“The Germans will never forgive us Auschwitz.” – According to Austrian-Israeli physician and author Zvi Rix (1909-1981) expressed by this seemingly paradoxical sentence, remains true to this day. How else could the strange ambivalence that continues to be the main trait of Federal Republic of Germany’s relationship with Israel be explained? While solemn annual ceremonies keep the memory of the victims of the Holocaust alive in a dignified manner, politicians and the media often only relate to contemporary Jews with a perplexed shrug of the shoulders, usually clothed in a printed “yes…but”: “Yes, the Hamas terror of October 7th is to be condemned, but…” – At this point usually follows the recycling of ancient anti-Semitic topoi, dressed in the new guise of the so-called “criticism of Israel”. The term is the result of applied double standards. Is democratic Israel really more questionable than other states, so that explicit criticism of Israel is simply considered good form? Quite a few contemporaries seem to think exactly in these terms.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Alliance 90/The Greens) is also obviously having difficulty in dealing with Israel. Although she dutifully recognizes the Jewish state’s right to self-defense, she does not hold back on admonitions to the country which is under pressure from all sides, and she practices demonstrative equidistance. “De-escalation on all sides” is the order of the day, and the killing of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah is “in no way in Israel’s interest.” With such clueless statements, Baerbock is continuing a long tradition of German misjudgments. –

Historically, back in 1972 during the  Olympic Games held in Munich billed under the motto  of “Happy Games” intended to show the world a festival of international understanding and at the same time, the new face of Germany. A security concept only exists in the form of unarmed police officers in casual outfits, candy cannons and remote-controlled dachshunds, which are intended to make any troublemakers laugh and thus distract them. An idea that could have come from Annalena Baerbock. – On the night of September 5th, the naive happiness ends abruptly. Without encountering any resistance, eight armed terrorists from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group „Black September“ penetrate the Israeli team’s headquarters. A bloody hostage drama begins. The aim is to achieve the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel as well as the release of the RAF terrorist Ulrike Meinhof. At the end of the war of nerves, eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer are murdered. Three of the terrorists survive the showdown at Fuerstenfeldbruck Airport and are arrested.

What happened after that traumatic day, laid the foundation for a political misjudgment that continues to this day. What did the then federal government under Chancellor Willy Brandt and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher do? Did they see the devastating terrorist attack as what it was: an armed attack carried out by foreigners against German territory? In this case, they should have let the justice system take its course and allowed the surviving terrorists to be convicted in Germany. Instead, the German government yielded to extortion , accepted the forced release of the terrorists who hijacked and airplane, and arranged for their exchange in return for the hostages, as quickly and quietly as possible. It was the first time German kowtowed to Islamist terrorism. Although the official focus of the PLO in the 1970s was on secular Arab nationalism, the memoirs of the then Munich police chief Manfred Schreiber also suggest that the terrorists were religiously motivated. He reported:

„When I said in one of the early negotiations with Issa: You are aware, aren’t you, that you won’t get out of here alive?, he replied with a smile that that was a good thing, because then they would all go to heaven. I couldn’t scare him at all with that, on the contrary!“ The signature of Islamism was unmistakable even then.

Germany chose the easy path: to renounce its dignity as a state. In return, the federal government hoped to be spared from further terrorist attacks by the PLO. Thus also any hope of a genuine friendship between Germany and Israel fell by the wayside. The course had been set, and this is still the case today. Israel itself should deal with the problem! Occasional submissive gestures to the Palestinians at the same time combined with stern reprimands directed at Israel should be enough to avoid further terror. And so Federal President Steinmeier’s bow at Arafat’s grave in May 2017 was particularly deep. Germany’s refusal to confront the nature and roots of Islamist terror is now having a devastating mental effect on Europe as a whole. As early as 1972, Germany had the chance to develop an unbiased attitude towards Israel and a deeper understanding of this danger. The uncritical acceptance by the mainstream of mass immigration of millions from Islamic countries would then have been unthinkable. Roughly quoting Winston Churchill: We are still feeding the crocodile – hoping it will eat us last. For this purpose, we prefer to nurture old, subliminal resentments and use them to push our Israeli friends under the bus. Enough of that: We should rapidly realize that without Israel there will be no Europe either!