Latest news with #Hitler
The Sun
20 hours ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Recognising Palestinian state now would only serve to embolden extremists who want to bring terror to UK streets
THE images of hunger coming out of Gaza are horrendous. No one could fail to be appalled by the suffering of Palestinians being beamed across the world. 5 5 The conflict was triggered by the massacre, rape and hostage-taking of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. But Israel's response to eliminate the threat of Hamas is taking a terrible toll on ordinary Palestinians. Some of the most gruesome pictures of malnourished children seem to be manipulated by the Hamas propaganda department, but nearly everyone involved agrees the food shortage in Gaza is real and acute. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is clearly personally deeply moved by the unfolding tragedy and is also being pressured by many of his own Labour MPs to follow the lead of French President Emmanuel Macron, who wants France and others formally to recognise Gaza and the West Bank as the nation state of Palestine at a UN conference on the issue in September. Yesterday, Sir Keir appeared to give in to that pressure. After an emergency cabinet meeting, the Government announced that the UK will recognise Palestine as a state — unless Israel meets a list of conditions before the conference. Embolden the extremists You might be forgiven for thinking the Government's announcement could give a desperate situation a helpful push at a critical time. After all, the UK and the rest of the international community have long believed that the only way to secure peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians is to create an independent state of Palestine alongside Israel. As a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, I have long campaigned for a 'two-state solution' to replace the perpetually unstable, messy situation that has developed since the establishment of Israel in 1948. But right now? Definitely not. Sir Keir must urgently think again, or he will squander what little influence Britain has on this dire situation. Israel announces 'tactical pause' in fighting in parts of Gaza as IDF sets up 'designated humanitarian corridors' Those who have pushed for the UK to make the gesture of giving Palestine full democratic recognition now tend to believe Israel is squarely to blame for the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza. They ignore the reality that Hamas systematically diverts aid from its own people. Many are taken in by the grotesque lie that Israel itself wants a genocide of Palestinians. When in fact the country is threatened by genocidal terrorists committed to wiping Israel off the map. Jews who survived Hitler's attempt to wipe them out promised themselves they would never again rely on the rest of the world to keep them safe. So they think the UK should do whatever it can to stop Israel in its tracks. But even if you believe the anti-Israel falsehoods from Hamas, recognising Palestinian statehood now would do nothing whatsoever to influence Israel's approach. Jews who survived Hitler's attempt to wipe them out promised themselves they would never again rely on the rest of the world to keep them safe. If their allies abandon them like this, they will just knuckle down and shut us out of the conversation. Israelis would understandably view premature recognition of Palestine — before the hostages are returned home, before critical and intensely difficult security questions have been agreed — as contemptible posturing from countries whose days of empire are over. Countries whose existence is not on the line, unlike Israel under constant rocket fire from Iran and its terrorist proxies. Israelis would be deeply hurt by the sense their friends are moving against them while Hamas still holds living hostages or is withholding their remains. But if it goes ahead, this gesture of official recognition while conflict is raging would be worse than futile. It would be actively harmful — including potentially increasing the risk of future Islamist terror attacks. One British cabinet minister yesterday suggested the Palestinian people should be 'rewarded' by Britain recognising their state. In fact, the people who would trumpet this as a reward would be Hamas terrorists, and their Iranian puppet masters who are bringing terror to British streets. And it would embolden the extremists who have tarnished Gaza marches on an almost weekly basis with chants calling for the annihilation of Israel. Some Labour MPs might be worried they will lose support from Muslim voters and left-wingers unless the Government sounds more pro-Palestine. Pressurise real culprits But the party should worry more that Nigel Farage and his new wave of Reform councillors will have a field day if it looks like Labour is caving in to the angry intolerance disrupting British cities. And if Labour MPs look like they are obsessed with a foreign conflict when their constituents have so many pressing problems at home. Sir Keir should focus on putting pressure on the real culprits — Hamas terrorists — instead of blaming Israel and sidelining Britain. If the PM wants to shape the debate on how to find a credible roadmap to an independent Palestine alongside a secure Israel — great. But the goal of two states cannot be imposed by Britain. It will only be achieved through a negotiation between two sides — Israelis and Palestinians. And right now, the terrorists ruling Gaza are still holding Israeli hostages, and the Gazans under their control are going without food. So Sir Keir should focus on putting pressure on the real culprits — Hamas terrorists — instead of blaming Israel and sidelining Britain. John Woodcock is an ex-Labour MP and independent adviser to the Government on political violence and disruption. 5 5
Daily Maverick
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Watch – Inner voices: What if you don't have one?
Some people don't have an 'inner voice', but maybe those who do shouldn't be smug. Marianne Thamm is a South African journalist, author and stand-up comedian. She is the assistant editor of the Daily Maverick and has written several books. In 2016, she released the memoir, Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and me. If you like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel for more. Would you like to become a Maverick Insider and support our journalism? Click here for all the details:
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Book Review: ‘Victory ‘45' chronicles the long, winding road to ending WWII
Most wars begin with a unilateral act. Americans fired 'the shot heard round the world' in Lexington in 1775, the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. To call off a war, however, the belligerents must agree to terms and conditions, a collaborative and convoluted process. In the popular imagination, World War II concluded in 1945 with the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Europe, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. As historians James Holland and Al Murray chronicle in their finely detailed book 'Victory '45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders,' those events alone were not capable of halting the colossal military might unleashed over the previous six years. Consider how the ultimate aim of the Allies — unconditional surrender as set in a joint declaration — contrasted with the Nazi blood oath calling for a '1,000-year Reich or Armageddon.' President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, meeting in Casablanca in January 1943, outlined the strategic, political, and moral clarity necessary to fight a global conflict. By spring 1945 Hitler and his supporters were rotting in his Berlin bunker. Holland and Murray use the bunker setting — depicted in the 2004 German film 'Downfall' featuring a meme-able Hitler tirade — as the predicate for the multiple European surrenders to come. If rehashing Hitler's suicide, in April 1945, early in the book seems anti-climactic, 'Victory '45' justifies itself by moving on to the unsung but equally dramatic tales of those who navigated the confusion of a war that was won but hardly finished. The first significant capitulation began weeks earlier when two backstabbing rivals in the Nazi SS high command in Northern Italy separately schemed to save their own postwar skins. Their intrigues delayed the first of Europe's unconditional surrenders, limited to their sector, signed just a day before Hitler's demise. A recurring motif was the futile attempts by the Germans to only yield to the West in hopes of splintering the Allies and escaping Soviet vengeance. While Holland and Murray include brief profiles of famous politicians and commanders as further European surrender ceremonies were staged and announced, 'Victory '45' finds its relevance and poignancy when it directs its focus downward. There, ordinary individuals journeyed to the intersections of triumph and despair, relief and revulsion. Examples include the Jewish-American college student haunted by the atrocities at a slave compound in Austria seized by his Army unit. Those rescued included a Jewish-Czech teen who lied about his age to avoid extermination at Auschwitz and joined his father in surviving stints at multiple camps. Liberation was punctuated by grief just days later in a makeshift hospital when his father died in his arms. On the Eastern Front, a young female translator in Soviet military intelligence was integral to a search in Germany's devastated capital. Were the reports of the Fuhrer's death Nazi disinformation? She interrogated captured witnesses, attended the autopsy of the burned corpse, and was even given custody of the teeth that were eventually confirmed as Hitler's. Not much further west, a bedraggled teenage German conscript who did escape Berlin's aftermath lived on the run until captured by a Russian soldier who simply told him, 'War is over! All go home!' Turning to the Pacific Theater, 'Victory '45' examines the grim prospect the Western Allies faced in 'unconditionally' conquering a warrior ethos in Japan, epitomized by their civilians' suicidal resistance to the Allied invasion of Okinawa. The necessity of the atomic bombings was proven by the attempted military coup staged by high-ranking Japanese holdouts who wanted to defy Emperor Hirohito's orders and continue fighting despite the threat of nuclear annihilation. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Not simply targeted to WWII enthusiasts, 'Victory '45' illustrates for those with a broader historical interest the myriad challenges in bringing to heel the dogs of war. Brits Holland and Murray cannot be expected to quote Yankee baseball legend Yogi Berra, but their book deftly explains 80 years later why in war as well as sports, 'It ain't over 'til it's over.' ___ Douglass K. Daniel is the author of 'Kill — Do Not Release: Censored Marine Corps Stories from World War II' (Fordham University Press). ___ AP book reviews:
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Book Review: 'Victory ‘45' chronicles the long, winding road to ending WWII
Most wars begin with a unilateral act. Americans fired 'the shot heard round the world' in Lexington in 1775, the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. To call off a war, however, the belligerents must agree to terms and conditions, a collaborative and convoluted process. In the popular imagination, World War II concluded in 1945 with the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Europe, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. As historians James Holland and Al Murray chronicle in their finely detailed book 'Victory '45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders,' those events alone were not capable of halting the colossal military might unleashed over the previous six years. Consider how the ultimate aim of the Allies — unconditional surrender as set in a joint declaration — contrasted with the Nazi blood oath calling for a '1,000-year Reich or Armageddon.' President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, meeting in Casablanca in January 1943, outlined the strategic, political, and moral clarity necessary to fight a global conflict. By spring 1945 Hitler and his supporters were rotting in his Berlin bunker. Holland and Murray use the bunker setting — depicted in the 2004 German film 'Downfall' featuring a meme-able Hitler tirade — as the predicate for the multiple European surrenders to come. If rehashing Hitler's suicide, in April 1945, early in the book seems anti-climactic, 'Victory '45' justifies itself by moving on to the unsung but equally dramatic tales of those who navigated the confusion of a war that was won but hardly finished. The first significant capitulation began weeks earlier when two backstabbing rivals in the Nazi SS high command in Northern Italy separately schemed to save their own postwar skins. Their intrigues delayed the first of Europe's unconditional surrenders, limited to their sector, signed just a day before Hitler's demise. A recurring motif was the futile attempts by the Germans to only yield to the West in hopes of splintering the Allies and escaping Soviet vengeance. While Holland and Murray include brief profiles of famous politicians and commanders as further European surrender ceremonies were staged and announced, 'Victory '45' finds its relevance and poignancy when it directs its focus downward. There, ordinary individuals journeyed to the intersections of triumph and despair, relief and revulsion. Examples include the Jewish-American college student haunted by the atrocities at a slave compound in Austria seized by his Army unit. Those rescued included a Jewish-Czech teen who lied about his age to avoid extermination at Auschwitz and joined his father in surviving stints at multiple camps. Liberation was punctuated by grief just days later in a makeshift hospital when his father died in his arms. On the Eastern Front, a young female translator in Soviet military intelligence was integral to a search in Germany's devastated capital. Were the reports of the Fuhrer's death Nazi disinformation? She interrogated captured witnesses, attended the autopsy of the burned corpse, and was even given custody of the teeth that were eventually confirmed as Hitler's. Not much further west, a bedraggled teenage German conscript who did escape Berlin's aftermath lived on the run until captured by a Russian soldier who simply told him, 'War is over! All go home!' Turning to the Pacific Theater, 'Victory '45' examines the grim prospect the Western Allies faced in 'unconditionally' conquering a warrior ethos in Japan, epitomized by their civilians' suicidal resistance to the Allied invasion of Okinawa. The necessity of the atomic bombings was proven by the attempted military coup staged by high-ranking Japanese holdouts who wanted to defy Emperor Hirohito's orders and continue fighting despite the threat of nuclear annihilation. Not simply targeted to WWII enthusiasts, 'Victory '45' illustrates for those with a broader historical interest the myriad challenges in bringing to heel the dogs of war. Brits Holland and Murray cannot be expected to quote Yankee baseball legend Yogi Berra, but their book deftly explains 80 years later why in war as well as sports, 'It ain't over 'til it's over.' ___ Douglass K. Daniel is the author of 'Kill — Do Not Release: Censored Marine Corps Stories from World War II' (Fordham University Press). ___ AP book reviews:
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
In praising Israel's 'dirty work', Merz exposes the orientalist roots of German genocidal Zionism
At the G7 summit in Canada last month, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was asked by a German journalist whether Israel might again carry out military strikes on Iran. The journalist described such actions as Drecksarbeit - "dirty work" - a term that, as the Lemkin Institute points out, was once used by Nazi officials "to justify their actions" and is steeped in the fascist, dehumanising language of genocide. Merz embraced the framing enthusiastically, declaring: "This is dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." He then added, with perfect imperial clarity: "The Iranian regime has brought death and destruction to the world." This is, of course, in stark contrast to Germany under Hitler and Israel throughout its history - both of which have brought nothing but life, liberty and joy to the world, especially to Palestinians! Merz's remarks exposed what use Israel is to Germany and to Europe more broadly: to do the dirty work they can no longer commit directly, straight from the horse's mouth. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters These psychopaths run the world - and they think they can define it too. When Israel slaughters tens of thousands of Palestinians, it does so not only with Germany's blessing, but as part of a continuum of German state violence Should we be surprised that Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels - or Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir - have emerged from this very culture, this very sentiment, this very language and this very vocabulary? As former Chancellor Angela Merkel famously proclaimed, Israel is integral to Germany's "reason of state", with its security tied to Germany's very existence. In other words, without Israel, there would be no Germany. One must take such declarations seriously. When Israel slaughters tens of thousands of Palestinians, it does so not only with Germany's blessing, but as part of a continuum of German state violence - a genocide of Palestinians built atop the genocide of Jews, and alongside the earlier genocide of Africans in Namibia. The former German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock carried that same legacy when she defended Israel's mass murder of Palestinians with a passion reminiscent of her Nazi predecessor, Joachim von Ribbentrop. In a just world, these people would be on trial at the International Court of Justice. German Islamophobia German genocidal Zionism - now openly championed by elected officials, unelected journalists and popular neofascist parties alike - is rooted in German Islamophobia, which in turn draws from a long tradition of German Orientalism, and from "Islamic Studies" in particular. How Germany is manufacturing the Islamist bogeyman Read More » I have already argued that Germany's genocidal Zionism can be traced back to its colonial history and philosophical racism, from Hegel to Habermas. Here, I wish to draw a more direct line between this genocidal Zionism and Germany's tradition of Orientalism. The aim of "Islamic Studies" was never to "understand" Islam or Muslims, but to silence and pacify them - to treat them as oriental objects of curiosity, while denying them moral and political agency. Reports of rising Islamophobia in Germany are consistent and well-documented. The rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party did not come out of nowhere. It reflects proto-fascist tendencies, rooted in Nazism, with broad support and severe consequences across the country. There is a prevailing hatred of Muslims within Germany's ruling regime - as across much of Europe - and Merz's vulgar racism emerges directly from it. The swastikas may have been scrubbed from Germany's public spaces, but they remain carved and tattooed in the mind of its chancellor. Jews may have been replaced with Muslims, but the genocidal instinct endures. Each time Merz opens his mouth to defend Israeli genocide in Palestine, or Israel's attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen or Iran, you can hear Hitler screaming in the tone of his voice. Orientalist foundations Why, one might ask, does a country with an extensive history of Islamwissenschaft - the academic study of Islam - harbour such visceral hatred for Muslims? Are Germans not reading their own leading scholars of Islam, Iran, and the Arab world? There's the rub. The rise of Islamophobia in Germany - and Europe at large - is not despite the long history of Orientalism and Islamic Studies, but precisely because of it. How so? Allow me to explain. We must dismantle the entire regime des savoirs of Europe - Germany in particular - through which the West has sought to decode and dominate the world. We must then recode the world beyond and after that colonial regime of knowledge. The problem is not only the contempt Orientalists have shown for Muslims and their histories, theology and scholarship, nor their disregard for the existential terror inflicted on them by Israel. It is also the epistemic insularity of their field: a wilful ignorance, or condescending dismissal, of work produced in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and other non-European languages. Most of these European Orientalists write solely for one another. They have no organic link or moral investment in the countries, cultures or communities they study. They ignore a vast body of scholarship in the languages they claim to know, treating texts not as subjects of interpretation, but as objects of pathological curiosity. Equally troubling, this Orientalism, as a colonial mode of knowledge production, remains impervious to intellectual developments in the social sciences and humanities, even in European contexts. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza They operate like members of an Orientalist fraternity or country club, complete with secret handshakes and absurd rites of initiation: how to place diacritical marks on Arabic or Persian words, how to cite one another, how to ignore relevant scholarship in the original languages they pretend to know. We should therefore read them for what they are: not authorities, but objects of anthropological curiosity - not to learn anything serious from them, but to study them as a pathologist would the symptoms of a terminal disease. It is worth asking what compels figures like Patricia Crone (1945–2015) or Bernard Lewis (1916–2018), two notorious European Orientalists, to devote their lives to studying something they so clearly detested. This, too, is a dark and twisted pathology that must one day be examined. Meanwhile, Joseph Massad, a scholar of Arab politics and intellectual history, offers in Islam in Liberalism (2014) a compelling account of how "the West" fabricates and sustains its fantasy of freedom, equality and tolerance by manufacturing an imagined alterity - "Islam" - which it portrays as oppressive, intolerant, cruel and homophobic. Remove that falsifying mirror and "the West" is left flailing, stripped of the self-delusional fantasies through which it recognises itself. Western fantasies The pathology did not end with the classical period of European Orientalism, best analysed by Edward Said. It continues apace in today's European manifestations of Orientalism - particularly its Germanic variations - evident in such useless and clueless gems as Annäherung und Distanz: Schia, Azhar und die islamische Ökumene im 20. Jahrhundert (1996) and Die Schia und die Koranfälschung (2018). The effect of these 'studies' is akin to misogynists writing about women, or Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein co-authoring a study on the girls they abused These works aim to sow hatred and hostility between Sunnis and Shia, just as British colonialists once incited Hindus against Muslims in India, or Catholics against Protestants in Ireland. Said is sometimes criticised for not engaging with German Orientalism in his transformative scholarship. Whatever his reasons, I believe he did them a great favour. Had he included them, the organic link between German Orientalism and German fascism, colonial violence in Africa, and present-day Islamophobia and support for Palestinian genocide would have been even more fully exposed. Since the publication of Said's 1978 book Orientalism, a significant body of serious scholarship on German Orientalism has emerged, including Nina Berman's Orientalismus, Kolonialismus und Moderne (1997) and Suzanne L. Marchand's German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship (2010). Paramount in these studies is the recognition that Orientalism and colonialism were not accidentally connected, but epistemically intertwined - not always through overt malice, but through structures of domination, fascination and exoticism. These systems operated for the benefit of the observer, always at the expense of the observed. You may think these "studies" are merely useless, but they are worse than useless. They are instrumental in keeping Muslims as Orientals - stripped of moral and intellectual agency, reduced to objects of juvenile European curiosity. The effect is akin to misogynists writing about women, or Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein co-authoring a study on the girls they abused. It is like white supremacists writing about Black people, or Immanuel Kant dehumanising Africans as constitutionally stupid and subhuman. Germany's silence on Gaza while children starve reveals its dark colonial secret Jurgen Mackert Read More » Years ago, at the Venice Biennale, I saw an African artist with white ink scrawled across his bare chest: "Please do not study me!" Indeed, European and American anthropologists and Orientalists have studied us enough in their hegemonic pursuits. It is time we return the favour and study them as they have studied us - not to subjugate, but to liberate them from their psychotic delusions, ingrained racism, colonial conquest, and murderous domination of others. Today, Israel is the state-of-the-art laboratory for the accumulated terror Europe has unleashed upon the world. This is what Merz celebrates when he says Israel is doing its "dirty work". The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
