In a book of 709 pages, & in five main parts, Angela documented her whole life, both as personel & career. I enjoyed reading the book and the rich personal life of the German Chancellor, rising from an ordinary family in what was the German Democratic Republic GDR, before the fall of Berlin wall in 1989 and the later unification of the whole country . Her personal life in earlier GDR was fascinating, especially when she refused to cooperate with the Stasi Secret Police to spy on her students and report back to the agency. Justice, freedom and Unity were key words to her political career through the whole period, whether towards other parties in Germany or the recent issues of Georgia and Ukraine, since the invasion of the country in February 2022. Many personal and funny stories was told, especially when meetings took place with Putin, Obama and the other official personalities. A detailed analysis to the flood of refugees, mainly from Syria, and her dealing with the Pandemic crises in 2020 demonstrated her strength, openness and willingness despite the huge problems she faced both intern and extern..
However when she came to discuss her invitation and visit to Israel and how she viewed the history of the relationship between Germany and Israel, as she wrote in pp 614-628, she reiterated the classical German & European narrative towards of the crises, especially after the 7th october of 2023. The Palestinians were not mentioned at all, apart from the two sentences where she repeated the classical support of the two states solution, which is a lip service the majority of European governments adopted as a whole for the past half century without any effect on the ground- Apart from the few European governments such as Spain, Irland & Norway who dared to deviate from this classical cliche narrative, recognising Palestine as a state, and demand suspension of European Association Agreements with the Hebrew state because of the violating the Human Rights of Palestinians, and demanding stop to weapons’ export -that could lead to stop the ongoing genocide since the 8th of October 2023 until nowadays, with almost a quarter million people killed, injured and disappeared under the rubble of houses & the total destruction of all civil infra structure of the Biggest Refugee Camp-Gaza-in the World. Seventy three percent of the people of Gaza are refugees displaced by force in 1948 from their villages and towns . In the whole book, and inspite of the title of the book: Freedom, not one word was mentioned about the victims of this ongoing ethnic cleansing for the past 77 years, and their right for self determination & to be free from occupation and the “presumable genocide” according to the highest court of justice in Hague, ICJ.
