Over the weekend, Elon Musk—the richest man in the world and among the closest advisors to the President of the United States—appeared via video link at a rally for the Alternative for Germany political party. He indicated with a big grin that the nationalist, anti-immigrant party would "make Germany great again." He told them it's time to "move on from past guilt" and "preserve German culture." The Germans, he indicated, have nothing to feel guilty about.
But as he calls for a return to German glory, what exactly is he asking Germans to affirm in their own history? Germany only became a distinct nation in the late-1800s, and its government spent most of the next century in wars of conquest and a vast genocidal project directed against its own people. When we turn back the clock to German greatness, are we nostalgic for the days of Heinrich Himmler (architect of the Holocaust) or perhaps those of the "last German emperor," Kaiser Wilhelm II? Perhaps we yearn for the days of Emperor Otto von Bismarck (the "Iron Chancellor" known for his policy of "Iron and Blood.") Tersely, I note the repetition of "emperor" and "iron" in these characterizations. The blood only needs one mention, until the Musk-promised next Reich comes.
As the South African/American incomprehensibly endorses Prussian nationalism (one of history's least edifying belief systems), Donald Trump has been squarely and explicitly endorsing war crimes, civilian slaughter, and ethnic cleansing. I guess now we see what drew these plutocrats together, and what they want the world to be like.
In remarks delivered to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump described Gaza as "a demolition zone." as a somewhat clearer picture of Gaza has emerged since the ceasefire, it’s obvious that Gaza been completely leveled. A first round of ceasefire stories told of people returning home to find nothing but shattered concrete and human remains. Then even that much sad freedom was terminated on Sunday as Israel began blocking returnees.
And looking at the drone footage, it appears that there's nothing left to return to anywhere in Gaza. If Israel was limiting their bombing campaigns to military targets, they evidently held that every structure and every person in Gaza was a military target. That there's so little left hasn't prevented Trump from promising the government of Israel as many 2000-pound bombs as its little heart desires. There being nothing left in Gaza to pound, they’ll take their civilian-aimed explosions elsewhere, possibly to southern Lebanon, where they seem already to be violating the new ceasefire agreement. Or to Syria, a strip of which they have annexed since Assad's downfall.
Biden's decision to provide the munitions by which Gaza was destroyed amounts to a war crime and makes the US in part responsible for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths there. But the Biden administration also occasionally criticized Israel's actions and paused some arms sales from time to time to bring to bear a slight pressure to pause the massacre of civilians. Now, under Trump, the US is no longer trying to have it both ways.
In the same “demolition site” interview, Trump said this about the Palestinians of Gaza: “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over'." He’s already talked to Jordan’s King Abdullah about this, and probably to Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as well. He suggests that he’ll pay their governments to house another two million or so refugees. The administration is encouraging Israel also to "clean out" the West Bank.
This endorsement of ethnic cleansing in the most explicit possible terms redoubles US complicity in the events, and makes it clear that we’re talking about a genocide. These are the worst sort of war crimes and acts of terrorism that can be perpetrated. They’re what they charge you with in international tribunals, for these are crimes against humanity. Trump should be apprehended and put on trial in the Hague before he can kill any more Palestinians.
That the Jewish state—established in response to the Holocaust as a place of shelter and a symbol of "never again"—is perpetrating these crimes is ironic, though it might also be typical that abused people abuse, that traumatized people traumatize. An impulse to self-defense can become disproportionate and randomly directed, like a school shooter's "kill them all" response to being bullied or excluded. But then the question also arises: where did he get the gun?
We might take the ethnic cleaning of Palestine about which Trump is so enthusiastic as a late-emerging development originating in the Holocaust. Maybe that's what Musk means by "make Germany great again."
—Follow Crispin Sartwell on X and Bluesky: @CrispinSartwell