Germany depends on the votes of Spain and Ireland at the EU for a lot of things that Germany finds important.
If a measure at the EU level has enough consensus and Germany vetoes it, they'll see other members be a lot more likelly to use veto power on things that mostly matter for Germany.
Since Germany are in the curious position of being the EU member that benefits the most from the Free Market (they're the biggest exporter and their biggest market by far is the rest of the EU) and the Euro (their currency now is a lot weaker and hence they're more competitive because it's a currency union with far weaker countries, than it was back in the deutsche mark times), they can't even threathen to leave the EU as that would a bit like threatenning almost everybody else with a good time whilst they shot themselves on both feet.
Still, the most likely outcome is going to be nothing at all getting done at EU level, either way, if only because that's always the most likely outcome.
If only Germany would not be willing to recognice Palestine, then this might happen, but that is not the case. France and Italy the two next most powerfull countries do not recognice Palestine either.
Germany is usually fairly happy with the current state of the EU. The things Germany wants to change are usually also supported by Spain and that means blackmail is harder. The only exaption to that is finance. However Spain is not going to let billions go to waste to have Palestine recogniced. That is just more of a symbol, rather then massivly important.
Also Germany leaving the EU would cause some massive problems in other EU countries as well. They would hardly be cheering for it.
It's unclear were exactly France is on this, though I agree that Italy under the current far-right government is unlikelly to recognize Palestine.
I'm mostly thinking about the Financial stuff: none of the so called PIIGS forgot how they and their populations were sacrificed to save German banks and a "Let's fuck Germany" posture wouldn't at all be a hard sell in those countries plus I very much doubt that generally not doing what's good for Germany would be bad for those countries since they're almost opposite to Germany in the forms by which their economies can benefit from the Euro - they would actually grow more in an Euro without Germany.
I'm also not so sure that a German exit would end up being bad for the rest of the EU, especially for the less export oriented and more peripheral countries like Spain - certainly an Euro minus Germany would actually be better for everybody else but Germany (as Germany pushes up the value of the Euro, making other Euro nations less competitive and partly explaining their anemic growth and lack of funds to restructure their Economies, which is the other big reason for their anemic growth) though granted it depends on how important are exports to Germany in each economy, though on non-Euro EU matters you might be right. In summary and as I said before, almost nobody else but Germany benefits from Germany's Euro membership and the kind of nations that would be least affected by a Deutschexit are the ones who have no borders with Germany, a group that includes Spain, Ireland and Norway (though the latter is not an EU member and hence has no vote or veto so doesn't really apply for the scenario we are discussing).
Spain has grown faster then Germany for most of the last decade(besides 2020). Out of PIIGS Portugal and Ireland also have done pretty well. Greece got hit hard and Italys economy has problems since the 90s(aka not a EU/Euro problem).
The figure is quite different if you look at the growth in nominal per-capita terms rather than in percentage of initial value as any shitty-shit growth in a poor nation looks a lot more in percentage terms.
Further, I'm living in Portugal and I can tell you that at least in quality of life terms the country has been going backwards for at least a decade, even if mathematically, thanks to a housing bubble and understating housing inflation, the GDP figures produced show "Growth" which is actually just housing inflation that has not been discounted from the Nominal GDP.
The only one of the PIIGS anywhere near catching up to Germany is the Republic Of Ireland and even those have fishy numbers because of how many international companies declare the revenue of their entire EU operations in Ireland because of just how much Ireland facilitates tax evasion - a lot of the money being "made in Ireland" is neither "made in Ireland" nor does it even pass by Ireland and it being counted as Irish GDP is just an accounting artifact.
But yeah, Norway is not an EU member, as I myself pointed out in the very post you replied to.
their currency now is a lot weaker and hence they’re more competitive because it’s a currency union with far weaker countries, than it was back in the deutsche mark times
That myth again. The Euro is a much harder currency than the DM ever was. Most of the trouble states had with the Euro was not due to Germany but them not being accustomed to having a hard currency in the first place, being used to relying on monetary fuckery to steer the economy.
As to recognising Palestine: Not a EU prerogative, simple as that. And I highly doubt states would pressure Germany over this, it'd be a lot of political capital spent on practically zero impact -- up to negative impact as Germany has a much better chance convincing Israel to recognise Palestine with its current stance, and there's simply no country with deeper diplomatic ties to Israel than Germany. If anyone can convince them, it's Germany.
Obligatory note for all the "Christians should support Israel" crowd. The Israeli minister of Security said, that Christians should be spit on. When Christians want to pray for Easter in the Church of the holy sepulcher, Israeli security forces are also harassing and attacking them. Israel is not only an ethnostate, it is also founded on religious and race supremacy, where white european/american Jews are on the top of the hierarchy and anyone else will face discrimination.
Definitely true, its just the arms companies milking your country dry want more money. So, they'll convince you all that you're no longer a super power.
Militarily speaking the US is still a force to be reckoned with, they can bitch-slap any smaller non-nuclear country anywhere in the world on a moment's notice.
Soft power wise, though, the US is in freefall. And without that soft power the hard power can't be readily employed because blowback. I'd say in the future the US is going to do a lot more riding on the EU's soft power than they're currently comfortable admitting. That is, they're not going to invade random countries to bolster election results at home, they're going to knock on Brussel's door and ask "hey anything need peacekeeping right now that would be popular with the world?", then portray it as their own initiative.
They get paid very well not to see that, or in the case of Germany get paid very well and used support for Israel as a smokescreen to deflect from the antisemitism they rightfully fear to be accused of. Israel is helping German Antisemites to push the blame on "immigrants" while Ethnically German Nazis get to attack Synagogues and have it downplayed. Zionists and Antisemites are allies.
Technically the US is sending lots of weapons to Russia. Ukraine are even being real Bros about it and trying to deliver the munitions first cuz Russia keeps misplacing their stuff. Not their fault Russia is doing a very poor job of accepting their deliveries.
I'm a bit surprised Russia is even on the "Supports Palestine" list, given that they've been increasingly hostile towards Arab people and cozy towards Israel.
Israel's foreign minister Israel Katz said in a public statement that the move to recognize Palestine was a "distorted step" by the countries
Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also condemned the move Wednesday and said the response from Israel would be to intensify its operations in Gaza—where the ICC chief prosecutor this week alleged war crimes by Israeli forces have taken place—even further. In his remarks, Ben-Gvir called for a "root treatment" for the city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled but many still remain with nowhere go.
That old right-wing refrain: "Look what you made me do!"
As an aside, an ethnostate's foreign minister's first name being the name of the country is too on the nose for most farcical fiction, let alone reality 🤦
“Sorry best we can do is more bombs, officially define antisemitism as calling these guys assholes, and, uh, oh yeah, giving their military benefits packages!”
All that work putting together a "humanitarian help" system which was only ever meant as propaganda and never meant to actual put a dent in Israel's Final Solution of death by Starvation, and Biden throws all that aways like this.
Bet even his Campaign and Press people are pissed of at that one, though probably not for "normal person empathising with the suffering of others" reasons.
Not sure how the Jewish would think about this but I'm starting to think it's antisemitic to link the Jewish and Israel (apart from Israel defining itself as a Jewish state). Funny how that might go full circle.
I dunno. It definitely will incentivize “otherising” of the Jewish diaspora. Which may be a tertiary objective of it. And it will definitely lead to increased conflict.
Which is a shame because most the Jews I know well enough to talk to about it, are extremely anti-genocide, and they’re vocal about it because… they know “I’m Jewish, [awkward stare]” is a great way to not get dinged for politics at work. (At least when the political topic is Gaza.)
You are absolutely right on that. It keeps many anti-genocide Jews silent. It kept me silent for a very long time. I didn't even like talking about being Jewish. What changed my mind was a British documentary by a British comedian named David Baddiel called Jews Don't Count (based on his book of the same name), which is specifically about the "othering" of Jews, especially how many white people don't see Jews as white, but most non-white people don't see Jews as non-white. It's made me more vocal about things. I had already seen the documentary a few years before, but what has truly cemented it for me was the "you have said the actual truth" tweet by Elon Musk in response to someone who said Jews were oppressing white people.
It was streaming somewhere where non-Brits could see it (I think Dailymotion), but it doesn't appear to be there anymore.
I'm starting to think it's antisemitic to link the Jewish and Israel
It definitely is. There's few things more antisemitic than assuming that all Jews approve of the fascist government of an apartheid ethnostate committing genocide with impunity.
It's right up there with the Alex Jones "globalist" conspiracy theories.
And it's pretty straightforwardly so: for example claiming that somebody demonstrating against the killing of children by Israel is an anti-semite is implying that killing children is a Jewish thing to do, which is incredibly close to the "Jews eat babies" kind of propaganda from the Nazis: even the worst actual antisemites in the present day weren't going around claiming that murdering children is a Jewish thing to do.
That's just how out of control the Israeli ultra-violent and extremelly racist Fascists and their racist Fascist supporters in places like the US are.
Well, in the tribalist kind of thinking everybody must always be pro-some-faction or against-some-faction and the far-right (including Fascists tribes such as Zionists) are seldom deep thinkers and skeptics, so are almost without exception tribalists.
So it makes absolute sense that Zionists (and members of other political tribes whose "chiefs" have decided to support Zionism) claim that people who are demonstrating because of their Principles (in this case Humanist ones, like "though shall not kill innocent civilians") are doing so because of being pro-some-faction. Further, I would even say that the Zionists absolutelly believe that claim they're making and are speaking the truth as they see it: they simply cannot conceive of people being anything but tribalists who will put tribalism above all else (even any leftover Principles they might have) so people must be pro-some-faction or anti-some-faction to be demonstrating.
(PS: Whilst this is not evidence, it does match what I've observed first hand in situations like the Brexit Referendum in the UK. It also matches my observations as member of a political party in my homeland, since most political party members tend to be tribalist, even in leftwing parties, which as somebody who returned from abroad with no pre-existing "love for the team's shirt" and chose a party to join and help based on the principles they seemed to support, made me quite an atypical member and gave a wonderful chance to observe political tribalists in their "natural environment")
This is also why I believe a lot of the propaganda techniques being deployed by the Biden Campaign to try and get votes from people who are against the current actions of the Zionists because it goes against their Principles are incredibly misguided - Principled people aren't pro-Biden or even anti-Trump, they're pro or against some kinds of action no matter who does it, and things like "aversion to the murder of children" tend to be some of the stronguest principles around so likely to be much stronger for a non-tribalist that the "uuh, those other guys are bad" tribalist-heavy arguments.
I wouldn't be surprised if many people don't end up in the voting booth, intellectually ready to swallow their Principles and vote Biden purelly to stop Trump, and can't actually bring themselves to cast a vote.
Anyways, all this are theories and if Biden keeps on supporting the Zionists and their Genocide, we shall see.
It is deliberate. Zionists love antisemitism. They love it when Jews are attacked outside Israel so they can claim to be the only safe place for them in the world. They love to use antisemitism to attack Jews, who do not want to be associated with Israel or are even critical of Israels practices or worst "questioning their "right to existence"".
I am Jewish and yes, it is antisemitic to consider all Jews as Israelis. I do not support Israel, I have no affiliation with Israel, I have no interest in going to Israel apart from the archaeology. I'm from Indiana and I have a hell of a lot more in common with a Christian from Fort Wayne than an Israeli from Haifa.
Also, I know this is totally anecdotal, but every Israeli I have met in my life has been an asshole, which doesn't exactly endear me to their country.
Netanyahu is the one who benefits most from people thinking all Jews are Israeli. I sure as hell haven't benefited from it considering how many times I've had to justify myself just for who my ancestors were.
It's crazy how the media portrays the 'critisizing Israel is critizing the jewish' position. Even politicians, at least in the west, lean in to it, but this could be due to the geopolitical position of Israel as an ally I suppose.
They'll retract Sacha Baron Cohen's citizenship, and leave The West saddled with him, his shitty movies, and the irreparable wreck of his once brilliant career
I'm not a fan of his broad style of comedy, but a huge number of people love his TV shows and movies, he's made a lot of people laugh, and he made Rudy Giuliani look like a pedo. I really don't have an issue with the dude.
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