The Berlin State Assembly recently passed a measure to outlaw the use of an inverted red triangle. Maybe you’re aware of this. For me, so much of the world still causes me to say, “I had no idea!”
Of course the red triangle is used to sell all sorts of products from the satisfying Bass Ale to questionable Guess jeans. Historically, Nazis used a red triangle patch to identify political prisoners, communists in particular. Following WW II, it became a symbol of having defied and survived concentration camps.
In recent months, it’s gone from a Hamas military targeting tool to a broadly used symbol of support for Palestinians.
As the German interior ministry ponders a nationwide ban, I’m wondering about the nature of symbols, their evolution, their intended and unintended consequences.
Certainly no one person gets to determine what a symbol means, but I want a red triangle to signal my wish that no more babies, moms, journalists and other non-combatants have to die in Gaza. I don’t want it to mean hating Jews or targeting Jews. I’m convinced that desiring the former things does not automatically imply the latter. I don’t, in fact, wish ill on any Jews.
Further, I want a red triangle by my name to encompass the conviction that, yes, the Jews of Israel have a right to defend themselves. But at the same time, the Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank do not merit extinction. Before they are anyone’s enemies, they are God’s people, designed for his glory.
And here’s the connection that has gutted me today: I’m a tax-paying citizen of the country who has, more than any other, supplied the bombs and bullets to wipe those people off the planet.
Somewhere right now, an American businessman is wrapping up a fine vacation on a very fine boat that was purchased with the revenue of weapons sold to Israel. Pardon me if I’m tempted to spray paint a red triangle on his hull.
PS: I said above that I wish ill on no Jew. I do, however, wish Benjamin Netanyahu would lose his role as Israeli prime minister and he’d likely see that as a set back.