Commentary: Germany pledged ‘never again.’ Here’s how it’s grappling with Israel’s bombing of Gaza
The principle of “never again” is built into the very foundations of German national identity. The reasons should be obvious. German disavowal of its past through commemoration has become something of a gold standard for countries that have perpetrated unforgivable crimes. And yet, since Oct. 7, Holocaust memory has increasingly been invoked in Germany to suppress debate on Hamas militants’ massacres of that day in Israel and the brutalities the Israel Defense Forces have meted out against Gaza Strip civilians in the aftermath. It appears that something has gone terribly awry in Germany’s famed “culture of memory.”
In Germany, it has become virtually impossible to stand against the IDF’s violent targeting of Gazan for political thought to because of an they wrote this month in the New Yorker, .
