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Award ceremony suspended after writer compares Gaza to Nazi-era Jewish ghettos (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Silverseren@kbin.social to c/world@lemmy.world

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A German foundation has said it will no longer be awarding a prize for political thinking to a leading Russian-American journalist after criticizing as “unacceptable” a recent essay by the writer in which they made a comparison between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.

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[-] jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world 60 points 11 months ago

According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, which broke the story, the prize will still be presented to Gessen, though “in a different setting”, and on Saturday instead of Friday. It remains unclear who will present it, what they will be presenting and whether Gessen and other invited guests still plan to attend.

In the paragraph the HBS draws attention to, Gessen wrote that “ghetto” would be “the more appropriate term” to describe Gaza, but the word “would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”

On X/Twitter, they wrote that no German media representative had tried to contact them, despite the story being widely reported in German media on Thursday.

Supporters of Gessen, who is Jewish, and whose grandfather and great-grandfather were among family members murdered by the Nazis, have been quick to point out the irony of suspending a prize awarded in memory of Arendt, the German-born Jewish-American historian, philosopher and antitotalitarian political theorist who coined the phrase “the banality of evil”, in connection with the trial of leading Nazi Adolf Eichmann, which she covered as a journalist for the New Yorker.

In an open letter written with Albert Einstein and other Jewish intellectuals in 1948, Arendt had, Gessen pointed out, even compared the Israeli Freedom party to the Nazis after they used racially motivated violence against civilians.

“I am aware that this type of comparison, especially in Germany, is quickly seen as relativising the Holocaust. That’s why it’s so important to me that such a differentiated and intelligent thinker like Arendt didn’t shy away from this comparison,” Gessen told the newspaper.

Referring to people in Germany being wary of challenging “the logic of German memory policy” for fear of being accused of antisemitism, they added: “The problem is that criticism of Israel is often seen as antisemitic, which I think is the real antisemitic scandal. This overlooks the actual antisemitism.”

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago

for those wanting to read the letter to the editor of NYT signed by Einstein and Arendt

Keep in mind Tnaut Harerut is the literal precursor to Likud. And was a political offshoot of the paramilitary that attacked both the British and the Palistinian groups because they didn’t like the idea of sharing power with palistinians.

[-] Silverseren@kbin.social 14 points 11 months ago

Good timing, I was literally editing my original comment to note that when you posted at the same time!

[-] jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Thank you!

Great minds think alike, hahaha

this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023

646 points (97.2% liked)

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