Palestinian Calls to “Free Palestine from German Guilt”
Recently, in Germany and beyond, Palestinians have been calling to “free Palestine from German guilt.” This rhetoric arises because Germany is actively opposing anti-Israel demonstrations, particularly those promoting slogans like “From the River to the Sea” and speaking of the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba. However, Germany’s actions have nothing to do with German guilt and everything to do with German experience. Germany understands where such ideas can lead, recognizing genocidal ideologies when they see one.
The Historical Context: Nazi Influence on Palestinian Ideology
In fact, what Germany is witnessing is the re-importation of ideas they originally exported to the Arabs and Palestinians in the 1930s and 1940s. During this period, the Arabs of the land, particularly the Palestinians, engaged in a fruitful collaboration with the Nazis. As part of this collaboration, the Nazis extensively propagated their ideology through Arabic radio broadcasts. These ideas, which were once exported to the Palestinians, are now being brought back into Germany, which is why Germany is fighting against them—not out of guilt, but out of a profound understanding of the dangers these ideas pose.
Two Falsehoods in the Call to “Free Palestine from German Guilt”
When Palestinians call to “free Palestine from German guilt,” they are promoting two significant falsehoods. The first is the claim that Israel exists because of European guilt over the Holocaust. In reality, the Holocaust posed a grave danger to the establishment of a Jewish state because there were few Jews left. It took European nations a generation, and sometimes longer, to feel guilty. Paradoxically, it was partly because of the Holocaust that the Jewish state was ultimately established.
The Palestinian Role in the Establishment of Israel
The second falsehood is the notion that Palestinians are victims of the establishment of the state of Israel. Unfortunately, Palestinian Arabs are victims of their own obsession with denying the existence of a Jewish state. They went to war to prevent the Jewish state’s establishment, an unnecessary conflict. Had they not waged this war, an Arab state could have existed alongside a Jewish state, with no one displaced. Their violence and obsession with preventing Jewish sovereignty even exacerbated the scale of the Holocaust. There was a time when Germany was willing to let Jews emigrate, as reflected in the 1938 Evian Conference, where the question was whether any country would take in the Jews of Germany and Europe. Most nations declined, but there was one country that wanted to say yes—what would have been the state of Israel, had it been allowed to be independent as envisioned in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Need for Palestinian Self-Reflection
Arab violence between 1936 and 1939, and even earlier, ultimately forced the British to betray the trust they had received unanimously from the League of Nations. This betrayal led to the closure of the embryonic Jewish state to Jewish immigration at the most critical time in Jewish history, condemning many to genocide. Palestinians need to engage in self-reflection and assume responsibility for their complicity, their collaboration with the Nazis, and their role in closing the door to Jewish immigration during the most dire moment in Jewish history.