A single, small, low-quality do-it-yourself poster recently displayed in the center of Germany’s capital Berlin has caused a minor scandal that has gone against the grain of the country’s usually unshakable support for Israel while the latter is committing genocide.

The essence of the incident is simple: in late April, the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft (DIG) – “German-Israeli Society” – held one of its “Israel Days” in Berlin. In Germany, the DIG is a prominent and powerful organization. Its main source of funding, according to the country’s official lobbying register for 2023, is the German state. The latter’s Federal Agency for Civic Education – in essence, Germany’s office of Centrist ideological orthodoxy and indoctrination – describes it as the country’s “central organization […] where friends of Israel come together in non-partisan cooperation.”

“Israel Day” in Berlin was a largely informal event, really a street party with speeches. To make things even more fun, there was catering by the restaurant Feinberg’s. In particular, Feinberg’s, specializing in what it calls Israeli cuisine – Palestinians recognize many dishes as plagiarized from their tradition – offered a very special melon smoothie.

The poster advertising the drink showed a lion (used by Israelis as a national symbol) wearing an apron emblazoned with the Israeli flag (just to make sure). The lion held two large glass tumblers, one with pieces of melon (an already traditional and well-known symbol of Palestine and its resistance), the other with the finished smoothie and a small Israeli flag.

The background consisted of a pile of melons, often cut open, many featuring instantly recognizable baby faces. The poster’s text said (partly in English and partly in German): “Watermelon meets Zion. Israeli-style watermelon, shredded, mashed, and hacked to pieces.”

An Israeli restaurant in Berlin offers “Israeli-style blended Watermelon, puréed, and chopped to pieces” at an Israel lobby event with faces on the watermelons. Many are interpreting this as a violent fantasy pic.twitter.com/AEHFPmZbBd

The watermelons evoked what is known as “Kindchenschema” or “cuteness” (in the scientific sense): an almost universally recognized pattern of features that signals babies and children and – with psychologically normal individuals – stirring deep hormonal and neurological responses of sympathy and care or at least restraint.

The message was obvious and not at all funny: The Israeli “lion” was crushing the Palestinian “watermelons” into an enjoyably refreshing ice-cold and blood-red pulp, available with a “shot” of – presumably celebratory – vodka, too. That the faces on the anthropomorphized “melons” were childlike made everything even more repulsive: clearly, whoever felt this picture was a good idea is not normal enough for the Kindchenschema to work on them.

Those who study genocide have........

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