Genocide Leaves No Illusions Intact
As part of a symposium, in Berlin, 5 October 2024, philosopher and activist, Yasmeen Daher on how German public discourse surrounding Palestine has been silenced, impacting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the broader issue of Palestinian lives.
Jean Améry, the pseudonym of Austrian-Jewish writer Hanns Chaim Mayer, drew deeply from his personal experiences as a member of the resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of Belgium. After being captured by the German Gestapo, tortured, and later imprisoned in concentration camps, his literature and philosophy became profoundly informed by the atrocities he endured. In his pioneering work At the Mind’s Limits, Améry writes:
“I don’t know if the person who is beaten by the police loses human dignity. Yet I am certain that with the very first blow that descends on him, he loses something we might, perhaps temporarily, call 'trust in the world.' An element of trust in the world… is the certainty that, by reason of written or unwritten social contracts, the other person will spare me—more precisely stated, that he will respect my physical, and with it, also my metaphysical being. The boundaries of my body are also the boundaries of my self. My skin surface shields me against the external world. If I am to have trust, I must feel on it only what I want to feel.”
Describing his experience of torture at the hands of the Gestapo, Améry expands on the rupture this caused in his relationship with the world:
“Trust in the world, which had already partially collapsed with the first blow, under torture disintegrates entirely and can never be regained. The experience of one’s fellow man as the 'antiman' remains with the tortured as an accumulation of horror. It blocks the view into a world where the principle of hope might reign.”
After the war, Améry relocated to Brussels and changed his name to dissociate himself from German culture. On October 17, 1978, he took his own life.
In October of last year, when the genocide in Gaza began, I experienced a feeling unlike anything I had known before as a Palestinian. A profound sense of alienation from the world emerged: a feeling of being disposable, a human being the world was willing to sacrifice, turning away in indifference. I felt an urge to retreat from public spaces, gripped by a bottomless fear that we were left alone to endure or perish.
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Our relationship to the world, as a people, was never a major theme of exploration or contemplation in the history of the Palestinian cause, which now spans a century. It was never an ontological preoccupation or a political conundrum, unlike the works of many Jewish writers, such as Améry—whom I just quoted—or Adorno, Arendt, and Levinas.
I pondered: what had erupted within me/us that the question of our relationship to the world became one of urgency? There is the immediate and obvious answer: that this genocide was unfolding in broad daylight, broadcast 24/7 for anyone willing to witness it. And then there was the constant, haunting feeling that our people were being extinguished from the earth, moment by moment.
In hindsight, I believe there was also a deeper, political dimension to this crisis. This was a reflection on what it means to live in the world, and to belong to it. This sense of doubt and alienation was, in part, intensified by the fact that I was in Berlin at the time. With a police ban on demonstrations in the city, an almost total blockade in Neukölln, harassment and attacks on those wearing the keffiyeh, and the racist statements from German politicians and the relentless bombardment of Gaza, we were forced back into private spaces, left to witness the destruction of our people in isolation.
The German state, embodied in its fully armed police forces, was trying - let me borrow Améry’s words here - to block our view into the world where hope resides. It sought to shield us from the solidarity, empathy, and shared pain that others might feel alongside us. And to shield itself from confronting our pain as well.
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From that moment until now, a full year has passed in which the German state - its politicians, parties, institutions, academia, and press - has continued to fail to recognize Palestinians as full human beings, deserving not only of pity and humanitarian aid, but of political rights and genuine solidarity. Solidarity, after all, is a political force.
Instead, the media, academic, and political elites have done everything in their power to prevent Palestinians from reaching the broader German public - through lies, distortions, and defamation of Palestinian voices and their allies. Why? Because it is not difficult to empathize with, and show solidarity for, those whose land was stolen, who are imprisoned, and who were transformed overnight into refugees.
The lack of sympathy stems directly from a deliberate effort to suppress Palestinian voices, through the forceful manipulation of discourse and political violence. But let me be clear: the world did not entirely turn away from our suffering; only the Western world did. And in doing so, it also found itself isolated.
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Never before has the rift between the Global North and the Global South been so stark and undeniable.
In October 2023, Palestinians were invited into Western media studios—if at all—only to be asked one zealous question: “Do you condemn?” Despite this question being rightly mocked, analyzed, and exposed as inherently racist, it is important to recognize that it is a distinctly Western question. If one follows the trajectory of European colonial history, its hegemony, and imperial thirst, the essence of this history is distilled in those three words.
The condemnation of violence presupposes not only agency and the power of choice and action—which, theoretically, can be established even in dire situations—but also the ability to protect one’s life. Because, beyond a theatrical performance for the masters of so-called moral righteousness, what does it mean for a Palestinian to utter words about the lives of others when the occupation machine can annihilate our lives without any consequence at any moment, for over a century now?
In other words, to condemn, the subject must first be capable of living and protecting its own life, as well as the lives of others. Can such a subject, stripped of rights, agency, and autonomy, find a way to protect itself and others? Can a Palestinian see the mere fact of being alive as anything other than a miracle and a privilege? Not in a spiritual sense, but in the deep, bone-engraved, material reality of survival?
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These sinister gestures of discursive violence by Europe, and its outpost in the Middle East – Israel - function as a mutilation of corpses after the killing is done. We have witnessed this so many times over the past year that the boundary between life and death has blurred beyond recognition.
To further unravel the thread of European discursive domination and contradictions: a few months into the genocide, the German foreign minister began calling for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, describing the situation as a humanitarian catastrophe, which indeed it is. Yet, in the German psyche, the Palestinian does not qualify for the descriptive and prescriptive language of victimhood.
This presents a paradox. The Palestinian is thus simultaneously in need of aid but deprived of the moral standing that typically accompanies victimhood. They are to be denied the historical, emotional, and psychological dimensions that come with that recognition. Because this is a recognition that is selectively bestowed according to European standards. These standards, in turn, are shaped by entrenched political and historical narratives.
Victimhood holds an elevated position in Christian theology and has translated into modern secular culture. Christian fixation on suffering, culminating in the crucifixion of Jesus, views agony as redemptive. In parallel, in modern times, this idea manifests in the notion of victimhood as a conferral of moral power and authority.
But the German state does not want to grant this moral authority to Palestinians. First, because victimhood implies the presence of a perpetrator. And in Germany, Israel cannot be a perpetrator. Instead, in a convoluted retention of the past, Germany continues to monopolize the role of perpetrator, especially when its identity is linked to Israel. This retention pumps moral superiority into the German state, preserving a narrative where only Germany can bear such historical guilt.
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Second, victimhood comes with the weight of history. To be recognized as a victim, one must have a history. Yet in Germany, Palestinians are denied the right to history. Here, I distinguish between "history" and the "right to have a history." The latter encompasses the right to narrate, share experiences, be heard, and be recognized. However, if you listen carefully to the discourse emerging in Germany, especially in the past year, you’ll notice that historical narratives are not distributed equally.
In truth, the only history that continually repeats itself in the present is the Palestinian Nakba. Yet, neither the catastrophe of their past nor its ongoing legacy is acknowledged within the German context, or more broadly, within the Western world. As a result, the Palestinians present a rupture in history itself. When their historical narrative is dismissed or fragmented, so too are their material realities and identities.
In other words, if Palestinians are denied ownership over tangible realities - such as their land and homes - they are also denied the right to claim their emotional and psychological suffering. Trauma is rooted in historical events. If one is not recognized as a historical subject, they are also not entitled to embody the toll of those events. Consequently, discussions of trauma, generational trauma, reparations, reconciliation, and an end to the ongoing carnage against Palestinians remain silenced and persecuted.
Some may interpret the situation in Palestine through the lens of two victims, two equal sides. But there are not two victims. There is only one: the Palestinian people. This statement does not diminish the value of human life, regardless of nationality, religion, or identity. Rather, it serves as a necessary correction to historical distortions and deeply ingrained narratives that perpetuate suffering.
Victimhood is not solely measured by death, nor by emotions such as fear or anguish. To equate it with death alone is both morally flawed and politically perilous. Victimhood is defined by power structures and responsibility. For a people who lived peacefully on their land for centuries, alongside a Jewish minority and others, it is unjust to hold them accountable for the ambitions of a nationalist movement that sought to claim their land in collaboration with European colonial powers.
To be clear, Palestinians do not seek to compete for the status of victimhood. Their century-long resistance exists precisely because they strive to live freely, not to remain trapped in the role of perpetual victims. Jean Améry, recognized his victimhood, but his resistance arose from the desire to transcend it. He sought to be a political agent, not merely a Jew defined by persecution. He wanted to choose to be anti-Nazi, rather than being reduced to the role of the Nazis' enemy solely because of his identity, race, or religion. For Améry, being Jewish meant "feeling the tragedy of yesterday as an inner oppression." To free himself from that burden, he had to transform it. As he put it, “The degraded person, threatened with death, convinces society of his dignity by taking his fate into his own hands and rising in revolt against it.”
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Similarly, the Palestinian people have long rejected the imposed narrative of victimhood, seeing in it deep indignity and humiliation. For them their moral authority stems not from a metaphysical or inherent role as victims but from the undeniable justice of their struggle. One of the great achievements of the Palestinian liberation movement has been exactly that, the politicization of the Palestinian diaspora, ensuring that the displaced refugees of Palestine’s past have become empowered individuals and active political agents, shaping both the present and the future.
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What now?
Meanwhile, Israeli mainstream television openly debates whether rape could be an effective tool against Palestinians. At the same time, settlers armed to the teeth storm Palestinian villages in the West Bank under the protection of the army, destroying schools, farms, and livelihoods, and setting homes on fire. This violence is accompanied by Israeli government ministers. In the past two weeks, Israel has continued bombing Gaza, extending its attacks to Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Iran. Israeli soldiers dedicate their bombings—the leveling of entire residential complexes—to their children, while the public dances to songs celebrating the deaths of Arabs.
Once again, Netanyahu stands at the UN, displaying a map of Israel that stretches from the river to the sea. And amid this abhorrent violence and the denial of Palestinian very humanity and livelihoods, a German journalist strikes like a meteor. He asks a Palestinian activist if they recognize the State of Israel. The brutal material violence of colonization is continually met with rhetorical distractions, as language and discourse are weaponized against the oppressed.
To be clear, from the river to the sea, there is but one ethno-nationalist state—a rogue state that uses lethal terror against civilian populations to maintain its dominance and supremacy. Yet the German state, on one hand, is preparing to send Israel another submarine, while on the other, deploying snipers on rooftops to surveil pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the streets this week. Is there any public outcry? We hear nothing.
While Germany’s elites largely succeed in blocking empathy and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, the world sees otherwise. It is not the Palestinians who are estranged from the global community—it is Israel and its allies. Recently, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel “bring to an end, without delay, its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories within 12 months. The resolution passed with 124 nations in favor, 14 against, and 43 abstentions.
Yet, there are truths that neither Israel nor Germany can erase. The word "Nakba" has, over the past year, become more normalized than ever, serving as a pivotal historical reference point whenever Palestine and Israel are discussed. A new generation is emerging, increasingly aware of the realities of colonialism and imperialism and how these forces operate to tighten control and reap profit. No longer does anyone believe that Germany’s unwavering support for Israel is rooted in guilt; rather, it is driven by racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and a desire to preserve and expand its imperial influence in the global order.
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In fact, Germany is helping us redefine racism itself. Racism, among other things, is selective guilt. It’s the refusal to feel guilt for anti-Zionist Jews, who by the thousands have protested against the genocide, while expressing guilt for the war-mongers who are now intent on setting the region ablaze. The age of disillusionment is over - genocide leaves no illusions intact. The question now is: What will you do with this newfound clarity and awareness?
For Palestinians, the world is not an abstract concept of global powers; it is its people. A second rift has opened in the past year—beyond the divide between the Global North and Global South—a rift between people and their governments. False claims of democracy, the fragility of societal cohesion, and the erosion of legal systems in great nations have become all too clear. When Abode, a popular Instagrammer from Gaza who has survived the ongoing genocide and remains in the northern part of the Strip, asks in his videos, ""وين العالم؟ ("Where is the world?"), he speaks not only of the abstract global order but also of the people. In Arabic, "عالم" (world) carries this dual meaning.
Never before has standing with a just cause been so costly, yet so dear and intimate to millions as the Palestinian cause is in this century. Those who stand with Palestine today understand that it may cost them—relationships, jobs, public positions, and even physical or emotional harm. And yet, they continue, knowing that this cause is the key to exposing the deeply entrenched corruption of the world. When people say, "Palestine will liberate us all", they damn know what they are saying.
Yasmeen Daher is a Palestinian philosopher, co-director of Febrayer, an association of digital Arab media groups. Her previous blogs can be found here.
