Germania, media, guerra, Usa Wsws 06-07-22
Leggiamo il sostegno acritico della Germania a
Washington e Gerusalemme – Come i media tedeschi parlano dell’aggressione
israeliana contro il Libano
Stefan Steinberg
Tesi Wsws:
Nelle ultime due settimane si è verificato un mutamento
sostanziale nella politica estera europea e tedesca: dato che i paesi europei
sono incapaci di sviluppare una posizione comune in opposizione agli USA, i
leader europei hanno deciso di seppellire le loro precedenti riserve sulla
guerra USA contro l’Irak ed appoggiano la sanguinosa offensiva israeliana
contro i territori palestinesi e il Libano, progettata e condotta con strette
consultazioni con il Pentagono.
La borghesia tedesca, non riuscendo ad opporsi in
nessun modo alle ambizioni imperialiste di Israele e America, ha concluso che i
suoi maggiori interessi sono serviti facendo causa comune con Washington.
Il lavoro preparatorio per questo mutamento di rotta è stato
fatto nel dibattito sui media tedeschi, in particolare sui suoi giornali “di
qualità”; molti dei giornali più influenti hanno ospitato articoli di giornalisti
pro-israeliani, che hanno presentato come aggressori i nazionalisti di Hamas e Hezbollah, e che ritengono non si possa far nulla per evitare l’intervento USA,
o addirittura lo richiedono apertamente.
La linea dell’Amministrazione americana sul conflitto mediorientale
è stata presentata da Bush al G8 e ripetuta alla nausea dalla cancelliera e dai
media tedeschi.
–
Sulla Süddeutsche
Zeitung,Thorsten Schmitz: l’escalation del conflitto sui due fronti mediorientali
non è stata causata da Israele […] Appoggia l’intervento diretto delle potenze
occidentali, il maggior rischio viene dalla « sconsiderata passività della
comunità internazionale e in particolare dal presidente USA […] gli USA sono divenuti
spettatori passivi nel conflitto MO […] Quel che occorre da Bush non sono
parole di ammonizione, ma fatti». I responsabili dello spargimento di sangue in
Libano sono da cercare in Iran.
–
Schmitz cita dichiarazioni del vice-primo ministro
israeliano Perez, che giustifica il bombardamento del principale aeroporto dichiarando
che «ad ogni modo è controllato dall’Iran».
–
Due giornalisti di Die
Zeit, pubblicato tra gli altri dall’ex cancelliere SPD Helmut Schmidt, Gero
von Randow e Josef Joffe propongono nei propri articoli le posizioni prevalenti
nei principali ambienti politici della Germania, che hanno dato il pieno appoggio
all’offensiva israeliana in Libano, sponsorizzata dagli USA, presentando l’attuale
governo iraniano come un ostacolo ai loro interessi nella regione.
– Gero von Randow: gli istigatori sono a Teheran. A
dimostrazione riprende le dichiarazioni del ministro Esteri iraniano Mottaki: l’Iran
può assumere un’importanza considerevole non solo per le sue riserve di gas e petrolio,
ma anche per la sua posizione strategica al centro tra Golfo Persico, Asia centrale
e Mar Caspio … «se si giungesse ad una situazione critica come in Irak, Afghanistan
Asia centrale o Caucaso … il ruolo importante dell’Iran per la regione» diverrebbe
ancora più evidente, con l’Iran che svolge «un ruolo di stabilizzazione».
– Il principale collaboratore de Die Zeit,
Josef Joffe: Siria e Iran sono le potenze che «hanno imposto un monopolio della
violenza in modo brutale ed efficace» nella regione.
–
Su influenti giornali tedeschi è in corso anche un’altra
campagna volta a contestare l’accusa di risposta “inappropriata” o “eccessiva”
da parte di Israele, con articoli di rappresentanti di organizzazioni o
istituzioni ebraiche, che hanno difeso a spada tratta le iniziative dello Stato
israeliano.
o
Michel Friedman, ex vice-presidente del
Consiglio ebraico centrale in Germania, sul Berlin
Tagesspiel difende come appropriata la distruzione di abitazioni e infrastrutture, dato che «hezbollah cerca
deliberatamente di uccidere civili, mentre Israele sta facendo tutto il
possibile per evitare vittime civili» (1/3 delle centinaia di vittime civili
dei bombardamenti israeliani in Libano sono
bambini).
o
Martin van Creveld, lettore presso l’Università
ebraica di Gerusalemme, sul Frankfurter
Rundshau: il problema non è l’uso eccessivo della violenza, ma anzi l’opposto.
Il vero problema potrebbe essere l’estrema riluttanza di Israele ad usare un
livello di forza sufficiente per risolvere questo problema una volta per tutte».
–
Friedman e Creveld esprimono la posizione della lobby
filo-sionista, che esercita una forte influenza organizzata nei media tedeschi.
La novità di queste dichiarazioni estremiste sta però sta nel fatto che sono ospitate su giornali
come il Frankfurter Rundschau con una tradizione liberale di lunga data e che
esse non vengano controbattute.
–
La soluzione da realpolitik proposta da Creveld è ripresa
dalla FAZ: chiudere un occhio sull’aggressione di Israele potrebbe in fin dei
conti esere la migliore soluzione: «[l’]offensiva militare di Israele, per la
quale sta soffrendo la popolazione nel sud Libano e a Beirut, potrebbe fornire
il presupposto per una soluzione più ampia … Se Israele non solo riuscisse a
respingere le milizie hezbollah fuori dalla regione di confine, ma le
indebolisse anche militarmente, sarebbe raggiunto un obiettivo che né l’esercito
libanese, né le forze ONU sono state capaci di raggiungere»; questa posizione espressa
dalla FAZ è condivisa da ampi strati dell’establishment politico tedesco.
–
Un rapporto coscienzioso della situazione è scritto invece
su Spiegel-online da Ulrike Putz, che descrive nei particolari le
distruzioni di interi sobborghi di Beirut… un apocalisse …
«… è assurdo parlare di “operazioni chirurgiche” dirette solo contro obiettivi
militari a Haret Hreik [sobborgo di Beirut]. La commissaria di Human Rights
Watch Louise Arbour ha parlato mercoledì di crimini di guerra forse commessi negli
scontri della scorsa settimana e che dovrebbero essere perseguiti. Le rovine
dell’area residenziale potrebbero come minimo essere utilizzate per giustificare
l’accusa di “omicidi e ferimenti premeditati di civili”».
Wsws 06-07-22
Following Germany’s uncritical support for Washington
and Jerusalem
How the German media
reports on the Israeli aggression in Lebanon
By Stefan Steinberg
–
In the past two weeks,
a major shift has taken place in German and European foreign policy. Under conditions where European nations are completely
unable to develop a unified stance in opposition to the US, European leaders
have decided to ditch their former reservations over the illegal US war against
Iraq and now back
the present bloody offensive by Israel against the Palestinian territories and
Lebanon—an offensive
planned and carried out in the closest consultation with the Pentagon.
–
The necessary groundwork
for such a shift in policy has been conducted in the course of a debate carried
out in the German press, and in particular in Germany’s so-called “quality”
newspapers.
–
During the past week, many of Germany’s most widely read
and influential newspapers have opened their pages to pro-Israeli columnists,
and in many articles and commentaries have turned reality on its head by presenting
the nationalist Hamas and Hezbollah movements as the aggressor parties in the
Middle East, with the
Israeli army and government playing the part of the offended victim
doing its best to defend itself.
–
As if the US-initiated
catastrophe in Iraq had
never taken place, a number of the
German columnists now either concede that nothing can be done to prevent the
growing involvement of the American military in the conflict, or actively call
for the intervention by the US
in the region. Not content with freeing Israel
from any responsibility, a number of German papers then go to great lengths to
demonstrate that the real source of the violence in Lebanon
and Gaza is to be found in Damascus and Teheran.
While the presentation of events in the Middle East by the German press is certainly one-sided, it would be wrong to claim it is monolithic. Contemporaneous with the
many uncritical pro-Israel articles, some journalists reporting from the besieged areas of southern Lebanon
have provided graphic details of the devastation to life and limb caused by the
savage bombardment of the region—reports that completely undermine the
widespread presentation of the Israeli state as the offended party.
While the German press still maintains a degree of democratic
debate that is increasingly absent in the mainstream press, for example, of the United States,
it is noteworthy how numerous
commentaries in the most influential German newspapers have, nevertheless,
echoed the German government’s own depiction of the current hostilities in the
Lebanon.
At the G8 summit, US
president George W. Bush laid down the line of the Washington
administration—i.e., that Hamas and Hezbollah
“terrorists,” operating with backing from Syria
and Iran, were responsible
for the renewed outbreak of war in the Middle East.
Israel,
he claimed, was only “acting in self-defence.” His message has since been repeated ad nauseam by the
German chancellor and parroted in the German press.
–
Typical in this respect are a number of articles by journalist Thorsten Schmitz written for the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
On July 14, in an article entitled “Victory or a Middle East war,” Schmitz states bluntly at the very
beginning: “The escalation on two fronts in the Middle East region was not
caused by Israel.”
Under conditions where hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and other nationals
have been forced to flee the daily bombardments of housing quarters and
Lebanese infrastructure by Israeli fighter planes and warships, Schmitz
unashamedly declares that the Hezbollah and Hamas movements are responsible for
the bloodshed in Gaza and Lebanon.
–
In the same article, he pleads for direct intervention by
Western powers in the dispute, complaining that the worst danger in the
situation arises from the “reckless passivity of the international community
and in particular the US
president….” Schmitz is concerned that the “US has become a Zaungast [someone
innocently looking over the fence] in the Middle East
conflict…. What is needed
from President Bush are not admonishing words but deeds.”
Having made an appeal for direct
intervention by the US
in the conflict, Schmitz goes further and attempts to identify a “Trail leading
to Teheran.” For Schmitz, responsibility
for the bloodshed in the Lebanon
does not rest with the power brokers in Jerusalem
and Washington,
but rather in the Iranian capital. Schmitz is quite prepared to pepper his entirely speculative
musings over Iran’s involvement in the current fighting with quotes from Israel’s deputy prime minister,
Shimon Peres, who, in typical thuggish militarist fashion justifies
the bombing of Lebanon’s main airfield by absurdly declaring that the “airport
is controlled anyway by Iran.”
–
Journalist Gero von Randow is anxious to follow the trail suggested by his colleague
Schmitz, and in the widely read weekly paper Die Zeit—which is published by, among others, former SPD chancellor
Helmut Schmidt—von Randow also seeks to demonstrate that the real instigators of the current war crisis
are to be found in Teheran.
–
In a column headed “Call for
Terror,” von Randow undertakes
a review of the Iranian press to prove that “Iran is a significant partner in
the Lebanese drama, perhaps even the string puller.” While he is forced
to concede that the Iranian media is not explicit about Iran’s role in the conflict, he nevertheless pulls together a
wide range of commentaries to justify his claim that Iran is playing a leading role.
Von Randow quotes at some length from the web
site of Iranian radio and from
a comment made by the Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki who declared:
“the Islamic Republic of Iran
could acquire profound significance not only because of its huge oil and gas
reserves, but also because of its strategic position at the heart of the
Persian Gulf, central Asia and the Caspian Sea.” Should it come to
“critical situations such as Iraq,
Afghanistan, Central Asia or
the Caucasus, “then “the
significant role of Iran for
the region” would become even clearer—with Iran playing “a stabilising role.”
For von Randow, Mottaki’s claim that Iran’s strategic position gives it more right to
influence developments in the surrounding region than Israel or the US is completely unacceptable. Von
Randow’s identification of Iran as the
leading “string puller” is then taken up and developed one day later by Die
Zeit’s chief columnist Josef Joffe, who, in a lead editorial, lists Syria alongside Iran as powers
that “have brutally and efficiently established a monopoly of force” in the
region.
–
Inadvertently or not, von Randow and Joffe give an insight into the thinking in Germany’s leading political circles, which have
given their full support to the US-sponsored Israeli offensive in Lebanon,
regarding the current Iranian government as an obstacle to their interests in
the region.
In addition to the concerted efforts to
identify Iran and Syria as the aggressors in the Middle
East, a further
campaign is underway to counter those who argue that the reaction of the
Israeli army and air force can
in any way be regarded as “inappropriate” or “excessive.” Leading daily papers have opened
their columns to prominent representatives of Jewish organisations and
institutions, who have virulently defended the activities of the Israeli
state.
Michel
Friedman, the former vice president of the Jewish Central Council in Germany, uses the opinion pages of the Berlin Tagesspiegel to openly defend the destruction of
housing and infrastructure by the Israelis in Lebanon. Such a response is, according to
Friedman, entirely appropriate under conditions where “Hezbollah
deliberately seeks to kill civilians, while Israel is doing everything it can
to avoid civilian casualties.” In reaction to the overwhelming evidence of
Israeli atrocities against a civilian population Friedman responds by claiming
that Hezbollah deliberately uses “protective shields in the form of women and
children.”
Friedman’s arguments are quite frankly
obscene. It is the Israeli regime that has turned naked provocations and terror
against civilians into a fundamental component of its war strategy. Currently, one third of the hundreds
of civilian casualties of Israeli bombardment in Lebanon are children but,
according to Friedman, such loss of innocent life is entirely justified,
because the enemy uses civilians as protective shields.
–
Friedman’s argumentation is taken one step further by Martin van Creveld, lecturer at the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem, writing in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper (July 19).
In an article entitled “Look at
History,” Creveld
writes in a blood-chilling manner: “Maybe it is not clear where this will all lead.
But one thing is clear. Whatever the ladies and gentlemen in Brussels say,
–
the problem in Lebanon is not Israel’s ‘excessive’ use of
violence. Quite the opposite, the real problem could be Israel’s
extreme reluctance to use a sufficiently high level of force to solve this problem
once and for all.”
–
Friedman and Creveld express the standpoint of the
pro-Zionist lobby, which exerts enormous and concerted influence in the German
media.
Anyone with an understanding of the
background of such forces will not be particularly surprised at what they have
to say in response to this latest eruption of Israeli aggression. What is new is that they should be
accorded such prominence for their views in established newspapers such as the
Frankfurter Rundschau which have a longstanding liberal tradition, and that
their extremist comments remain unchallenged.
In fact, Creveld’s brutal “Realpolitik” solution for the Middle East is taken up and embraced by the leading newspaper of the German
conservative right wing.
–
In its Friday edition, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung indicates that turning a blind eye to Israeli
aggression might, after all, be the best alternative. The paper comments:
“[T]he Israeli military
offensive, under which the population in southern Lebanon
and Beirut are
suffering, could provide one of the prerequisites for a broad solution….
Should Israel
not only be able to drive Hezbollah militias out of the border region but also
decisively weaken them militarily, than an aim would be fulfilled that neither
the Lebanese army or a United Nations force could establish.”
–
There can be no doubt that the standpoint articulated by
the FAZ is shared by broad layers of the political establishment in Germany. Under conditions where it has proved utterly futile to oppose in
any way the naked imperialist ambitions of Israel
and America, the German bourgeoisie has concluded that
its best interests are served by unconditionally throwing in its lot with the
criminal clique in Washington.
Despite the chorus of articles and
commentaries that, in one form or another, uncritically regurgitate the
propaganda put out by the German government and its spokesmen, there are also conscientious journalists who are prepared to report on the real
scale of the horror currently being unleashed by the Israeli military.
–
In a report for Spiegel-online entitled “Beirut’s
Hezbollah quarter—A neighbourhood in death agony,” Ulrike Putz reports on the devastation left
behind by the Israeli bombardment. Once a neighbourhood housing 700,000 people, all that remains of Haret
Hreik, Putz reports, is “an abandoned desert of rubble.”
Her report continues: “There are wars
where the same bombed-out housing block is shown from so many different
perspectives that the viewer concludes an entire city has been laid to waste.
In Beirut, that
is not necessary. Any
cameraman seeking to show the consequences of war only has to make a stop in
Haret Hreik: entire areas of this suburb of Beirut have ceased to exist.
“A trip to the southern suburbs of Beirut is like a nightmare, where things only
get worse. At first, it is only the smell of burning that reminds one
that the ruins along the way do not originate from the last war. Then come the
bomb craters in the asphalt, then a burned-out gas station, then a motorway bridge
that has just been strafed. But it is only when one parks one’s auto, marked
with ‘TV,’ and proceeds on foot that one really becomes conscious of the apocalypse that has taken place
in recent days in Haret Hreik. Behind each street corner is more destruction,
more rubble…. Until the mass of devastated concrete blocks simply prevents
one from penetrating any further into Haret Hreik.”
Over two pages, Putz details the
appalling destruction that has taken place. Towards the end of her report, she
writes:
“But even if the Israelis assumed this quarter was used as a retreat and
operational base (for Hezbollah): any talk of ‘surgical strikes’ solely against
military targets in Haret Hreik is absurd. The UN Human Rights Commissioner
Louise Arbour spoke on Wednesday of war crimes having possibly been committed
during the fighting of last week and that would have to be pursued. The ruins of the residential area
could at least be used to justify the accusation of ‘premeditated killing and
injury of civilians.’ “
While the vast majority
of Germany’s press has rapidly adapted to the change in international relations
that seeks to justify the new line of “might is right” and play down the
consequences of the Israeli onslaught, reports such as those by Ulrike Putz make
clear that governments and editorial
offices that now line up behind the US and Israel in the Middle East are
themselves complicit in “war crimes.”