#FreePalestine 🍉

Dear German, I have lost count of how many times I have seen Germans openly accuse Chinese people of being antisemitic. Apparently, Germany has become so addicted to its own historical guilt that it now expects the rest of the world to inherit it. Chinese people do not carry an ancestral hatred of Jews. During the Holocaust, while Nazi Germany was persecuting Jews, Chinese diplomat Ho Feng-Shan in Vienna issued visas that helped Jewish families escape Nazi-controlled Austria and reach safety. Ask yourself what Germany was doing at the same time. China does not need lectures from Germans about how Chinese people are supposed to feel toward Jews. Our history with the Jewish people is not your history. And our historical memory works differently. China was the greatest victim of fascist aggression in Asia. Japanese militarism invaded China, occupied its cities, massacred civilians, conducted human experimentation, and tried to destroy Chinese resistance. If China adopted the moral logic Germany now seems to demand from everyone else, then Chinese victimhood would supposedly grant us the right to punish entire nations forever, demand endless obedience to our historical trauma, and call anyone who resisted “anti-Chinese.” We do not. Because Chinese civilization carries another memory: 曾经淋过雨的人，学会为别人撑伞。 Those who have once stood in the rain learn to hold an umbrella for others. That is why Palestinians resonate so deeply with Chinese historical memory. Chinese people see occupation. They see civilians buried under rubble. They see families driven from their homes. They see a powerful military telling the world that its own security justifies another people’s suffering. And they remember what was once done to China. That is why opposition to Israeli state violence is not hatred of Jews. It is precisely because Chinese people remember what fascist aggression looked like when we were its victims. Israel is condemned not because Jews once suffered. It is condemned because historical suffering does not grant anyone a permanent license to reproduce oppression against another people. A victim can become a perpetrator. History has seen this before. And no amount of German guilt can oblige Chinese people to pretend otherwise. Germany may organize its politics around its own historical burden. China will not. Our memory leads us somewhere else: Those who were once oppressed should recognize the oppressed. And that is why the Chinese people stand with the Palestinian people.