ConWatch: Week 1,819
Does Germany have a constitution yet? This week: Germany says no to weapons for Israel now — kinda sorta maybe whatever.
Anyone who’s ever attended a Passover Seder is well-acquainted with the chanting of “דינו-Dayenu.”1 With it, Seder-goers recall the many fine things God kept doing for those Israelite ingrates to jailbreak them outta the land of bondage and deliver them to the Promised Land, so they could violently displace other groups for the first but definitely not the last time.
It’s a kvetchy way to express awe and appreciation: Oy, enough with the miracles already. The previous one would have been enough for us.
Since the lengthy reciting of “Dayenu” takes place around the Seder’s two-hour mark, somewhere after the second cup of wine but before the matzah balls, “enough” takes on a meta-level quality.
All the more so because Uncle Morty insists he isn’t tone deaf — nor, in fact, deaf at all.
A Bupkes Pesach story
It’s somewhere between day 4 and 73 of Passover. The annual Jewish festival, which the goyim tend to forget is why they get to chase chocolate eggs at about the same time of year, drags out long enough to make wandering through the desert feel like a walk in the park.
While we are many months out from having to confront Uncle Morty again, Germany’s announcement this week that it will suspend military exports to Israel that “could be used in the Gaza Strip” has inspired us to give “Dayenu” a fresh new spin.
Is what has been enough now enough? Germany seems to suggest it is.
The news — a reaction to Israel’s totally unpredictable decision to forcibly remove remaining residents of Gaza City before laying siege to it, killing anyone left there, and occupying it, after which it may cleanse-and-repeat anywhere else in the territory it sees fit — is less a welcome gesture than a confounding one.
As two famous Italian Jews famously wrote a couple millennia apart: If not now, when? Dunno, maybe already?
Or, as Germany’s constitution-esque Basic Law and subsequent laws have so been written: Thou shalt not export weapons of war unto those who may make the innocent suffer, upend the laws of nations, defile the covenant of justice, and make us look bad.
Given the long list of such violations that Israel has committed before and since Oct. 7, one might reasonably ask — be it the youngest child or perhaps the simplest — whether it should have been enough when it would have been enough.
And if it would have been enough when it should have been enough, then what Germany has presented as something is actually nothing.
It is not only not enough, it is
bupkes.
Let us count some of the ways it should have been enough:
If they had instigated mass expulsions and not imposed military rule over those who remained, it should have been enough; If they had imposed military rule over those who remained and not dispossessed them of their land, it should have been enough; If they had dispossessed them of their land and not occupied more, it should have been enough; If they had occupied more and not built settlements, it should have been enough; If they had built settlements and not demolished homes and denied permits, it should have been enough; If they had demolished homes and denied permits and not restricted movement, it should have been enough; If they had restricted movement and not jailed almost everyone for any act of protest, it should have been enough; If they had jailed almost everyone for any act of protest and not encouraged and protected settler violence, it should have been enough; If they had encouraged and protected settler violence and not created an apartheid system, it should have been enough; If they had created an apartheid system and not destroyed olive trees and corraled communities behind fences and walls under guardtowers, it should have been enough; If they had destroyed olive trees and corraled communities behind fences and walls under guardtowers and not blockaded Gaza, it should have been enough; If they had blockaded Gaza and not repeatedly launched lopsided military offensives, it should have been enough; If they had repeatedly launched lopsided military offensives and not regularly caused widespread death and destruction to civilian life, it should have been enough; If they had regularly caused widespread death and destruction to civilian life and not used the Holocaust as the reason to do it, it should have been enough; If they used the Holocaust as the reason to do it and not said it was in the name of preventing another one, it should have been enough; If they said it was in the name of preventing another one and not fed the messianic fantasies of their religious extremists, it should have been enough; If they had fed the messianic fantasies of their religious extremists and not besieged, starved, and decimated Gaza, it should have been enough. If they had besieged, starved, and decimated Gaza and not decided to conquer it to start the whole history of supremacy, domination, and destruction all over again, it should have been enough.
Dayenu. We are way past it.
And, if you aren’t, you clearly don’t have enough Yiddishkeyt in your life so get acquainted here.