Germany's big moral dilemma. posted by Richard Seymour

Amid all the handwringing about whether Germany is allowed to criticise Israel yet, Benno Teschke, discussing the intellectual resuscitation of imperialism in Germany, reminds us that Germany has already rehoisted its imperial flag and broken many a taboo to do so. First, by suborning the secession of several Yugoslav regions by recklessly recognising Croatia and Slovenia (which even their US patrons denounced), then by supporting the pro-Hitler ethnic cleanser Franjo Tudjman, then by sending its Luftwaffe in to help the US carve up Serbia. The reunification of Germany prompted a spree of attempted expansionism, with the hope being that Slovenia and Croatia would be the client-states that a certain previous German administration had hoped to make of Poland, for instance. Schroeder opportunistically campaigned against the war on Iraq and came back from trailing 17% to his opponent to win the 2002 election quite well, but surreptitiously helped the US behind the scenes.

Yet for all this, you do come across people trying to explain Germany's current public devotion to Israel as the discharging of a moral debt, resulting from the attempt by the Nazis, with the participation or indifference of too many, to exterminate the Jews. But did they not also owe a debt to the people of the Balkans whom the Nazis invaded, persecuted and murdered? Did they not shudder at sponsoring a Hitler apologist who was busily ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Serbs? And if it was about the morality of it, then opposing Israel's brutal repression of the Palestinians would be the bravest and most morally serious stance the German government could take. The obscene underside of the claim that Germany is animated by its moral debt is the one advanced by some conspiracy theorists I occassionally find crawling round message boards - that Germany behaves the way it does because it is beholden to Jews. Both theories are identical in structure, with the value-significations reversed: they both posit that German foreign policy is determined in some way by its relationship to the Jewish people. It is, in fact, an antisemitic conspiracy theory in whichever form it is put.

The deal is, Germany is an advanced capitalist power that follows the lead of the hegemonic state for the most part, only occasionally diverging for a brief while, and will break any taboo in doing so. No aspect of Germany's attempted expansionism after the fall of the Soviet Union raised the smallest cold sweat. Ethnic cleansing? Go right ahead. Nazi sympathies? No problem. Send the Luftwaffe to bomb Yugoslavia again? Where can we sign? German troops in Kfor? Right away, sir. The German ruling class was split over Iraq because it had oil deals and a troublesome population to think about, but Washington obviously provided some assurance that they would get some of the spoils if they helped out. And they were interested. More to the point, the capitalist class was salivating: Deutsche Bank in October 2002 notably made a salacious study for investors about the upcoming Iraq war called "Baghdad Bazaar: Big Oil in Iraq". By the same token, when the German government was more oriented toward Russia because of the crucially important oil, gas and coal coming from there, Schroeder found himself very understanding of mass murder in the streets of Chechnya. Ever since Russia shut off the supplies to Ukraine, the Merkel coalition has been pushing aggressively for closer ties to Washington and tougher competition with China. Such a stance is likely to be unstable, as is everything else these days, but another thing that is unstable is the deep economic ties between Israel and Germany. These have been in development since the creation of West Germany, when it was still essentially a US protectorate. Germany benefits from this transaction only for as long as Israel is America's attack dog. As soon as the US withdraws that $3bn, Germany will no longer be Israel's largest trading partner in Europe, or if it is it will hardly amount to any significance. Essentially, like any capitalist power it will go where the money is, and the rest is sweet talk.