It is not so easy to be Palestinian in Germany. Neither is it easy to be pro-Palestinian in Germany. It is slightly suspicious, for pro-Palestinian is close to anti-Israel, and "anti-Israel" for some people seems to be close to meaning anti-Semitic. The case of the German legislator Jamal Karsli shows that being pro-Palestinian in this country can be against the "political hygiene", as former North-Rhine Westfalia's prime minister, and now super-minister in the new government, Wolfgang Clement, scolded. This term, by the way, was also used by the Nazis against Jews ("race hygiene"), but Clement's utterance was pro-Jewish so that he cannot be a Nazi by definition.

To be suspicious of anti-Semitism is something that can bring you out of the society. Karsli is out today, Moellemann is out, and there is no prominent politician in Germany today who could be called pro-Palestinian. Even the grande Dame of the liberal party, Frau Hildegard Hamm-Bruecher, has left her party now, because former FDP leader Moellemann was being "anti-Israel", as she explicitly said in a recent TV interview, at "Beckmann". Ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt and now retired popular former minister Norbert Bluem were the only other celebrities during the past months who had clear Israel-critical remarks in the press, both untouchable elder statesmen. Frau Daeubler-Gmelin, on the other hand, just lost her ministry because of an anti-American utterance.

Palestinians factually are Semites, like the other Arabs, and like Jews and like Ethiopians. In usual language, "anti-Semitic" means: "anti-Jewish". For some reason, people avoid to say "Jewish". Maybe it is modesty, I don't know. For the Germans, however, it is important to show that they have learnt out of World War II that Jews are no lesser human beings than Germans or Aryans. Germans are afraid of repeating what the Nazis did with their anti-Jewish racism. This is why loyalty to the USA and to Israel belongs to the principles of German foreign policy, in all political parties and in the press.

If a German politician was pro-Palestinian, and if they felt with the Palestinians, they would feel the decade-long occupation, humiliation and loss, and they would also sense the anger of the Palestinians who are treated like second-class humans, not worth to be equal with other peoples in the world. In the war between Israel and Palestine, these politicians would rather stand on the side of the Palestinians. But is this allowed? They would not only be pro-Palestinian, they would be anti-Israel. To avoid all this, most Germans have decided to rather ignore the subject matter and to talk about other things that are not connected to the association field of anti-Semitism to which for some people apparently also belong the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Muslims.

The Hamburger Morgenpost (Mopo) is the second largest tabloid in Germany. Yesterday it said on the front page in bald letters: "Washington: Sniper is a Muslim - Muhammad the Sniper" (and below that: "Moscow: Warrior's of God raid Musical"). The first thought I had when I saw the news was: shoot he's black! My second thought was: shoot, he's a Muslim! Millions of people in Germany read these headlines, what will they think? Will they think that Muslims have a radical tendency, and that there must be something wrong with Islam if the Muslims are doing all these things: September 11 and shoe-bomber and Bali and Haifa Tel Aviv and Iraq and sniper and Moscow? Whether generalizations are fair or not, many newspaper readers will say: they did all this, didn't they? The Muslims. Because they were all Muslims. There you are.

Interestingly, hardly anybody counts the percentage of Christians in criminals and criminal affairs... When after September 11 some German clerics like Hans-Jochen Jaschke in Hamburg and Hans-Christian Knuth in Schleswig defended the violence against Afghanistan in their capacities as bishops, nobody thought badly of Christianity itself, or of the Christians. Maybe this is also because Christians identify with each other less, and that they see this Muslim passion with an angry or even jealous eye. I don't know. But back to the Mopo: had the sniper been a Jew, would chief editor Josef Depenbrok have titled: "Sniper is a Jew - Moses the Sniper"? Positively not, it would have been anti-Semitic. But by writing "Sniper is a Muslim" Depenbrock actually did say: "Sniper is a Jew", because he said: "Sniper is defined by belonging to a (suspicious) religious group". The message "Sniper is a Muslim" has the connotation that "The Jews killed Jesus" has. Who claims that the Muslims tend to be terrorists is as smart as someone who claims that the Jews tend to control the media.

Injustice and racism are due to situations, not to particular groups. When the Nazis killed the Jews they did this to all humans, and when the terrorists killed the people from the WTC they did this to all humans, and when the Israelis occupy the Palestinians, then they do this to all humans. There can only be one standard. It is also essential to consider who can be made responsible for violence. A religion cannot be made resonsible, neither can a city, a family, or a race. Governments can be made responsible, politicians and journalists, supporters and violent groups can be made responsible. Concerning Germany, as long as the schools don't teach about Arab history and integrate Islam in a way that it acknowledges its participation in world culture, there will certainly remain mean prejudices and generalizations of the Mopo kind. And there will be one people that the Germans cannot listen to. And they will say to the Palestinians: Look guys, please don't come too close. If you come too close, then maybe we would feel with you. And we are not sure if this is allowed to us. It could be..., well, you know, it could be anti-..., well, I'm sure you can understand what I am trying to say.