“”

The present wave of chauvinism in Israel is due to the war; one knows this from comparable situations. But already before, during the kidnapping of the three guys, the e-mail exchange in Israeli newspapers oozed a nauseating combination of mushy self-pity, racism and phantasies of revenge and destruction.

And then the likes of Benny Morris [www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.607984] – reveling in the fact that one has cast off every shred of human decency. Which is obviously seen as liberating. What psychological satisfaction that gives to people, I can’t understand. Have you ever read Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus? He describes something similar, based on the behavior of early Nazi supporters.

What struck me is the hysterical reaction the discovery of these tunnels created in the Israeli population. I always thought that many Israelis know in their subconscious minds about the crimes their country commits against the Palestinians. This hysteria confirms it (even if one isn’t an adherent of psychoanalysis).

Re Morris: the Times of Israel had to apologize yesterday for two commentators who advocated genocide, and the Jerusalem Post ran another opinion piece by Martin Sherman, who has been advocating ethnic cleansing for years, and now is very direct about it. Morris is not alone.

What upsets me, in particular, are the reactions of my government. No compassion, not a shred of morality or even respect for international law. Now Germany discusses not the murder of children in Gaza, but whether anti-Semitic slogans were shouted at some of the Gaza demonstrations. The Jewish groups succeeded, once again, to make politicians come out at their rallies, ostensibly to denounce anti-Semitism, in reality to support Israel. To have one’s rejection of Nazism instrumentalized into support of killing children is the ultimate insult.