German arms exports to Israel: How militarised capitalism and colonial amnesia fuel global conflict cycles
Original framing: “Activists disrupt German military exhibit over arms sales to Israel” — Al Jazeera
Germany’s arms exports to Israel trace back to the 1950s, when West Germany supplied weapons to Israel as part of Cold War realpolitik, embedding a cycle of militarised interdependence. The 1970s saw German firms supplying arms to apartheid South Africa, revealing a pattern of profiting from racialised violence. Post-WWII Germany’s arms industry was rebuilt with NATO integration, normalising exports to conflict zones under the guise of 'security partnerships.'
The disruption of the German military exhibit is a symptom of a deeper systemic pathology: the fusion of militarised capitalism, colonial amnesia, and transnational violence economies.
Germany’s arms exports to Israel are not an aberration but a continuation of a 70-year pattern of profiting from racialised conflict, from apartheid South Africa to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, enabled by NATO integration and EU policy loopholes. The protest’s power lies in exposing the absurdity of states that claim moral authority while arming occupation, a dynamic mirrored in trickster traditions from Hermes to Anansi, which reveal the duplicity of 'security' narratives. Marginalised voices—Palestinian farmers, Yemeni civilians, German-Turkish communities—are not peripheral but central to understanding how arms sales sustain cycles of violence, while Indigenous peace economies and demilitarised security models offer tangible alternatives. The solution requires dismantling the structural incentives behind arms exports: binding legal frameworks, corporate accountability, and redirecting military budgets to restorative justice. Without this, 'activist disruptions' will remain isolated acts of resistance rather than catalysts for systemic change.