. The reactions from German politicians are therefore sometimes simplistic, sometimes strangely pained. Weapons are also being sold to Israel by German arms companies like Rheinmetall - the question arises as to how necessary this is, given the relative strength of the Israeli military. In the Global Firepower Index and in the list of armed forces, Israel ranks exactly behind Germany, even though Germany has eight times the population.
More sophisticated criticism of the Israeli government is sometimes met with preemptive obedience in Germany. As grotesque as the distribution of sweets on Sonnenallee or posters depicting an erased Israel are, these are merely extreme manifestations of a much more diverse debate, even within the left-wing spectrum. Among other things, in the wake of the police response to university occupations in Berlin, scenes have also emerged that deserve criticism. Even if quite a few of the critics' criticisms of Israel at least border on latently anti-Semitic theories, it must also be said: many of the critics do not. The mistake, which has been repeatedly made in debates since the Corona period at the latest, of trying to categorize any tendency of an opinion into one of two camps and thus equate it with radical positions, must not continue here either.
It is true that Netanyahu is clearly not interested in a quick pacification of the Middle East conflict. The Israeli daily newspaper Ha?aretz has been writing regularly for a year and a half about how the Israeli government is undermining agreements on the return of the hostages. It's simply not as simple as saying that "Hamas" could simply "end the war at any time," just as Russia couldn't end the war in Ukraine at any time. It's not necessary to draw Holocaust comparisons or potentially over-inflate the concept of genocide to acknowledge human rights violations in this war. Nor is it right to equate every critic of Israeli policy with anti-Semitic cross-fronters who would prefer to see the Jewish state wiped off the map. Any siding with one side or the other should be automatically prohibited in a rational society.
The only side to take is the one against war and for humanity, for a world in which people can live together and allow each other to live, regardless of their history, origin, or religion. This is currently being prevented by Hamas, but also by Netanyahu, as well as other neighboring states in the Middle East, which, like Egypt, obviously have no problem watching the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip die, or which, like Iran or Lebanon, are just as flirting with the destruction of Israel.
June 20, 2025
*Bent-Erik Scholz works as a freelancer for RBB
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