Perhaps I expressed myself a bit poorly: I no longer recognize the moral authority of my country, because this conflict in particular has shown that Germany has learned absolutely nothing from its past. This became very clear once again at the last Federal Press Conference, where the spokespersons for the German government were questioned about exactly this UN report Here is a short transcript of the most important part. Anyone who watches the last few minutes of this video will see how Israelis feel about Palestinians. Simply disgusting. "We are aware of the report and we take it very, very seriously, but the Federal Government cannot adopt all of its findings and conclusions because we do not possess the same information." Journalist: "The report does not only describe the situation in the occupied territories and assess Israel's conduct, but it also calls upon all UN member states to stop arms shipments to Israel. Germany is a UN member, so is Germany—the Federal Government—considering following this call and halting arms shipments?" Answer: "I am not aware of any intended change in administrative practice regarding arms exports. As you know, we always operate within the framework of strict European and German legal requirements for arms exports and examine each individual case very closely for its impact." In other words: "we will simply ignore the report because we have no information of our own regarding the killing of children, because we have consistently looked away". Disgusting. However, since the historical sense of guilt that was emphasized throughout my upbringing no longer feels valid to me, I no longer view any group as requiring special treatment. I intend to treat all individuals with the same respect and kindness, unburdened by those feelings. The people I wish to distance myself from in the future, both professionally and privately, are those who support or condone the violence and actions against innocent children and for me, it does not matter whether these individuals are Jewish or non-Jewish. To be clear: I find the acceptance or support of the intentional killing of children to be fundamentally unacceptable and an abandonment of humanity."
