Power Suits 4 June 2024
Speaking in Berlin on 26 May, Baerbock claimed that when she visited Israel soon after 7 October, “I was shown the film, which was not recorded by me or the Israeli government but by Hamas fighters with their, what are they called, GoPro cameras on their helmets.”
“And do you know what I saw there? It was the worst thing you can imagine,” the foreign minister asserted. “I watched it because I wanted to know, because I wanted to know what happened there. And to see a woman being raped on camera.”
But as The Electronic Intifada reported last week, no such video exists, a fact confirmed by Israeli government sources and a UN team that reviewed thousands of photos and dozens of hours of video provided by the Israeli government or obtained from open sources.
The UN team headed by Pramila Patten, the secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in armed conflict, concluded in its report published in March that “in the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified.”
The following month the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that “From inquiries put to three bodies in the defense establishment by Haaretz, it emerges that the intelligence material collected by the police and the intelligence bodies, including footage from terrorists’ body cameras, does not contain visual documentation of any acts of rape themselves.”
Challenged over her lie
Journalist Florian Warweg of the independent outlet Nach Denk Seiten confronted German government spokespersons at an official press conference in Berlin on 29 May.
Baerbock’s 26 May lie and the exchange between Warweg and government officials at the press conference can be seen in the video at the top of this article with English subtitles added by The Electronic Intifada.
Warweg asked whether Baerbock stood by the claim she had personally watched a video of a rape in progress, given that both the Israeli government and the UN team “came to the conclusion after extensive investigations that they had no video or photographic evidence that would at least visually prove that women had been raped by Hamas fighters.”
As Warweg read the relevant quotes from the UN report confirming that such a video does not exist, the press conference chair Corinna Buschow immediately tried to shut him down.
Christian Wagner, the official spokesperson for the foreign ministry, then asserted, “Mr. Warweg, I am not familiar with the statements and reports you are referring to.”
Warweg retorted, “Yes, because I am not allowed to quote them.”
Avoidance and smears
Wagner then proceeded to attack the journalist, falsely accusing him of denying that there had been any sexual violence at all on 7 October.
As The Electronic Intifada’s extensive investigative reporting has shown, there is indeed no credible evidence of a single rape on 7 October – no identified victims, no credible eyewitnesses and no forensic evidence – let alone any evidence for the campaign of systematic sexual violence that Israel claims Hamas orchestrated.
Moreover, the most lurid 7 October rape claims that circulated in global media have been debunked and retracted.
But this is beside the point; Warweg’s questions were directed only at Baerbock’s claim she had watched a video of a rape in progress, a video no other leader from a pro-Israel Western country has claimed to have seen.
“In principle, I believe there is really no doubt that sexualized violence and rape occurred during the Hamas attack on 7 October,” the foreign ministry’s Wagner responded. “I think it is truly despicable to deny this here.”
The journalist persisted, asking whether the government could provide the date, location and identify other government representatives who were with Baerbock when she supposedly saw the video.
The foreign ministry’s Wagner simply replied that “the minister’s statements speak for themselves” and defamed and smeared Warweg again.
“Mr. Warweg, you have cited two sources,” Wagner said. “To imply that this is the truth is, quite frankly, not good journalism.”
The German government spokesperson appears to be saying that neither the UN, nor even the Israeli government, can be taken as credible sources when they state categorically that they have found no videos of a 7 October rape in progress.
This demonstrates how the German government’s zeal to support the Israeli genocide in Gaza has no limits.
What lessons of history?
The ease with which German officials disseminate debunked atrocity propaganda to further an extermination campaign is more shocking evidence for the total failure of the country’s so-called culture of remembrance, which is ostensibly intended to ensure that present-day German governments do not repeat the atrocity crimes of their predecessor, the Hitler administration of the 1930s and 1940s.
A key part of the Hitler administration’s strategy of dehumanizing Jews in preparation for their extermination in German government death camps was the extensive use of atrocity propaganda painting them as subhuman monsters.
That too is the purpose of Israel’s mass rape lies.
Baerbock and her minions have not learned the cautionary lessons of that horrifying past, but are rather taking it as a model.
While Baerbock represents the nominally leftist and progressive Green Party, she often speaks fondly of her grandfather Waldemar Baerbock, an ardent Nazi who fought against the Soviet forces which eventually ended the Hitler government and its reign of genocide and terror.
After the extent of Grandpa Waldemar’s fanatical devotion to Hitlerism was revealed earlier this year, Baerbock claimed, implausibly, that she had had no idea.
Whether that is the case or not – after all Baerbock is a proven liar – there is no doubt she has adopted the propaganda methods of the time: lying to incite hatred and genocide.
Personal responsibility
Indeed, in December 2022, Baerbock stated that even low-level officials bore responsibility for the Hitler administration’s crimes.
“Civil servants of the Foreign Office who put themselves at the service of the crimes and genocide of the Nazi regime also bear responsibility for their suffering. They thereby became willing accomplices to injustice,” Baerbock said.
She asserted that “whoever holds a position of responsibility as a public servant must first and foremost be committed to justice and humanity, and not power.”
Incitement to genocide is a crime under the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which Germany is a signatory.
Following her own stated principles, Baerbock and anyone in the government who assists her in spreading such lies, for example her spokesperson Christian Wagner, should therefore face criminal investigation and personal accountability.
Prior to Warweg’s challenge to the German government, we discussed Baerbock’s lies on The Electronic Intifada Livestream. You can watch that segment here:
Comments
She is a moronic sociopathic
Permalink Stephen Kastl replied on
She is a moronic sociopathic grifter.
I propose that we use the
Permalink Mara Doe replied on
I propose that we use the term "Carolyn Bryant" to identify white women propagating false rape claims in order to do violence to brown and black men. I'd call Annalena Baerbock a Carolyn Bryant for sure.
German Government
Permalink John Joseph O' Brien replied on
As far as I can see Barebock is a nasty piece of work, who dose not care about the citizens of Germany or what they have to say about what this German coalition Gov,. is doing with their tax payers money, they squander it as if it grew on trees.
So when she lies about seeing beheaded babies in Israel she shows she can't be trusted, even to tell if it is night or day! The German gov has lost all moral compass if it ever had any. Come election time the citizens of Germany vote them out of power! Finale look at the sanctions put on Russia they backfired of Germany and on all of Europe..
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