Ah, so yet again, the chattering classes find themselves locked in paralytic indecision over the so-called “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. I see that the German government, faced with an ever-swelling chorus of faint-hearted diplomats and semi-literate petitioners from abroad, has chosen to do… essentially nothing. Twenty-eight countries sign a petition; France, as usual desperate to reclaim a shred of influence, declares it will recognize Palestine as a state. And what do the Germans do? They furrow their brows, words fluttering out like so many nervous pigeons at a city square—“concern,” “dialogue,” “historic responsibility.”
The SPD dons their costumes of moral anguish, wringing their hands over Germany’s refusal to join the international petition, pretending this public theatre will change the reality on the ground. Meanwhile, the CDU/CSU clings to some notion that Israel can do no wrong, draping themselves in the tattered mantle of “history”—as though that relic of a past era should override present-day reason or, more amusingly, Germany’s mewling sense of global relevance.
What I find almost charmingly naive is the expectation that such finger-wagging might move the grand machinery of international relations. These people actually believe that recognition, admonition, or the pious suspension of meaningless EU agreements would, in any substantial way, shift the tectonic plates of war and peace. As though leaders in Jerusalem—or Gaza, for that matter—care a whit for the moral preening emanating from Berlin’s parliament!
It is almost adorable to witness these paroxysms of conscience among people who have never risked more than a stained reputation at a mediocre cocktail party. To cease arms exports! To sign international petitions! To pen letters like so many scholarly supplicants! It all reeks of the lower orders desperately trying to feel significant, their trembling signatures on change.org held up as though they were the Magna Carta.
The cold, unvarnished truth is this: Germany’s influence is limited not by history or conscience, but by its lack of real power. Decisions that matter are made by those who possess might—economic, military, or at the very least, the gall to act. Until Berlin dares to acknowledge this, all its dithering proclamations will remain nothing but background noise—soothing, perhaps, to the self-regard of those who utter them, but ultimately irrelevant to the tragedies they purport to address. How very fitting.