I seriously don’t understand how everyone is so confused about this. It’s actually not cool at all to continuously drop bombs on densely inhabited areas while also denying them water, food, medicine, fuel and so on. Any further analysis or complexity has to build on top of that fucking obvious reality, not ignore it.

Germany’s government has been slowly shifting towards neoliberal and reactionary politics for the last few decades. The SPD (the self-proclaimed “social democrats”), who currently have the most seats in the parliament, are not actually pushing for progressive policies but make concessions to neoliberal agendas whenever possible. Similarly to the US Democrats, they often act as a controlled opposition, focusing on liberal issues while dismissing progressive/left-wing policies. The Green Party, which holds the second-most seats in the cabinet, has some progressive voices but also has a history of supporting western hegemony when it comes to foreign policy (especially in the Middle East). Together with the aspects mentioned in the article, this is the reason why German politicians are so ignorant of the Palestinian cause and unwilling to push for any kind of long-term deescalation.

As someone born and living in Germany, I was expecting our politicians to act this way, unfortunately. What I, personally, didn’t expect is how often progressive media outlets here are behaving like Jacobin describes them in the article. Hearing progressive/left-wing voices that I usually listen to, shaping the public discourse towards a more regressive/antisocial one is what terrifies me the most.