Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that dealing with war criminals requires zero tolerance, specifically targeting Russian President Putin as potentially the current era's worst offender
In what world is Merz even close to as bad as Putin, let alone significantly worse. The worsed he did was deliver weapons and political backing to Israel. Putin has started the largest war in Europe since WW2 and is activly involved in a lot more conflicts like the massive civil war in Sudan and Syria.
I don’t think the point of that quote is to measure who has the most or least amount of wood, but to point out the hypocrisy of complicity and selective condemnation.
The line before it is: " For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
So yes it is clearly about measuring who has the most wood. As in if you have more, then do not judge. Merz is fine in that respect. He has claimed to stop German weapon deliveries to Israel, due to Israeli war crimes in Gaza. So clearly he is even willing to be judged on that. Besides that he says and does a lot of bs, but nothing which comes close to war crimes afaik.
If you want to talk about measurement, then you cannot deny that Germany is complicit in war crimes still to this day (as is my own nation). By all means condemn Russia, but while facilitating a settler colonial project then the label of hypocrisy always applies, which is what the quote I posted refers to.
Yes I believe that Merz delivering weapons to Israel is less evil then the many crimes Putin has committed. Nicaragua is also suing Germany over the matter, so in a way Merz is actually being judged for it.
None of what you’ve said has explains how he is beyond critique for his hypocrisy here. Merz calling out a war criminal, while also facilitating another one is undermining your own argument. If intended to make a different argument, then my comment was not the place to reply.
The problem with hypocrisy is that it is a very easy tool to get away with being judged. A pretty good example is the carbon footprint and oil giants. The argument is basically that critizsing oil giants is hypocrisy, because you are emitting too. The problem with that it puts your emissions on the same level as that of some massive oil company, which is clearly insane. So you need to adjust for scale when talking about hypocrisy.
This is also why Palestinians are not hypocrits, when they complain about Israeli war crimes, besides them commiting war crimes themself, such as October 7th.
In what world is Merz even close to as bad as Putin, let alone significantly worse. The worsed he did was deliver weapons and political backing to Israel. Putin has started the largest war in Europe since WW2 and is activly involved in a lot more conflicts like the massive civil war in Sudan and Syria.
I don’t think the point of that quote is to measure who has the most or least amount of wood, but to point out the hypocrisy of complicity and selective condemnation.
The line before it is: " For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
So yes it is clearly about measuring who has the most wood. As in if you have more, then do not judge. Merz is fine in that respect. He has claimed to stop German weapon deliveries to Israel, due to Israeli war crimes in Gaza. So clearly he is even willing to be judged on that. Besides that he says and does a lot of bs, but nothing which comes close to war crimes afaik.
If you want to talk about measurement, then you cannot deny that Germany is complicit in war crimes still to this day (as is my own nation). By all means condemn Russia, but while facilitating a settler colonial project then the label of hypocrisy always applies, which is what the quote I posted refers to.
Your words on Merz would have more credibility if his moves didn’t have so many loopholes. It will take more than symbolic gestures to break the ties between industrial genocide and German tech: https://mondoweiss.net/2025/08/germanys-declaration-to-stop-sending-weapons-to-israel-symbolic-gesture-or-major-shift/
At what point did I deny that?
You said, “Merz is fine in that respect”.
Yes I believe that Merz delivering weapons to Israel is less evil then the many crimes Putin has committed. Nicaragua is also suing Germany over the matter, so in a way Merz is actually being judged for it.
None of what you’ve said has explains how he is beyond critique for his hypocrisy here. Merz calling out a war criminal, while also facilitating another one is undermining your own argument. If intended to make a different argument, then my comment was not the place to reply.
The problem with hypocrisy is that it is a very easy tool to get away with being judged. A pretty good example is the carbon footprint and oil giants. The argument is basically that critizsing oil giants is hypocrisy, because you are emitting too. The problem with that it puts your emissions on the same level as that of some massive oil company, which is clearly insane. So you need to adjust for scale when talking about hypocrisy.
This is also why Palestinians are not hypocrits, when they complain about Israeli war crimes, besides them commiting war crimes themself, such as October 7th.