Silencing Palestinians

Germany’s unconditional support for Israel’s crimes in Gaza is built on erasing Palestinian perspectives. In the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks on Israel, German political foundations disowned their offices in Palestine like bastard children.  Just when their knowledge and viewpoints were needed most, Palestinian staff were hidden away, discouraged from posting on social media and in many cases saddled with one-sided statements in support of Israel. Expressions of concern for and solidarity with their own kith, kin, and colleagues being displaced, starved, and murdered were in some instances banned altogether lest they embarrass Germany in front of audiences that matter. In a rare cry of anguish reported by international media, even employees of the Die Linke’s Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) spoke out on the “silencing [of] Palestinian voices within the organization.” On October 19, RLS had posted a statement by its Tel Aviv office director on the political situation in Israel that made no reference to escalating massacres of civilians in Gaza, reinforcing the sense that Palestinians “are denied a platform to be heard.”

North African offices were similarly marginalized or bullied into silence. Employees at the (Social Democratic–aligned) Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Tunis office were forced to remove a social media post expressing solidarity with Palestine following restrictions from headquarters in Berlin, leading to withdrawal of local partners from their activities. Tunisian students and staff subsequently forced a journalism institute to sever ties with KAS. Another foundation’s North African staff sent out a joint plea for solidarity to colleagues around the world in October, soon after Israel’s killing spree got underway. A brief flurry of supportive replies was swiftly shut down by its board, which instructed employees to refrain from using the foundation’s distribution lists. Amid threats about the unacceptability of “racism and antisemitism,” Arab employees were warned against reminding colleagues of their existence.

In organizations that bleat endlessly about human rights and democracy, practicing dictatorship can be awkward. To keep things pleasant, local staff are invited to let off steam internally in meetings with their managers. These forums typically take place in Zoom chats where agendas are set by presidents, division heads, and directors deployed from Berlin. Arab, African, and Asian employees, often too intimidated to speak, are invariably reassured that their leadership is working in good faith behind the scenes to alleviate the suffering of those directly affected. This kind of posture — “judge me on my private sympathies, not my public backing of genocide” — is common at the interpersonal level, where managers casually refer to their personal efforts to pull strings for individuals trying to escape Gaza or share GoFundMe pages of Gazans trying to flee. Like Hollywood’s Oskar Schindler, they are doing all they possibly can to save lives. In this way, the “Good German” mitigates the shame of his actual political stance.

Just how little political code-switching of this sort serves any larger cause can be garnered from the Middle East office websites of most foundations, which have hardly commented on the war since publishing statements of solidarity with Israel. A small minority of staffers from left-leaning foundations have advanced rational arguments in favor of peace at the individual level, showing how easily this could be done and exposing the cowardice of the vast majority still minimizing well-documented horrors. Long after it might have had any impact or entailed any risk, RLS published a “both-sides-ist” dossier that at least claims to be against the logic of violence. The closest that HBS got to holding a debate on German foreign policy’s complicity with crimes against humanity was a webinar on lessons learnt from . . . the Rwanda genocide. Featuring four German speakers, it took place on March 18. Beginning with a solemn statement about how Germans “have turned our backs” on a “trauma [that] lies deep within us,” the discussion was framed without reference to Gaza. The death toll already stood at 31,645.

Soft Power

What you don’t hear so much about die Stiftungen is that after World War II, they served West Germany’s purpose of discreetly counteracting communism in the Global South. Konrad Adenauer’s Atlantic alignment with US imperialism was never secret, but direct interventions by a country that had dragged humanity into two cataclysmic wars of annihilation within living memory were still sensitive. Foundations were thus conduits of soft power to advance German interests as perceived by the political establishment in the context of the Cold War.

In the 1990s, amid the emergence of the Greens, this past was buried beneath a mythical idea that progressive politics could be done “from within” Germany’s liberal institutions. It remains relevant, however, particularly where Africa and MENA are concerned, and especially in the “sensitive” fields of conflict, migration, and displacement. Foundations talk plenty about rights-based issues and sometimes do important work. In Israel, HBS appears to have financed +972, an investigative journalism outfit that unearthed the role of artificial intelligence in Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza. In New York, a conference at the New School, where A. Dirk Moses presented material that would have been controversial in Germany, was supported by RLS in April. The problem arises when truth-telling might ruffle feathers in the Foreign Office. Advocacy or even balanced independent thought, in these circumstances, is binned in favor of anticipatory obedience.

Deference and flattery are the default mode of interaction with diplomats, overseas ministries, and development agencies like GIZ. Publication of policy recommendations, design of public events, and platforms for partners are carefully calibrated to not embarrass German policymakers, duty-bearers, or host governments. Webinars or publications deemed controversial can be pulled at any stage in case they might do so. Last-minute orders to cancel events or remove branding from adverts, flyers, or campaign material might come from a line manager or by phone call from Berlin (but rarely in writing, for obvious reasons).

Public accountability is virtuously adhered to when it comes to formal practices like collecting wet signatures for auditors to review expense claims, but never as a substantive obligation to be transparent about foundations’ role and work, whose essence is shrouded in mystery. Positions on “sensitive” issues are worked out in cabalistic fashion by high-ups, then handed down to trusted “experts” for dissemination. Discussions and even informal conversations are ended with nervous smiles and reminders that the “Chatham House Rule” of anonymity applies, underscoring a fiercely protective culture of secrecy that frowns on the disclosure of internal discord.

Perceived indiscretion or critical questioning of this order results in swift banishment from collective gatherings and ostracization. If you are perceived to question the unwritten rules, expect to be characterized as a child lacking strategic sense, treated as untrustworthy, and portrayed as incompetent. In some respects, these are fair criticisms, because you have probably shown yourself to lack the most important skill when working for a German political foundation: knowing when to shut up.

At the higher level, foundations are overwhelmingly staffed by “bio-Germans” (a term used by a former colleague of mine to describe Germany’s autochthonous population, himself included). Folks of color rarely climb the greasy pole. In my time as a consultant for a leading progressive foundation, a highly placed manager once joked in a WhatsApp message that I look like a “terrorist” (“like a one of main characters in ‘24’” [sic]). How do you respond to something like that? Laugh emoji and shut up, of course.

Not that avowed racism is common. Like many leading Western “experts” and aficionados of the Global South, senior staff at foundations think of themselves as cosmopolitan progressives and look down on the AfD as a vulgar mob. Most would be appalled at the suggestion of a racist bone in their bio-German bodies and love nothing more than a lecture series on “decolonization.” (Or at least they did before October 7.)

In March, media outlets reported that German funds for climate change advocacy and activism are being made conditional on adherence to Israel-friendly takes on the violence in Gaza. In April, a German embassy official angrily ordered protesters in Pakistan to leave a human rights conference. With jobs and grants now carrots to promote German militarism, the notion that die Stiftungen promote democracy and political pluralism abroad is increasingly quaint. If anything, they are on the side of stick-wielding politicians. In January, foundation employees demonstrating outside the German embassy in Nairobi alongside a tiny cohort of peace protesters were dispersed by tear gas and threats of arrest during a visit by Foreign Minister Baerbock. The purpose of her trip, tweeted her office, was to promote peace and dialogue in the region.

Political Tools

In Germany itself, the lavish funding received by die Stiftungen periodically raises taxpayers’ eyebrows. In 2014, die Welt balked at a 50 percent increase in their grants to €466 million in a period when the federal budget increased by just 14 percent. In 2021, the figure climbed to €660 million, dwarfing the €209 million received by political parties. Questions surrounding accountability tend to periodically arise after individual foundations are found to have engaged in problematic accounting.

The murky relationship between foundations and the political parties with which they are affiliated is also a vexed issue. In theory, they should remain autonomous. According to a ruling by constitutional judges in 1986, foundations must be “personally, financially and legally independent” of their parent parties. In reality, senior roles are regularly bagged by party bigwigs. Critics describe the foundations as “frontline organizations of the parties, informal party schools and safety nets for politicians after a career break.”

The larger problem rarely discussed is the fact that foundations are political extensions of the parties, unable to articulate positions out of sync with their associated parliamentarians, particularly when the latter are in government. This lack of independence explains why employees of HBS have generally been unwilling to question Green foreign minister Baerbock’s animated support for the massacre of civilians by a coalition of avowed genocidal fascists; Green MP Susanna Kahlefeld’s leading role in the closure of Oyoun, a cultural center in Berlin’s Neukölln district that agreed to host an event by a Jewish organization committed to peace and justice for Palestinians; or Federal Culture Commissioner Claudia Roth’s excruciating tweet clarifying that she had applauded a Jewish filmmaker (and not his Palestinian collaborator) on stage at the Berlinale. And so on.

It also explains foundations’ emphasis on internal discipline; the inculcation of loyalty and obedience to party lines; and the cronyism, bullying, and pervasive culture of fear that breeds cowardice and sycophancy, undermining their function as agents of political education.

Consider: thousands of politically astute public employees are being paid handsomely to avert their eyes from a live streamed genocide that will disgrace and harm Germany and its people for years to come. Leaving aside the indescribable suffering inflicted on Palestinians, any serious analyst can see that unconditional support for Israel’s genocide has no basis in integrated strategic calculations of German interest, or even necessarily the nebulous concept of Staatsräison, since it arguably damages Israel too. They know that this policy spells disaster for global security, the “rules-based order,” and Germany’s reputation in the Global South, where sympathy for Israeli’s ethnic cleansing and genocide is in short supply.

What are we to make of their silence?

In Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest, the violence of the Shoah is ambient, not seen but heard. A faint din blocked out by the film’s protagonists as they go about their comfortable everyday lives, it symbolizes humanity’s capacity to tolerate the pain of others for our own convenience. Centered on the domestic life of an Auschwitz commandant named Rudolf Höss, Glazer’s grim portrait of a Nazi family explores the mundane existence of those who participated in genocide. But it also has relevance for the psyche of Mitläufer: those who “went along.” Höss, for whom Nazism is more of a career than a source of ideological inspiration, does not believe in National Socialism particularly fervently and despises his colleagues. For the most part, such individuals are entirely unperturbed by the horror they chose to ignore. Yet this cynicism takes an invisible toll. In the final scene, as Höss descends a staircase from his grandiose office in Berlin, Glazer provides a momentary glimpse into the ugliness that churns within.

He pauses, vomits, stares into the darkness, and leaves the building.

Callous Indifference

What struck Hannah Arendt, as she penned her 1950 report on German attitudes toward the war, was callous indifference to extraordinary events that had occurred just a few years prior. Without an official line to guide them, she observed, many seemed “speechless,” a silence that brings to mind the case of laryngitis that seems to have afflicted many otherwise outspoken German liberals and leftists over the last year or so. The “intellectual atmosphere,” Arendt went on, was “clouded with vague pointless generalities.” In this respect, it was not dissimilar to the trite commentary of Stiftung staffers who shrug fatalistically when they acknowledge human suffering in Palestine, as if it were caused by some natural disaster.

Arendt also noted a “pervasive public stupidity which cannot be trusted to judge correctly the most elementary events.” This could just as well describe the unhinged commentary of Green politicians like Cem Özdemir, who is thankful to the Israel Defense Forces for “saving orphans from #Gaza,” or the brain-dead stupor of journalists who priggishly demand documentary proof that Israel intends to commit genocide because the endless evidence clogging our Twitter/X feeds is not enough. (Apparently they’ve not seen Raul Hilberg, the founder of Holocaust studies, point out in Claude Lanzmann’s authoritative documentary, Shoah, that no such order was given by the Nazis.)

Then there are those who know their government is supporting genocide but pretend as if it were not so. This cohort, well-represented at centrist and left-leaning foundations, includes folks who still pontificate about human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, as if the glaring dissonance of their selectivity were somehow unimportant because it is invisible to other Germans. Through being industrious, this lot are distracting themselves and anyone who might be watching by output. Here again, Arendt’s analysis resonates, particularly where she refers to “feverish busyness on the one hand and the comparatively mediocre production on the other.” How else to describe HBS copresident Imme Scholz’s Twitter/X posts on decolonial restitution in Africa, climate change in Asia, environmental defenders in Latin America, and World Press Freedom Day? “Look over there,” she seems to say, “and there, and there.” Fellow copresident Jan Albrecht’s smug LinkedIn activity tells a similar story: pride in our latest publication or event on “feminism,” “sustainability,” “peacebuilding,” and the rest.

Like the robots Arendt wanted to shake from their slumber in 1950, genocide deniers today are not troubled by the inauthenticity of their universe. “Real are the ruins, real are the past horrors, real are the dead whom you have forgotten,” wrote HBS’s favorite author of her interlocutors: words that reverberate chillingly in Germany today.

What does it mean that foundations tasked with political education have made no serious, unified statement in defense of German democracy in response to the brutal clampdown on pro-Palestinian gatherings and protesters in Berlin? That they have done nothing to oppose the extraordinary entry ban on Palestinian British doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah from the Schengen Area to suppress his testimony, and the prohibition on former Greek minister Yanis Varoufakis entering Germany because of his political views?

Berlin, where gold plaques remind pedestrians of Jews murdered by the Nazis, is the city in which most foundations are headquartered; where their staff are regularly summoned for meetings; where public events are held urging us to keep our eyes on Sudan (but off the Palestine Congress, shut down by the Interior Ministry the same day).

It is also home of the Bundestag, where Frau Baerbock’s animated speech this October 10 justifying the killing of noncombatants (“because civilian places lose their protected status if misused by terrorists,” she falsely claimed) finally and straightforwardly spelled out Germany’s commitment to criminal violence. Up until this point, images of her cross-legged on the floor with Sudanese refugees, and occasional tweets about the “unfathomable” suffering in Rafah, pointed to a concern for optics, along with genuine nervousness about the possibility of being prosecuted for war crimes. Reports that she and Habeck are now obtaining pledges from Israel that “weapons coming from Germany will not be used for genocide” suggest she has finally brushed aside concerns about image and personal liability the German way (bureaucratically, with a wet signature).

Die Stiftungen had little to say about Baerbock’s chilling clarification of intent. Twitter/X, on the other hand, was awash with memes of the foreign minister juxtaposed with Waldemar Baerbock, her grandfather, a decorated Nazi. She claims not to know what he did to merit a medal for service to Hitler’s army of rabid psychopaths in 1944. Perhaps we can believe her. As he bounced little Annalena on his knee, it seems unlikely her opa would have passed on details of his exploits in history’s most dreaded death squad.

Nonetheless, historians and scholars of genocide will surely draw connections and make comparisons between two murderous episodes of German history encapsulated in this bond. Within it, we witness two closely connected generations of Germans, each within living memory of the other, committing, supporting, and shirking accountability for some of the most monstrous crimes of the modern era.