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Month: April 2024

Criminal News From My Bed

Does the state being on the side of the criminal make the criminal a saint?


29/04/2024

First of all, I want make one thing clear – I am a writer, not a journalist. That’s why I won’t write the names of either the killer or the victim. Moreover, in the best psycoanalytic tradition, this story is a mix of sex and dreams. If you want to know more about what happened, you can find the original story on the Internet using the following query: “перерезал подростку горло в Киеве” (“teenager’s throat cut in Kyiv”).

I can only guess how many people were in the apartment. There were 3 rooms and in each one someone was having sex. Lights off. I was in the kitchen, where 5 pairs of hands touched me. Suddenly I heard the rhythmic sound of a table hitting the wall. I heard a voice. This voice whispered: “Good boy. You’re such a good boy.” And at the same time this voice hit the good boy’s ears.

For some reason I fixated on this. So fixated that the same night I dreamt thst I made love to myself. That is to say, in a dream I saw 2 people, and both of them were me. Gentle touches. Smiles. A room illuminated with red light; probably what a mother’s belly looks like from the inside on a sunny day. But suddenly I start to choke myself, and in the process, somehow, I’m giving me compliments. Yes, there is something strange about it.

It’s one thing to choke someone during sex and say nasty things. There is nothing unusual about that. But compliments while choking scare me. It is also interesting that this dream occurs in a place reminiscent of a mother’s womb. As you know, if a dad’s love must be earned, then a mother’s love is given unconditionally.

I imagine a woman who beats her son because he painted on her passport while in immigration. Now she’s angry. She hits him, and she immediately becomes ashamed and offended. Then his mom praises him for his beautiful drawing. The kid just wants to go back to his hometown, so he drew a house and a meadow right next to the stamp about entry into the Schengen zone. But now the passport is considered invalid. And she hits him again. And then she becomes ashamed and begins to praise him. Hits again. Praise. And this has been happening for years.

And when the kid grows up, he comes to a 3-room apartment. He comes to a place where people have gathered to love each other. But he begins to beat the one who brings him the most pleasure, hiding behind a fetish. When one person behaves this way, it’s one thing. But it’s an entirely different matter when an entire country behaves the same damn way. Especially when the country tries to protect someone who has brought it grief. Tries to protect him only because the criminal said ideologically correct things. Said things that would please his scared mother.

Waking up from a womb-like sleep, I receive a message from my friend. From this message. The content makes me want to return to a place that resembles a mother’s belly from inside on a sunny day.

On April 7, 2024, in Kyiv, a drunk man attacked a group of teenagers. It happened in the city center – on the funicular. The funicular itself looks like it’s part of the metro, but with only 2 stations. Every day it lifts from 5 to 15 thousand people up the huge hill, which equals approximately 5 million passengers a year.

If you were afraid to buy a house where a murder took place, if you are avoiding a building in which a gas cylinder exploded, killing the owner, you definitely need to reconsider your views. There are too many people and we are dying everywhere. Every minute. And now in Kyiv, from 5 to 15 thousand people a day continue to ride the funicular, despite the fact that on April 7 a murder was committed there.

But first, the drunken man emotionally demonstrated his disgust with the teenagers. A drunk man asked why they did not defend their homeland. Approaching the tallest person in the company, he repeated the question. And the tall guy replied that, if necessary, he would defend himself. The drunk man said to get out and he would show him exactly how to defend the country.

A fight broke out. A drunk man smashed a window with a teenager’s head. He used a piece of glass to cut his throat. He tried to escape, but the teenager’s buddies stopped the murderer. The police arrived at the crime scene and detained a drunken man. They found a weapon on him. The teenager died on the steps near the funicular.

Such situations are a logical continuation of the policy that is being pursued in Ukraine today. There’s nothing wrong with loving your country, as long as it doesn’t become an obsession.

Below are comments on the news, some of which are no less surprising than the murder:

“I heard a different version. The teenagers were drunk. They turned on Russian music. And they reacted aggressively to the remark.”

“I’m sorry that one of the most popular comments is blaming the victim, the kid, for being killed. Nothing new.”

“The people have gone completely crazy. Even if they listened to Russian music and spoke Russian, then what? Kill everyone for this?”

“What is a fair punishment? If you took a kid’s life, give yours.”

“I have another question, regarding safety precautions: why was there no tempered glass in the funicular, like in cars? If it breaks, it crumbles into small pieces.”

“Why can a country allocate 3 healthy men to issue a summons, but cannot place at least one security guard at the station?”

“Now it has become dangerous in Kyiv. Especially in the center. I was walking with my buddy and witnessed how one psycho broke a girl’s nose right at the bus stop.”

“It’s sad that we have to ask for such a story to be spread on social networks.”

The murderer’s justification looks like to me this way. I imagine how a sadist from a 3-room apartment choked his partner to death. At the trial, his mom tries to defend him, not even suspecting that the murder began with her.

This piece is a part of  a series, The Mining Boy Notes, published on Mondays and authored by Ilya Kharkow, a writer from Ukraine. For more information about Ilya, see his website. You can support his work by buying him a coffee.

Saltanat Nukenova’s Murder Highlights Kazakhstan’s Femicides

Livestreams of the trial have meant that domestic violence can no longer be ignored


Former Minister of Economy Kuandyk Bishimbayev – is accused of killing his wife Saltanat Nukenova and he was put on trial. This high visibility exposure, brings the debate on domestic violence to the forefront of Kazakh society. Due in part to an online livestream of the trial, the case has been widely discussed. It has opened conversations about what the law can do to protect victims of abuse, and to punish the perpetrators.

Saltanat Nukenova was murdered in November 2023 at a restaurant in Astana. Coroners found that her death was caused by brain trauma after being beaten. Bishimbayev is charged with torture and murder with extreme violence. His relative Bakhytzhan Baizhanov, who owned the restaurant that Saltanat was murdered in, is charged with failing to report the crime. Bishimbayev pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder, but admits he was involved in her death. 

The owner of the TikTok account @Justiceforsalta is dedicated to spreading the word about Saltanat’s case, and says “this whole trial unfortunately only emphasises the fact that in Kazakhstan, beating and killing women is not a serious offence.” Domestic violence and femicide occurs frequently in the country. Fully 17% of women with partners say they have experienced physical or sexual abuse. Only a minority of women facing abuse report it to the police. Most stay silent due to the stigma and shame attached to it, or because they know the case will not be taken seriously. 

Some believe Bishimbayev will not be fully punished even if he is sentenced guilty, due to his former position in the government. In 2017, he was arrested on charges of bribery and sentenced to 10 years in prison, yet he only served 3 of these. This points to endemic corruption within the Kazakh judiciary system, causing a distrust that further dissuades women from coming forward.

The trial has received widespread public attention in Kazakhstan, partly due to Bishimbayev’s former political career, and partly because it is one of the most prominent femicide cases in recent history. However, the case has received little coverage in the Western press. People across Kazakhstan are encouraging those in the West to share Saltanat’s story on social media. @Justiceforsalta says, “unfortunately at the moment we… can do nothing except to publicise this case”.

In 2017, domestic violence was decriminalised in Kazakhstan, making it punishable with fines. However, since Bishimbayev’s trial, a new bill has been passed making domestic violence a criminal offence rather than civil. The bill has also expanded definitions of violence against women and children, and lengthened punishments. It has been praised around the world, notably by the EU, and a UN representative for Kazakhstan.

Yet, @Justiceforsalta is not confident this new law will change deep-rooted attitudes, saying “our country will likely never take the mistreatment of women seriously”. She says, “I hope that in the future there will be fewer such killers and abusers and we will be able to walk down the street without fear that we will be killed”. This new bill is simultaneously the first step in the right direction, but a disgrace. Disgraceful that a young woman like Saltanat had to be brutally murdered for things to change.

 

The Meaning of the Disaster

From Constantine Zurayk (1948) to Salman Abu Sitta (2016/2022)


27/04/2024

Introduction: “Despite Everything”

[“Despite Everything is a quote from Rosa Luxemburg. In German: “Trotz alledem!“]

The World is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. At the same time, Palestinians and their plight are simply overlooked. This essay will put them center stage.

I will start with an important question:

What was the effect, or in the words of Constantine Zurayk, what was the meaning of the establishment of the State of Israel for the Palestinians, the indigenous population of the land between the Mediterranean coast and the Jordan River Valley?

For Zurayk, it was the disaster, an-Nakba in Arabic: 750 000 Palestinians were driven out of their homeland and no Palestinian state was allowed to come into being.

When looking at the way Palestinians and Arabs dealt with this disaster of 1948, I will focus on agency. In particular, I will look at the proposed ways to overcome it. In this context, I will put individuals center stage, in particular intellectuals and writers, like Constantine Zurayk and Salman Abu Sitta.

I will not try and add to the analyses of Israel as a settler-colonial state. But I want to stress that the first analysis of Israel as a settler-colonial state was published by Palestinian historian Fayez Sayegh [Sayegh (1965)], and a few years later a second one by French Marxist Maxime Rodinson [Rodinson (1967) and Rodinson (1969)]

We will always be indebted to the work of Patrick Wolfe. In his path-breaking article „Settler Colonialism and the elimination of the native” [Wolfe (2006)], he was able to show that settler colonialism is not a single historical event, but rather possesses a structure and constitutes an historical process aiming at the elimination of the native.

In my contribution, though, I want to focus on the role of individuals in history and in political processes. I hope to show through the example of Constantine Zurayk and Salman Abu Sitta, how their work, in the case of Abu Sitta exclusively empirical, preceded and even anticipated the theory of settler colonialism.

I will argue that Zurayk and Abu Sitta are immensely relevant until today for Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, activists and political parties. The main reason is twofold. Both Zurayk and Abu Sitta insist on a critical respectively self-critical approach to the analysis of the 1948 disaster as well as to developments until today. This involves also an open critique of those in power. Secondly, both insist on the importance of truth, as long as it is based on empirically established facts. Both are convinced that right in the end will overcome might. And both believe in the possibility of change, provided that all involved endeavor to bring it about.

Critics of Zurayk and Abu Sitta might accuse them of naïve idealism. In their defense, I should like to quote Lenin, certainly not an idealist: “It is necessary to dream, but with the condition of believing in our dreams. To examine real life carefully, to confront our observation with our dreams, and to perform our fantasy scrupulously.”

Zurayk and Abu Sitta certainly have been following Lenin in this respect, and they have been doing all in their power to turn their dreams into reality.

In the first part of this essay I want to introduce Zurayk’s small book – almost forgotten today – which he published in 1948 in Beirut under the title: ma’na an-nakba. The book was translated into English in 1956 and also published in Beirut under the title “The Meaning of the Disaster” [Zurayk (1956)].

I will first present and discuss his arguments, before drawing a line from Zurayk in 1948 to Salman Abu Sitta in 2022, when Abu Sitta established the Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) at the AUB, the same university where Zurayk taught. Three texts will be in the center of my analysis of Salman Abu Sitta: his book, Mapping my Return [Abu Sitta (2016)], his speech at the AUB for the opening of the PLSC [Abu Sitta, 2022], and last but not least his remarkable speech at Edinburgh University on November 2, 2022, 105 years after the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration.

I. Constantine Zurayk

Who was Constantine Zurayk? He was born in Damascus and studied at the American University in Beirut, before moving on to Princeton, where he got his PhD. Back in Beirut, he started to teach at the AUB. Between 1945 and 1947, he worked briefly as a diplomat, first at the Syrian Embassy in Washington, then at the UN in New York. Upon his return to academic life, he served as Vice-President at the AUB, then for 3 years as President of Damascus University. In 1954, he made his final return to Beirut, was president of the AUB from 1954 until 1956, and after that continued to teach there as a professor. He died in August 2000 [See introduction to English translation of an-nakba, written by the translator, Bayly Winder. See also Collected works of Constantine Zurayk].

The Meaning of the Disaster

What made him write this book right after the establishment of the State of Israel?

As an academic, a former diplomat, but above all as a progressive Arab nationalist, he had to respond to these momentous events. Already in December 1947, he had been asked to write an article for the Beirut newspaper al-Amal, and on May 31, 1948, he was given the chance to deliver a speech on Palestine live on Lebanon Radio.

For Zurayk, the proclamation of the State of Israel on the land of historic Palestine constituted “a disaster (nakba) in every sense of the word” [Zurayk (1956), p2)].

What was done to the Palestinians in 1948, when their land was taken away from them and handed over to immigrants and settlers, this IS the disaster [Surayk (1956. pp5-6, 9, 69-71.]. In other words, 1948 resulted in their wholesale expulsion from Palestine and deprived them of their right to self-determination.

For Zurayk, the Nakba, on one hand, was a matter of

  • expulsion of 750,000 out of a total of 900,000 Palestinian inhabitants in the area of the newly created state of Israel, not least with the help of a whole series of the most brutal massacres. Over 500 villages were destroyed and razed to the ground. Almost all Palestinians were expelled from the important coastal cities of Jaffa, Haifa and Akka [Pappe (2014). See also Morris (1989),  Manna (2022), Khalidi (1961) and Raz (2021:2)}.
  • systematic prevention of the return of the displaced Palestinians after the end of the violence and the beginning of the ceasefire [Masalha (2003). See also Habibi (1974)].

On the other hand, the Nakba for him

  • resulted in the failure to create a Palestinian state. Instead, Israel expanded in clear violation of the UN partition plan. Jordan for its part, and with the full support of Great Britain and Israel, annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem [Shlaim (1988)].

What are the main contributions of Zurayk in his little book and what makes them valid until today?

He gives his readers a detailed description as well as a new conceptualization of the disaster. Zurayk, in contrast to Sayegh, Rodinson and Wolfe, uses the term Imperialism instead of settler-colonialism, but uses the term for Jewish/Zionist colonies in Palestine [Zurayk (1956), pp 2, 5, 15].

Most relevant for the situation of Palestinians and Arabs today is his bitter and acerbic critique of Arab States, whom he considers responsible for the Nakba. While he concedes the strength of Zionism and of the newly created state of Israel, in particular the wide international support for it [Zurayk (1956), pp 4-5], he uses the example of Zionism and Israel to deepen and also to conceptualize his critique of Arab states and Arab society.

Throughout his book, we find an underlying demand for realism [Zurayk (1956), pp6-9 and passim… all over the book], starting with the necessity to be self-critical. Only if Palestinians and Arabs confront reality critically, will they be able to start long-term planning in order to achieve their clearly defined goal: overcoming the nakba and liberating Palestine.

This self-critical assessment of the Arab world, of its states and of Arab society will achieve the required and overdue “fundamental change in the situation of the Arabs, and a complete transformation of their modes of thought, action, and life.” [Zurayk (1956), p34]

This transformation is unavoidable, because in Zurayk’s analysis Arabs still live in past, have not arrived in modern life, even reject modern life. He contrasts this assessment with his analysis of the Zionist movement and of Israel. Zurayk sees them as modern, with a Western mentality, capable of living in the presence and planning for the future. Unlike the Arabs, they have achieved national unity, which served as the basis for their success in 1948 [Zurayk (1956), p34].

He therefore demands that Arabs need to recognize self-critically that until now they have not been able to constitute themselves as a nation. And without national unity, so Zurayk, they cannot realize their potentials for the future.

Zurayk’s central demand is the struggle for unity:

“… this unification which we seek in the fields of war, politics, economics, propaganda etc., is linked to the … present situation in the Arab. … However, the danger is great and imminent… It is not possible to wait for that fundamental transformation in the Arab situation which will ensure the basic and necessary unity capable of guarding the Arab being and defending it… Therefore, those in power … in the Arab states must place the general goal before particular goals; and public opinion in the various Arab lands must continuously urge co-ordination and unification, must exert as much pressure as possible in this direction, and must rebel at every division in the Arab front so as to overcome … the obstacles which today confront Arab security and thus protect … the Arabs in this battle.”

[Zurayk (1956), p24]

For Zurayk, it is the role of the elite, … a progressive, revolutionary elite, consisting … of Arab youth, to bring about the required transformation and to establish unity.

“This elite must … organize and unify itself into well-knit parties and organizations. These must stand on a unified … doctrine and must be bound by a strong … loyalty to which the elite will subjugate all its divergent tendencies….”

[Zurayk (1956), p43]

Only if the elite bases itself on society at large and if it works for the participation of popular forces, will it be successful.

“The struggle must not be limited to governments and regular armies, but it must extend to all classes of society so that every individual in the nation will undertake his share of it.”

[Zurayk (1956), p25]

And he continues with a clear warning:

“Let this be a warning to those who distrust the people and oppose popular participation in the struggle…. It will perhaps first revolt against those who have repressed it. Then it will be released in all parts of the nation so that it can defend the fatherland ….”

[Zurayk (1956), p27]

The transformation, which Zurayk demands, is only possible if it is based on broadly defined development: economic, social and intellectual.

As a first step, Arabs, led by the new elite, must end feudalism and tribalism, sectarianism, fatalism and occultism.

In a second step, they must achieve the separation of state and religion.

In a third step, they must start to train their youth in the positive and empirical sciences.

The fourth step must consist of a process of industrialization all over the Arab world.

Last but not least, regimes in Arab states must be changed by the new elite, an elite supported by all classes of society.

To conclude, he poses a decisive question:

“Where is the road to this all-inclusive revolution… which will assure national progress”?

[Zurayk (1956), p41]

For Zurayk, it is the struggle of the new progressive, revolutionary elite, which he postulated. This elite, in order to be successful, had to be well organized, and ready to achieve the necessary transformation and the unity in the Arab world. Only through this transformation and only through unity, so Zurayk, can the Nakba be overcome and the Palestine problem be solved [Zurayk (1956), pp41-46].

Role of Zurayk in pushing for the realization of these goals

At the AUB in Beirut, Zurayk had Arab nationalist students who were very active and eager to translate his teachings into action. They were organized in the group ‘urwa al-wuthqa, which had developed around the journal with the same name. Constantine Zurayk served as their advisor.

Zurayk demanded that the students had to establish a new political organization, based on science, under their leadership.

An anonymous article in al-‘urwa in 1951 took up this demand as the basis for overcoming the Nabka. And George Habash from al-Lydda, student of medicine at the AUB and an ardent admirer and follower of Zurayk, wrote an editorial for al-‘urwa in spring 1949:

“We have to tell the readers of al-‘urwa … about those who left the ship to the storm [here he is referring to the Arab leaders and regimes, HB]. But we want to stress that this nation has youth with a strong will, ready to confront all difficulties, even ready to die… they will fight until they have reached safe shores … and save the nation”.

The students were ready to follow the program laid out by Zurayk.

However, already in 1949, they got into problems with their teacher, because they were far too emotional and were drawn into blind actionism.

They decided to try and assassinate Arab leaders whom they considered responsible for the loss of Palestine. All of these leaders were traitors in their eyes, who could only be dealt with through violence. This violence, once successful, would make the Arab masses take up the struggle for liberation.

They established an underground organization, kata’ib al-fida’ al-‘arabi, and attempted – in vain – to assassinate Arab leaders. The whole endeavor proved short-lived and ended in total failure [Baumgarten (1991)].

Only in 1952, after their graduation and after they had moved to Jordan or to their respective home-countries, did Habash and his friends establish an organization as postulated by Zurayk: harakat al-qaumiyin al’Arab, and later, in 1967, the PFLP.

The main goal of both organizations was, again as demanded by Zurayk, a fundamental transformation of the Arab World and of the Arab individual, a revolution in the true sense of the word. The Arab people, led by the nationalist youth and their organization, would implement this transformation.

The young nationalists sketched an ideal-type of the revolution:

It would transform everything from scratch and establish a new system in the Arab world, without any exploitation. Borders and single states would be done away with. All armies of occupation in the whole region would be driven out and with it the end of the state of Israel would be achieved. Only then would the Arab world be free, no longer subdued by other states and no longer exploited by the imperialist West. The new Arab nation state would exclusively serve the Arab nation.

II. Salman Abu Sitta

What connects Salman Abu Sitta to Constantine Zurayk and how does he build on Zurayk’s proposed transformation?

Who is Salman Abu Sitta? He is a Palestinian who directly experienced the disaster, the Nakba, as a ten-year old boy. While Zurayk was born in an Arab metropole, Damascus, and George Habash grew up in the small city of al-Lydda in the center of Palestine, Salman and his family are from the Bedouin south in Palestine. His father, Sheikh Husain Abu Sitta, occupied an important position as a leader of the local Bedouins. He was astonishingly open for modernization and development and built the first school for the children in the area. In order to get the project started, he even paid from his own pocket both for the school and for the salaries of the teachers.

The socioeconomic status of the family can best be guessed from the description of an Israeli officer in 1948 when the army came to destroy the Abu Sitta house.

“We went to the Abu Sitta home and were stunned: in the middle of the desert unbelievable richness: luxurious furniture, many Oriental and European clothes, a radio, a truck, a beautiful Bedouin sword made of silver, a large important archive of photos and documents…. Shakespeare’s Othello in English, by the side of the Kor’an”.

[Abu Sitta (2016), p 259]

Already as a child, Salman was introduced, first and foremost by his father, to the importance of education, development and modernization in general. After the Israeli army had driven them out of their home and transformed them into refugees in the neighboring Gaza Strip, Salman was sent to Cairo where he finished high school and then went on to study Engineering at the university. After graduation, he continued for his PhD in London, in Civil Engineering, with a focus on infrastructure. With his PhD, he was able to find work in the Gulf states, where he gained extensive experience over many years in the field of infrastructure development [Abi Sitta (2016), passim].

When looking at his education and his work, one cannot but help seeing him as the ideal student of Constantine Zurayk, in a way the embodiment or personification of the demands made by Zurayk from the new elite, which was supposed to develop and transform the Arab nation, unify it and liberate Palestine.

But in contrast to the students of Zurayk at the AUB, Salman Abu Sitta started out his struggle for Palestine on the individual level. However, this struggle possessed a very unique quality. It was empirical, scientific and oriented in two directions. His first goal was to dismantle the Zionist myth, the Zionist propaganda, of a land without people and of a desert which the Zionists made bloom. After all, this myth lives on, as the example of Ursula von der Leyen, Head of the European Commission in Brussels, shows when she claimed as late as 2023 how impressed she had been by Israel’s historical success in making the desert bloom. Abu Sitta wrote a letter to her in which he thoroughly shamed her [Abu Sitta (2023). In this letter, he took up quotes from von der Leyen’s congratulation to Israel on the 75th anniversary of its establishment, in particular her claim, “Israel made the desert bloom”, which he destroyed through the facts presented to her.]. His second goal, perhaps more important from the perspective of today, was the keeping alive of the Palestine of 1948 and before, in order to prepare for the return of Palestinians to their homeland.

He painstakingly collected information on everything, on the location of houses, villages and towns and cities, on agriculture, and on manufacturing. He searched for maps, photos and archive materials and gathered them together.

Finally, and now we turn to the present, he started to develop concrete plans for the return of the Palestinians to their home, from which they were driven out by sheer force in 1948. And his planning was, as Zurayk had demanded in his book in 1948, empirical and scientific.

Before turning to the results which Salman Abu Sitta achieved until today, I should like to turn to his devastating critique of Balfour. This critique, too, could have been written by Zurayk, as a short look at The Meaning of the Disaster shows [Zurayk (1956) pp57ff].

Aware of the symbolism of historical memory at the relevant place, Abu Sitta went to the University of Edinburgh, the alma mater of Arthur Balfour where he served as Imperial Chancellor for 40 years. In a lecture room at the university, he delivered his speech on the occasion of 105 years of the Balfour Declaration. Just like Zurayk, he demonstrated how this declaration clearly violated international law. At the same time, he shows how the declaration was based on outright racism towards the Palestinians who are only “the others” in the declaration which focuses almost exclusively on Jews. And these “others”, for Balfour, were simply “wholly barbarous, undeveloped and unorganized black tribes”.

He concludes his speech by rather ironically asking Balfour to join him in the following call to the British government. After all, or so he argues – and now he becomes cynical – Balfour could hardly be afraid of the truth, because it is only criminals who fear the truth.

Abu Sitta demands from the British Government,

  • to apologize to the Palestinian people for their suffering,
  • to support the implementation of the inalienable Right of Return of Palestinians to their homes,
  • to pay full compensation for all losses and damages to the Palestinian people,
  • to help in the rebuilding of new Palestine and the repatriation of its people…
  • to restore Palestine to its people in justice and freedom, as Allenby found it in 1917, and to liberate Palestine from all the ills of humanity, Zionism, racism, apartheid, occupation and war crimes.”

What has Salman Abu Sitta achieved until today?

He started out as an individual with an almost exclusively individual struggle, with unbreakable perseverance, almost obsessive (in a positive sense), which he never gave up even for a moment, with a clear goal and the determination to plan for the implementation of this goal. He then worked on the transformation of his livelong efforts into a struggle led by a whole movement of young people joining him in his task. And in a final step, he succeeded in institutionalizing his struggle by establishing the Palestine Land Society Center at the AUB, i.e. at the university where Constantine Zurayk had written his book, Meaning of the Disaster, and where he had taught a new generation of Arab leaders.

Let me go into some more detail into the way Abu Sitta worked. The starting point for him was an experience in London, during the time he did his PhD. When he looked for maps of Palestine, he was not able to find one single map, neither in the Royal Geographic Society, nor in the British Library. The only maps available were maps of “Israel”. The conclusion of Abu Sitta was clear: “This denial started the Palestinians’ long battle for recognition and survival” [Abu Sitta (2022)]. Obviously, it was also the beginning of the struggle Abu Sitta embarked on.

“I started on a long trek, from the time my hair was black till it turned silver, to collect every map, document or record I could find about erased Palestine.”

Over the years, he travelled all over: from Britain to France, to Germany and to the US. He still thinks that his research is incomplete. He is aware of resources in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg in Russia, in the Ottoman Archives in Turkey, resources still untapped. His conclusion, therefore, is clear: the work has to continue.

The “harvest” of his searches all over can today be found in the library of PLSC, which he proudly presented in his speech for the inauguration of the Palestine Land Society Center at AUB in January 2022 [Abu Sitta (2022)].

  • 10,000 books on Palestine …
  • 2000 maps of Palestine in the last 200 hundred years…
  • 5000 Aerial photos of Palestine in 1945, taken just before the unceremonious, hurried departure of Britain from Palestine…
  • 300 aerial photos of Palestine taken by the German Air force in World War I…
  • 500,000 land property records by the UN (which he considers of special value). This is the record of Palestinian property seized by Israel which amounts to 94% of the part of Palestine that was renamed Israel…
  • 14 volumes of the documentation about Palestine borders, separating it from the rest of the Arab world from 1833 to 1947.
  • Several thousand fortnightly reports about every district in Palestine from 1920 to 1948.
  • 12 volumes of Zionist and Israeli archives from 1830 to 1955.
  • Documents of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Palestine 1948- 1950, in Geneva.
  • Reports of UN Truce Observers Supervision on Atrocities 1948, DAG 13/3.3.1.
  • Archives of AFSC (Quakers) on Palestine, Philadelphia, in the period 1948-1950. … and many more.”

Interestingly, Salman Abu Sitta, again just like Constantine Zurayk 75 years ago, stresses the role of the intellectual in the struggle to overcome the disaster and to prepare for the return to Palestine. He summarizes his own work as an intellectual since the beginning of the new millennium:

“Twenty two years ago, I formed in London the Palestine Land Society. The idea was to represent our cause in a scientific, factual and relevant manner, in order to face the deluge of denial, deception and misinformation which filled the Western cyber space.”

The quote could just as well be taken from Zurayk.

Among the major publications of Salman Abu Sitta and the Palestine Land Society, are four different atlases:

  • Atlas of Palestine 1948
  • Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966
  • Atlas of Palestine 1871-1877 and finally
  • the Return Journey Atlas which “shows Palestine that we knew before al Nakba and superimposed on it the Zionist colonization today”.

He is convinced, just like Zurayk, that even against the strongest enemy “there is no refutation of facts”. And he is even more convinced, that all so-called peace plans could never materialize once Palestinians have “the irrefutable facts”, but also, and again he is in agreement with Zurayk, “a strong leadership”.

Obviously, Abu Sitta through his work made these “irrefutable facts” available to Palestinians and to Palestinian society. What has been missing, both in 1948, when Zurayk wrote, and in 2022/23, in the latest period of Abu Sitta’s work, is this strong leadership, which both ask for.

While Zurayk asked his students to build new political parties and to work for Arab unity so that a united Arab army could finally liberate Palestine, Abu Sitta chooses a different approach.

“You do not need to wear a uniform and carry a gun to assert your identity or recover your lost home. You just need to be diligent and determined…Never lose hope….
Claim your own rights…You just want to take back what is taken from you…
Remember: if there is no Palestine there is no Lebanon no Syria no Egypt.”

And he concludes his speech: “I am confident that our path is planned and the vehicle is here. Now we need the fuel to make it run.” He expects that soon PLCS will “present a brilliant plan which will have an impact on our future. It can and will happen”.

And here the circle closes between Constantine Zurayk and his argument in “The meaning of the disaster” and between Salman Abu Sitta and his work until today. Both of them are driven by an unbreakable optimism. Abu Sitta ties this optimism to the motto of his family: “We persevere”. Only this perseverance, based on optimism, will bring about justice and the return of the Palestinians to their homeland. And just like Abu Sitta, Zurayk never stopped to believe in the final victory of justice.

Conclusion

Constantine Zurayk and Salman Abu Sitta should be seen as teacher and student and at the same time as intellectuals and thinkers working in the same direction.

Even more so than Zurayk’s students at AUB, taking George Habash as their most outstanding representative, Salman Abu Sitta took up, consciously or not (he had read of course Zurayk’s book and all the other books published in the period on the nakba, from Aref al-Aref’s al-nakba. Nakba of Jerusalem and the lost paradise, to Walid Qamhawi’s al-nakba and reconstruction), the demands of Zurayk for empirical and scientific work, for self-criticism, for untiring engagement, and for trust in the power of truth over lies and violence.

Both Zurayk and Abu Sitta, consider intellectual struggle as central for any struggle, and in particular for the struggle for Palestine. Both put their trust in the Arab (Zurayk) and Palestinian (Abu Sitta) elite which they consider capable of overcoming all disasters, old and new: the Nakba of 1948, the Naqsa of 1967, and the renewed Nakba, in the words of Abu Sitta, of Oslo 1993 onwards.

In particular, they are both outspoken in their harsh criticism of the existing leadership regarding the wider Arab and the particular Palestinian level. They place all responsibility for the ongoing Arab and Palestinian disaster since 1948 on these leaders.

Zurayk, more so than Abu Sitta, stresses the importance of organization and of political parties. These parties, though, and Zurayk is crystal clear in this demand, must be united by a program based on a realistic critique of the challenges of the particular period they are active in. And this critique based on realism is only possible if it builds on the empirical sciences. Also, these political parties, led by a conscious elite, must be closely related to society, to all classes, to the masses on the street, in order to be successful.

Both know and insist on institutionalization, again in a self-critical manne

Obviously, the young leaders of the revolts in 2011, in particular in Cairo, had not read Zurayk. Otherwise, they had known that leaderless mass-struggle without an organized political party with clear goals would soon collapse and be replaced by a renewed military dictatorship.

And Palestinian political parties and their leaders, too, do not seem to be aware of the centrality of self-criticism postulated by Zurayk. Any critical assessment of the reality in which they are active and of the context of their struggles, but also self-critical assessment of their past struggles, strategies and tactics, since at least 1967, have been sorely missing.

Salman Abu Sitta’s tireless struggle for a Palestinian return to their homes takes up the question posed by Zurayk in his book: “Where is the road to this all-inclusive revolution… which will assure national progress”? Abu Sitta’s appeal to Palestinian youth follows suit with the answer he gives: “You do not need to wear a uniform and carry a gun to assert your identity or recover your lost home. You just need to be diligent and determined. Never despair. Never lose hope. Never betray your roots…”

Bibliography

Salman Abu Sitta. (2016): Mapping my Return. A Palestinian Memoir. (Cairo-New York: The American University in Cairo Press) (2017 paperback)

Salman Abu Sitta (2022): Inauguration of the PLSC at AUB, January 25, 2022

Salman Abu Sitta (2023): An Open Letter to Madame Ursula von Der Leyen. President of the European Commission, 29.April 2023

Helga Baumgarten (1991): Palästina: Befreiung in den Staat (Palestine: Liberation into the state). (Frankfurt: ed. suhrkamp)

Emile Habibi (1974): The Secret Life of Saeed. The Pessoptimist. (Interlink World Fiction (English Translation 2001. Arabic Original)

Walid Khalidi (1961): “Plan Dalet – The Zionist Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine”, in: Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS) 37:9

Adel Manna (2022): Nakba and Survival. The Story of the Palestinians who remained in Haifa and the Galilee, 1948-1956. (Univ. of California Press)

Nur Masalha (2003): The Politics of Denial. Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem. (London: Pluto Press)

Benny Morris (1989): The birth of the Palestinian Refugee problem, 1947-1949. (Cambridge Univ. Press)

Ilan Pappe (2014): The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (Berlin: Haffmans &Talemitt.) (Paperback 2019: Westend Verlag)

Adam Raz (2021): Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in 48

Adam Raz. (2021: 2): What Israeli Leaders Knew. Haaretz, December 9, 2021.

Maxime Rodinson (1967): Israel: Fait colonial, Les Temps modernes – special issue: Peuple Juif ou problem juif?

Maxime Rodinson (1969). Israel : A colonial-settler state ? (New York: Monad Press)

Fayez Sayegh (1965): Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (Beirut: Palestinian Liberation Organization Research Center)

Avi Shlaim (1988): Collusion over the Jordan. King Abdallah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)

Patrick Wolfe (2006): Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research 8:4

Constantine Zurayk (1956): The Meaning of the Disaster. (Beirut: Khayat’s College Book Cooperative)

The philosemitic Delusions of Sascha Lobo

German star columnist and blogger is mindlessly repeating Israeli propaganda about antisemitism and Palestine


26/04/2024

Nuremberg, 2015: 400 audience members await the star speaker for the Forum Wellpappe at the Fachpack 2015, the annual conference of the German packaging industry. The guest speaker of the Corrugated Cardboard Association is Sascha Lobo, Germany’s digital expert, internet explainer, and “alpha blogger” about to enlighten manufacturers of corrugated cardboard why they need to be ready for the digital economy. The then 40-year old is still a sought after speaker for anything digital. He is the most prominent voice in Germany making a living of explaining to virtually anyone who will hire him the pitfalls and opportunities of the digital age. 

His appearance is rather unassuming. He could easily be mistaken for the president of the local community garden association if it weren’t for his trademark haircut, a pink-red mohawk. Extravagant personal branding seems to have always been the modus operandi of Lobo. Contemporaries of his younger years recount that he used to show up to parties with sunglasses on his face, fox pelt around his neck and cucumber in hand. The fox pelt to stand out, the cucumber as a prop to strike up conversations; whether it worked is not clear. After a brief stint as an unsuccessful digital advertising and PR-agency owner in the early 2000s, Lobo became a freelance marketing and strategy consultant, public speaker and book author. Since 2011 he is also a columnist for Der Spiegel, Germany’s biggest weekly news magazine, explaining the digital world to its readers.

In his role as columnist, Lobo slowly transitioned from a master of the digital to a jack of all trades as he began to write about anything that crossed his mind, often with a lot less or no expertise at all. No topic makes this more evident than the ten columns he has so far penned on Israel and Gaza since the 7th of October attack by Hamas. In short, his utterances and arguments are a string of copy and paste jobs of press releases from Israeli military or government spokespeople, decades old ahistorical and long disproven talking points gathered together from pamphlets of the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft or the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, and an imagined Israel that only exists in a German happy-end-fantasy-world. In fact, there is no evidence that Lobo has ever engaged meaningfully with any scholarship or literature other than those sanctioned by the German state. 

In his first piece after the 7th October, he appeals to his readers that the attack on Israel does not need to be contextualised, and if they are in favour of BLM and against the AfD they also ought to support Israel unconditionally. Yet, the same piece argues that the growing extremism in Israeli society is caused by the permanent threat of Palestinian rocket attacks and not, for example, by the militarism required to maintain a 57-year occupation. The obvious question his own claim raises is one that is never asked, and much less answered: If the radicalisation of Israeli society is supposed to be the result of Palestinian attacks, then what forms of radicalisation would a decades long occupation and the creation of a ghetto cause among its victims? 

For Lobo it is clear: the hatred and violence displayed by Israelis and the state of Israel is a result of historical, geographical, and material conditions. The hate Palestinians have for Israel is inherent to who they are, it is part of their innateness and therefore unjustified bigotry. This becomes most apparent as every act of Palestinian resistance to occupation, peaceful or otherwise, is framed as being first and foremost motivated by a hatred of Jews, and therefore irrational, instead of a rational hatred for the occupation and those who enforce it.

The column titled “Hamas-Propaganda of Omission” devotes itself to the Palestinian victims of Israel’s attack on Gaza not in an empathetic way, but in one that questions the validity of the number of victims reported by the Gazan Health Ministry. While Lobo avoids openly calling the numbers false or fabricated, he instead frames the numbers of Palestinian casualties as Hamas propaganda which should not be trusted. However, in an unsurprising twist, the piece omits that the Gazan Health Ministry has been judged a reliable source not only by the UN and all major human rights groups for a long time, but by Israeli intelligence itself.

The same piece argues that the cutting off of water and electricity to Gaza by Israel is not a form of collective punishment or war crime, but merely a withdrawal of goodwill and voluntary help on the side of Israel to supply Gaza with water prior to the 7th of October. Because, according to Lobo’s expertise on the matter, Israel is not liable for the supply of water to Gaza despite the fact that Israel is the internationally recognised occupying force in control of the water supply. In fact, Israel is the internationally recognised occupying force in control of every aspect of life in Gaza and the West Bank. Ironically, through omission of well established facts, Lobo manages to convince himself that others are guilty of the propaganda of omission. It appears that every accusation he makes inadvertently turns into an unintended admission on his part. 

His most misanthropic column appeared in mid-February 2024, when in the midst of the Israel-made humanitarian catastrophe and emerging famine in Gaza, Lobo demanded the disbanding of UNRWA under the exasperated headline “Disband the Palestinian Relief Agency Already”. In it, he attests UNRWA to have overlapping interests with Hamas, although which interests exactly seems to be unclear. Neither does he provide evidence, except that of the notorious pro-Israel lobby group UN-Watch. He seems to care little that UNRWA is the only organisation in Gaza capable of stemming the tide of famine and further mass deaths if equipped appropriately and not targeted by the Israeli military. Lobo’s main grudge against UNRWA is that it is an institution which keeps the legal claims to the land by Palestinian refugees alive. 

If it were up to him, UNRWA would help Palestinian refugees assimilate into the societies of the surrounding states. Since Palestine is not an officially recognised state, Palestinians do not have an official passport which could prove their national identity. Admittedly, the Palestinian Authority does issue passports but they are essentially glorified travel permits which are only given to residents of Gaza and the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), granted they also have an Israeli issued ID. Without UNRWA, there is no internationally recognised body attesting that Palestinians as a whole exist. While the motivation behind Lobo’s demand to disband UNRWA might be superficially different from that of Netanyahu, the result will be what Netanyahu intends, the cultural destruction of the Palestinian diaspora as a recognised national group with legal rights and claims. To make matters worse, Lobo decided to publish this piece two weeks after the International Court of Justice ruled that there is a plausible case for genocide occuring in Gaza and therefore ordered Israel to implement measure for its prevention.

According to Lobo, anyone who points this out is motivated by antisemitism. Antisemitism is the driving force of Palestinian resistance to their occupation and victimisation. It is also the driving force of anyone who dares to demand the humanity and universal rights of Palestinians. Hence, Lobo has become over the last six months not only an expert on Palestine and Israel, but also on antisemitism. If someone sees antisemitism as the key motivator of every social phenomenon relating to Palestine, then antisemitism is everywhere, as Lobo assures his readers is the case:

“Hatred of Jews manages the incredible feat of hiding everywhere and appearing quite openly at the same time. New variants are constantly being added and ancient Jew-hatred practices are being reinterpreted: Nazi anti-Semitism, Islamist anti-Semitism, right-wing anti-Semitism, left-wing anti-Semitism, Christian anti-Semitism, Muslim anti-Semitism, ethnic anti-Semitism, post-colonial anti-Semitism, bourgeois anti-Semitism, woke anti-Semitism, conspiracy theory anti-Semitism, vulgar anti-capitalist antisemitism, pseudo-anti-racist anti-Semitism, intellectual anti-Semitism, accepting anti-Semitism, self-exoneration anti-Semitism and, among many others, the currently largest movement: Israel-related anti-Semitism. Often enriched with a new, well-known annihilative anti-Semitism.”

This proclamation does not only fearmonger an already anxious Jewish community, it also downplays right-wing antisemitism as merely one of a myriad of forms of antisemitism, despite it being by far the most common and violent form of antisemitism in Germany. Ultimately, this list is nothing but an admission that Lobo is willing to use Jewish fears and suffering to weaponize antisemitism for any issue that irks him, justified or not. 

Engaging with Lobo’s post 7th October oeuvre, it becomes clear that his primary objective is not the care for Jewish life, but protecting Israel from criticism. Lobo shows throughout his writing and podcast appearances that he seems to be incapable of distinguishing between Jews as individuals or communities and the state of Israel. It isn’t even clear if he acknowledges the existence of anti-zionist Jews. He betrays a worldview in which he projects the real, catastrophic victimisation of Europe’s Jews onto Israel, a nuclear armed state and regional military goliath. With this, he proclaims it as the victim no matter the circumstance, using his favourite phrase Täter-Opfer-Umkehr (perpetrator-victim-reversal). 

Two years before his death in 1969, Theodor Adorno attested that in German post-war society (he called it “post-hitlerian Germany”, although he was not entirely convinced by the truthfulness of his phrase) the philosemitism it developed in the wake of the Holocaust was nothing but the continuation of antisemitism, as it kept alive the dehumanisation of Jews. It is this philosemitism, the dehumanisation of Jews by elevating them to one dimensional, higher status objects who deserve protection because they are Jews and not because they are human beings, which is the metanarrative of Lobo’s writing. In fact this philosemitism is the metanarrative of most of the discourse on Palestine and Israel emanating from the German mainstream, and has replaced universalist values with particularist ones under the guise of fighting antisemitism. 

As a result, it not only positions Israel as the equivalent and sum of all Jews, but as a state under constant threat from annihilation, (i.e. another Holocaust) and in doing so justifies not only Israel’s existance as an ethnostate, but the inherent violence of such a state. The assumption that Jews can only be safe in an ethnostate that metes out violence onto others is an implicit and, from Lobo’s worldview where Israel is the eternal victim, paradoxical admission that Jews can only be safe if they become perpetrators of mass violence themselves. Yet, this mass violence has to be denied or whitewashed so as not to jeopardise the safety of Jews everywhere else and to uphold the victim status of a nuclear military power. A vicious, deadly cycle that leaves no soul unscathed. 

The acceptance of this cycle is slowly crumbling among western publics. In the global south it was never really accepted in the first place. Even in Germany, only two groups oppose putting pressure on Israel to end its war against Gaza, the proto-fascist AfD including its supporters, and liberal politics and media Meinungsmacher (thoughtleaders). Sascha Lobo is the archetype of those so-called liberals who pride themselves on their supposed anti-fascist, anti-racist and pro-LGBTQ+ credentials at home, yet increasingly turn fanatical in their support of Israel abroad. They deny the crimes of the Israeli regime while paradoxically demanding more in the name of fighting antisemitism. This is the obvious endpoint of a misguided and ultimately reactionary memory culture, which chooses particularism when it should have chosen universalism, and instead ends up cheering on genocide as the latest ritual of liberal Holocaust atonement. 

Letter from the Editors: 25th April 2024

International Workers’ Day


24/04/2024

The Camp for Gaza opposite the Bundestag has decided to stay for another week. You can find out more by joining the Telegram group Besetzung gegen Besatzung / Occupy Against Occupation. Or just bring your tent and join us! The camp is open to everyone with regular workshops and rallies, including a large rally planned for Saturday at 6pm.

The Arab Film Festival started yesterday and will continue until Tuesday. It’s been 15 years since “ALFILM, the Arab Film Festival of Berlin”, has been presenting Arab stories in German cinemas. ALFILM has offered German and non-Arab audiences in Germany the chance to have a different window into the Arab World through genuine storytelling. With its 15th edition, ALFILM is inviting you to reflect on the state of things today, to dare to be critical, to explore the power of your voice, to ensure that you are seen, but also to dream of a better tomorrow. One that will resist being crushed by oppressive forces, whichever and wherever they are.

This evening (Thursday) from 6pm, there will be a meeting: Yemen: From the Arab Spring to International Proxy War. In 2011, a broad coalition of thousands of Yemenis began taking to the streets of Yemeni cities to demand an end to the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had governed the country for more than 30 years, and to advocate for improved living conditions, motivated by the hope-inspiring events of the Arab Spring. The political entanglements arising from these events contributed to the outbreak of a brutal international proxy war involving regional and global powers. Mohamed Al-Thawr, Reem Jarhum, and Feda Alkashi will meet for a discussion in “-r0g” located at Knobelsdorffstraße 22.

Also on Thursday evening at 6pm, there will be an Info and soli event for the Freeedom Flotilla, on the occasion of the departure of their “break the siege” mission. The coming Flotilla promises to be the biggest and most powerful yet, also because of the situation in Gaza. We will screen the documentary “The Truth: Lost at Sea”, about the 2010 Mavi Marmara mission. A guest speaker who participated in that very mission will be present to share his experience. Also we will have a short live stream with the ongoing mission and an open discussion. It’s in the Mozaik Center, located at Grunewaldstr. 87.

Thanks to everyone who attended our Political Walking Tour last week on Riots in Kreuzberg. So many people attended that some people agreed to pull out and join the tour next time it’s available–which, is this Friday. Revolutionary Berlin Tours have agreed to organise an extra tour just for you! It begins at Kottbusser Tor, at the corner of Admiralstraße, in front of Südblock at 17.30, and will finish near Schillingbrücke (next to Ostbahnhof) 2 hours later.

On Sunday, it’s the latest R2CKino film against gerntification. This month, we’ll screen the documentary, “A început ploaia/It started raining”. This film offers a touching testament to the everyday revolution of Roma people who are fighting forced evictions from the centre of Bucharest. The film follows the story of the Vulturilor 50 community, who lived on the street from September 2014 to June 2016 in order to fight against the eviction from their home, which enacted the longest and most visible protest for housing right in the history of contemporary Romania. The Event takes place in Bilgisaray, Oranienstraße 45, and starts at 5.30pm.

Also on Sunday marks the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Italy from Fascism, the Italian Association of Partisans hosts a celebration event. Like every year, there will be food and an afternoon program with music and amenities. Since the global situation has worsened since last year, the association has been one of the few pacifist voices in the Italian political and media landscape, which at the moment is dominated by the belligerent government coalition. Because of this anti-militarist and pacifist vocation, the organisation has been under attack since the start of the Ukraine war. The event starts at 12pm in “Clash”, located in Mehringhof at Gniesenaustraße 2a.

Sunday also sees our latest Palestine Reading Group. This week, we’re back in the Agit offices, Nansenstraße 2, and will be discussing The ICJ ruling and the limitations of international law. You can find the selected reading here. The Palestine Reading Group takes place every week, on either Friday or Sunday. Check the page of Events we organise for the coming dates and discussion topics. If you’d like to get more involved in the group, you can join our Telegram group and follow the channel Reading group. The Reading Group starts at 7pm, and there is a meeting for Moderators at 6.30pm open to everyone who’s interested.

Wednesday is International Workers’ Day, which is a bank holiday in Germany. There will be a trade union demo at 11am, starting at Keithstraße 1, additionally MyGrüni is organising a satirical demo in the Villa Quarter (meeting point: Johannaplatz at 1pm), and the Revolutionary 1st May demo will assemble at Südstern from 4.30pm. Meanwhile, all afternoon and into the evening a political festival will be held at Mariannenplatz in front of the Bethanien building. Visit our stall where you can meet members of the theleftberlin team, learn about our future Events, and buy Palestine-themed T-shirts and tote bags. We’ll be there from midday, with the stall officially opening at 1pm.

There is much more going on in Berlin this week. To find out what’s happening, go to our Events page. You can also see a shorter, but more detailed list of events in which we are directly involved in here.

If you are looking for Resources on Palestine, we have set up a page with useful links. We will be continually updating the page, so if you would like to recommend other links, please contact us on team@theleftberlin.com. You can also find all the reading from our Palestine Reading Groups here. You can also visit the Palestine film evening every Wednesday at 8.30pm in Al Hamra. The title of the film is usually released too late for us to name it in this Newsletter, but you can stay informed by following Al Hamra on Instagram and facebook.

This week’s Campaign of the Week is Gewerkschafter_innen4Gaza  (trade unionists for Gaza). Get involved by signing up on the G4G website! We will launch our first canvassing action on 1 May or International Workers Day. Our campaign and website are freshly launched (and need updating still), so we are excited for any support to help make this a lasting campaign that speaks to a broader trade union audience, both domestically and internationally. On Sunday, 28 April from 11.00-13.00 we have an online Zoom call, if you are interested in participating, sign up on the website.

In News from Berlin, Berlin rents have increased by nearly 20% in the last year, and Tesla plans layoffs in Grünheide.

In News from Germany, AfD festival in Thüringen as the party moves further to the right, increase in right-wing extremism in schools, more Germans are for a speed limit, cannabis to be banned at railway stations, and Björn Höcke uses Nazi phrases in his election speeches.

Read all about it in this week’s News from Berlin and Germany.

New on theleftberlin, we interview Jara Nassar about the Camp for Gaza opposite the Bundestag, and Anna Younes about the erasure of Palestinian voices from Germany, Emily O’Sullivan accuses Germany of complicity in the destruction of Gaza, we publish a statement from the Frieda Frauenzentrum about 2 girls* centres closed because of private Instagram posts, Ilya Kharkow looks at the relevance today of the novels of Alan Sillitoe, we interview Zohar Chamberlain Regev, organiser of the new Freedom Flotilla, David P. Carroll wrote a poem for Gaza, Nathaniel Flakin looks at the ban on speaking and singing in Irish at the Camp for Gaza, and Noa Paul argues that new asylum laws will make life for refugees even worse.

This week’s Video of the Week is the panel discussion on state repression and cancellations of pro-palestinian voices in Berlin/Germany with Ghayath Almadhoun Udi Raz, and Nicky Böhm. The discussion was held in the Spore Initiative last week.

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If you would like to contribute any articles or have any questions or criticisms about our work, please contact us at team@theleftberlin.com. And please do encourage your friends to subscribe to this Newsletter.

Keep on fighting,

The Left Berlin Editorial Board