All photos: Cherry Adam
The Left Berlin News & Comment
This is the archive templateMonth: October 2025
France: Macronism unraveling
Interview with Susan Price on the deep political crisis in France
John Mullen
12/10/2025
Susan Price, from Australian activist journal Green Left Weekly, spoke to John Mullen, a revolutionary socialist activist in the Paris region, about the deep political crisis in France.
GLW: Why did right-wing French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resign, less than a day after nominating his team of ministers, before then being reappointed PM three days later?
Since July 2024, after he lost the parliamentary elections, President Emmanuel Macron has been running an antidemocratic circus. Instead of appointing a prime minister from the largest group in the assembly—the left-wing alliance, New Popular Front, which has 193 out of 577 MPs—he has appointed a series of centre-right PMs.
The first two—Michel Barnier and François Bayrou—each stumbled along for a few months. They relied on the fact that the far-right National Rally (with 123 MPs) and the generally social-liberal Socialist Party (with 68) would not support a vote of no confidence against Macron’s government, in the name of “stability.”
Macron’s minority governments have passed almost no new legislation over the past 15 months in the National Assembly. However, Macron’s ministers have had plenty of power, each in their own field, to ramp up repression against protesters and trade unions, attack immigrant rights and control the media agenda. This is partly why Macron is so scared of a left government with a radical left wing.
So, when Bayrou lost a vote of confidence in September, he was replaced by Macron’s close ally, Lecornu. Lecornu made loud speeches about the importance of breaking with the past, and about the need for the French to learn the art of compromise. After three weeks of not appointing a cabinet, he admitted that his compromises in favour of left-wing ideas would not even include a modest wealth tax, nor withdrawing the hated law that last year raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.
In early October, he named his team of ministers: all but a couple of them were the same ministers chosen by Bayrou and thrown out the previous month. But we didn’t really have time to protest, because just 14 hours after naming his cabinet—and in the face of already sharp rows within its ranks—the PM resigned.
After Lecornu’s resignation, frantic talks between party leaders continued as Macron tasked him with a last-ditch attempt to find a basis for compromise, and a way of getting the national budget voted through before December 31. As part of this, Lecornu suggested that some of the vicious cuts in social budgets planned by his predecessor Bayrou would be abandoned.
In a clownish move which left commentators stunned, Macron, failing after two days of talks to find a plan B, reappointed Lecornu to the position of PM on the 10th of October.
GLW: Is Macronism unravelling?
Definitely. Aurore Bergé, spokesperson for the outgoing government, announced solemnly on October 8: “there is no question of the president resigning.” It is rarely a good sign when presidents need to have this kind of statement put out. A new major opinion poll in early October showed that only 14% of citizens have a positive opinion of Macron.
The situation is changing hour by hour, and prediction is a hazardous occupation. The new government is unlikely to last long. The 71 radical left France Insoumise (FI) MPs have signed a motion demanding Macron’s impeachment, citing his contempt for democratic process. A dozen Communist MPs and a dozen ecologists have also signed on. Perhaps more worrying for Macron, is that this week his own former PM Edouard Philippe also called on him to resign.
GLW: How have the left forces reacted?
Last year, in the face of the imminent threat of a fascist government, the entire left made an electoral alliance, based on a fairly radical program, and agreed on a joint candidate for Prime Minister, Lucie Castets. Since then, the alliance has been in constant crisis, with the Socialist Party (PS) wanting out. The PS joined the alliance partly in the hope of regaining some of its legitimacy—which collapsed after Francois Hollande’s austerity presidency. This sent the PS vote down to about 6% in the 2017 presidential election.
But PS leader Olivier Faure was begging Macron to be appointed PM this week, distancing himself eagerly from the FI and from the radical manifesto he had himself signed up to 15 months ago. He is hoping for a couple of concessions from Macron. There are rumours that the attack on the retirement age might be suspended, though right-wing parliamentary leaders insist this is unacceptable.
The FI is the most determined opposition to Macron, and has campaigned unceasingly on the question of Palestine (as I write four FI MPs have just left Israeli jails after having been kidnapped by Israel from Gaza flotilla boats). The Greens and Communists have more consistently opposed the government than the PS, but have jumped on every opportunity to denounce FI “extremism” or “irresponsibility,” and to build alliances excluding the FI, and even now they are not all calling for Macron to go.
GLW: How are Macron’s supporters trying to present the situation?
Although the balance of forces in the country obliges TV and radio to regularly present long interviews with leaders of the ecologists, the FI, and the Communist Party, the media spend endless energy building confusion and reactionary narratives. This month they are arguing that France is on the verge of bankruptcy, that the situation is so grave that it is only common sense to unite the left and right behind Macron’s policies, and forget the idea of defending public service budgets or pensions.
At the same time, there is a continuing smear campaign against Jean Luc Mélenchon and the FI, a campaign to which leaders of the soft left contribute. Socialist MP Jérôme Guedj called Mélenchon “an antisemitic bastard” from the stage of the PS party conference last June. The PS leadership did not object.
GLW: Hundreds of thousands of people mobilised across France on September 10, September 18 and October 2 against the austerity budget. What social forces are being drawn into action and what challenges are facing the movement, including within the trade union sector?
When political institutions are paralysed, strikes and street mobilisations are even more important than at other times. In recent weeks, we have seen trade-union-led mass strikes as well as grassroots direct actions set up by the “Blockade everything” (“Bloquons tout”) networks. The mobilisations use tactics such as wildcat occupations and blockades, which are reminiscent of the Yellow Vest(Gilets Jaunes) movement from 2018 to 2020. However, they have significant differences. They are less rooted in rural areas than the Yellow Vests. They are not yet as widespread, and the far-right has not been trying to infiltrate, as it did — initially with some success—into the Yellow Vests.
The trade union days of action on September 18 and October 2 were big—with strikes and demonstrations in more than 200 towns. Nevertheless, the movement is being crippled by the horrendous tactics of the professional negotiators who lead the trade unions.
Firstly, there was no national call from the trade union coordinating committee (intersyndicale) for September 10, because of the mistrust of union leaders with regard to the Blockade Everything actions. Then, after the success of September 18, rather than building on the dynamic, union leaders said they would give the government five days to respond, before calling a further day of action. But days of action every couple of weeks tend to dissipate combativity: there were 14 of them in the huge and eventually unsuccessful movement to defend pensions in 2023!
Furthermore, the present showdown with the government had been predicted for many months, but no preparations were made by the national leaders for serious strike action. A general strike could have been built—the level of anger is sufficient—but was not. Some federations such as the CGT [General Confederation of Labour] and Solidaires are more combative than others, such as the CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labour). But, behind closed doors, the compromises reached in the intersyndicale mean that the whole strike movement moves, in practice, at the speed of the least combative organisation—however inspiring the radio interviews by CGT leader Sophie Binet might be.
GLW: What about the far-right National Rally? Is it trying to carve out its own space in this crisis?
Yes, it is. The Rassemblement National [RN] candidate (in case of a presidential election), sharply-dressed young fascist, Jordan Bardella, is getting up to 30% in opinion polls. RN candidate Marine Le Pen got 13 million votes in 2022, and 11 million in the 2024 legislative elections, so it obviously represents a huge threat. The RN is far stronger in electoral terms than in the streets: there have been no mass far-right demonstrations for decades. But the power of the far-right has helped inspire recent governments to pass more racist and particularly Islamophobic laws and decrees.
Having failed to maintain their initial influence on the Yellow Vest movement in 2018–19, partly because of their inability to denounce police violence, the fascists decided to concentrate ever more on a policy of respectability. Links with big business circles are still occasional but getting stronger all the time.
The traditional right and the Macronists are divided on how to deal with RN. Most would prefer to win over its supporters with rabid anti-Muslim and anti-migrant measures but a growing minority would be open to an alliance with it. This week, Bardella called for a governmental alliance between his party and the traditional right-wing Republicans. This is not likely in the short term, but is a sign of the continued mainstreaming of fascism in France.
In coming weeks we need strike movements that go further than most national union leaders want, as have been seen before, for example in 1995 and 2006. We also need to build the FI, and Marxist voices inside and around it. The régime’s crisis is far from over, there could easily be new elections before Christmas, and Macron’s obvious weakness could help encourage the majority of French citizens, who want a break with Macron, the president of the rich.
John Mullen is a revolutionary socialist from the Paris region and a supporter of the France Insoumise. Visit his website at randombolshevik.org. This article was reprinted with his permission. Original interview here.
Palestine solidarity discussions in Johannesburg stress ongoing protest
Sumud Flotilla participant Mandla Mandela’s mandate should hit the ruling class in its wallet
Patrick Bond
11/10/2025
Will the Trump-Netanyahu deal at least pause the mass killing of Gazans? Maybe, and Gazans have every right to celebrate. But we have repeatedly learned how brief the reprieve can be. And once Hamas releases 20 living Israeli hostages and has no further internal leverage, can anyone trust Tel Aviv, Washington and the rest of the G7’s Axis of Genocide to allow sovereignty, reconstruction and an eventual liberatory process? Since the answer is obviously not, activists must not rest now.
Last week, the South African liberation leader Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla and five compatriots were kidnapped from the Sumud Flotilla’s ships of life by the Israeli military and taken to Ashdod. They were attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza –Ashdod is 20km north of Ashkelon, where ships of death berth to unload coal, which goes straight into the Rutenberg power plant’s furnaces, to empower the settler-colonial, apartheid economy.
Mandela and hundreds of others from the Sumud Flotilla were then tortured in a desert jail not far from Gaza. At a press conference at his October 9 homecoming at the OR Tambo Airport, Mandela made a call that should be repeated and repeated until it is heeded:
“We will not rest until the genocide has been brought to an end. But let us enforce the resolutions undertaken by the Hague Group. We want you to read what the Hague Group has put out. They have said that all companies that are complicit must be arrested, must be prosecuted and must be dealt with. Now we call on our government. As you have been able to take the apartheid Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC), we call on you to arrest all those that are complicit in fueling the genocide and selling coal to apartheid Israel. We call on the government with immediate effect to stop any coal that is being exported to apartheid Israel. We call on the government to ensure that all those that have participated in the genocide in apartheid Israel that have enabled the IOF to carry on its genocide and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to be arrested and prosecuted.”
Mandela’s mandate must be taken seriously by local and international solidarity activists. For realistically, without much more intense pressure from all of us, we don’t expect South Africa’s (SA) President Cyril Ramaphosa to arrest the main Johannesburg residents complicit in coal sales to Israel., That is, his brother-in-law Patrice Motsepe of African Rainbow Minerals (whose co-owned Glencore coal mine has been shamelessly fuelling Israel since 2007); or Glencore senior independent director Gill Marcus( once Nelson Mandela’s spokesperson); or Swiss resident Gary Nagle, Glencore chief executive.
Ramaphosa himself was Glencore’s main partner in coal digging, before he became Deputy President in 2014. He helped the firm triple the price Eskom paid in the Eskom ‘War Room’ he ran in 2014-15, in very dubious ways.
Relentless ships of death sail from SA
Ramaphosa won’t even halt the coal ships now on their way to empower Israel, including the Seafighter docking on October 10 at the main coal terminal, Richards Bay, en route undoubtedly to Ashkelon. Last week, another ship arrived in Ashkelon with South African fuel for Rutenberg on 1 October: Ernandin. And another, Navios Felix, is three weeks away from unloading more South African coal.
All carry 170,000 tonnes or more, and this supply allows the Israel Electric Corporation to generate nearly a fifth of the grid power used to oppress Palestine. Currently coal costs $83/tonne , so Glencore gains net profits of just $13 for each sold, due to $70/tonne production costs. But each tonne burned creates 2.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions. So these ships fuel both Israel’s genocide and climate crisis.
Indeed, at a ‘Social Cost of Carbon‘ of $1500/tonne, burning a typical large load causes $663 million in climate damage . Since the genocide began, the 22 ships carrying an average of 100,000 tonnes of South African coal each, resulted in CO2 emissions responsible for nearly $6 billion in future damage. The ICJ recently ruled these costs should be compensated for, as climate debt liabilities,.
Meanwhile, at current prices, Glencore’s profits are only $2 million for each 170,000 tonne load. Of that its Black Economic Empowerment partner Motsepe gets 23% of that, just i$470,000 per large shipload.
The SA government still fails to impose a meaningful carbon tax against coal mining and combustion; it’s only $0.40/tonne. If local activists can increase the costs to these firms, such trivial benefits will not be lucrative enough to continue thistravesty.
The SA Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) Coalition holds regular pickets, including last Monday, at Glencore’s Johannesburg office, the largest source of the firm’s capital. Its stock market listing here is s one third larger than its London primary listing.
Protesters also traveled from Durban to Richards Bay Coal Terminal on September 24. And other Palestine activists have demonstrated en masse outside the South African trade ministry’s offices in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town on August 21; at the Glencore office on May 28 and on August 22, 2024; as well as at Motsepe’s office on April 5.
International embarrassment is an important factor. As the Palestine Youth Movement argued in June:
“In addition to supporting settlement and military infrastructure, this energy supply also powers Israel’s complex artificial intelligence systems used to surveil and track the activities of all Palestinians in Gaza… Cutting South African coal supplies would have a tangible impact on Israel’s ability to sustain its war on Gaza – a measure that aligns with South Africa’s duty to employ all available means to prevent genocide.”
‘Hague Shmague’
The Hague Group promoted by Mandela is an encouraging initiative, though needs an accountability system. The group, founded on January 31, has a Progressive International secretariat.Itspledge that day was to “prevent the docking of vessels at any port… where there is a clear risk of the vessel being used to carry military fuel and weaponry to Israel.”
And on July 16, an emergency Hague Group meeting in Bogota passed a resolution committing that the eight signatory states – co-chaired by SA and Colombia – must:
“Prevent the provision or transfer of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel… Prevent the transit, docking, and servicing of vessels at any port…. in all cases where there is a clear risk of the vessel being used to carry arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel.”
Hague Group co-leader Gustavo Petro first tried to stop Glencore and Alabama-based Drummond exporting coal from Colombia in mid-2024. But at the Bogota meeting in July, he explained how his own country’s ‘white’ state officials had so far sabotaged his efforts, so he decisively prohibited exports the following month. That makes South Africa by far the lead coal supplier to Israel today.
Considerable anti-genocide rhetoric emanates from Pretoria’s, Ramaphosa and Ministers Parks Tau (trade), Barbara Creecy (transport), Dion George (environment), Ronald Lamola (international relations), Kgosientsho Ramokgopa (energy), Gwede Mantashe (minerals), and Enoch Godongwana (finance). Notwithstanding,all ignore their duties to stop the coal exports. They probably mutter two ghastly words we first heard from Tel Aviv after the ICJ ruled on the plausibility of genocide on 24 January 2024: “Hague Shmague.”
In SA’s Parliament on September 26 2024, Tau replied to a small party (Al Jama-ah) regarding “mounting calls from social justice activists to stop trading coal with Israel.” Defending coal supplies to the genocidaires, Tau insisted: “Sanctions applied by one member against another in the absence of multilateral sanctions by the United Nations, would violate the World Trade Organisation principle of non-discrimination and would open the country to legal challenge.”
Tau’s specious argument ignores widespread violations of WTO anti-tariff provisions by many governments, especially the U.S. He refuses to regulate a dangerous export, a tool commonly used by other trade ministers. Dangerous it is: combustion of coal is the main cause of the climate crisis, as well as of local mines’ deadly local pollution and degradation of land, air and water.
As the world’s largest commodity trader, Switzerland-based Glencore offers no apologies or rationale for fueling Israeli genocide and apartheid. In May 2024, at Glencore’s Annual General Meeting in Switzerland, a shareholder asked whether the firm is “conducting human rights assessments on the use of the coal you’re exporting to Israel to ensure that you’re not held liable”?
Board Chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi replied, “The company supplies to many countries around the world and it’s almost impossible to tell you the answer to your question.” The shareholder followed up, “So you don’t check how the coal is being used?” Madhavpeddi replied: “Coal is used in power generation, that’s simple.”
The two Johannesburg-born Glencore directors at the AGM – Nagle and Marcus – were notably silent during the questioning. Nagle was formerly in charge of Glencore’s coal operations. Marcus was also Deputy Finance Minister, chair of ABSA Bank and Governor of the SA Reserve Bank and having served Glencore since 2018, she is the firm’s highest-ranking non-executive director.
The ceasefire deal’s many downsides
It’s likely this pause in the genocide will be understood, like the one earlier this year, as a short-term ruse so that Trump could pretend he had a shot at the Nobel Peace Prize, which was announced on October 10 (even though he had missed the 31 January nomination deadline). There are many flaws in the dirty deal, according to David Hearst of Middle East Eye:
- There is no guarantee they have stopped ethnic cleansing and genocide; under this agreement, Israeli forces are not leaving the strip, and Netanyahu is the one who decides how quickly and how much of Gaza his forces hand over to the proposed International Stabilisation Force (ISF). Netanyahu is also free to decide how much aid and reconstruction materials to send in. There is no timetable for such a withdrawal.
- There is every guarantee that this postwar plan will stifle at birth Gaza reemerging under a Palestinian leadership of any kind. Under this plan, there is no role for any Palestinian leadership in the rebuilding of Gaza. Gaza is definitively split from the Occupied West Bank by this agreement and all thoughts of joining the two have been jettisoned.
- The Palestinian Authority (PA) fares no better than Hamas or other factions. Already disarmed, the PA has to go further. According to Netanyahu’s remarks at the joint press conference, the PA has to drop its cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court (and the International Court of Justice); it has to stop paying the families of slain fighters; change the school curriculum and tame the media. And only then Israel will see.
- None of the eight leaders, prime ministers or foreign ministers of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan consulted the Palestinians before agreeing to this plan. Just as the Palestinians have no agency in the authority that is about to be imposed on them in Gaza, they have had no say in devising a postwar plan.
So any solidarity activist who relaxes now is not taking these factors seriously. And even if the genocide is paused, apartheid continues in the West Bank. Hence the ICJ ruling (in July 2024) that states must halt “aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” (OPT) continues to be violated. In September 2024, the United Nations General Assembly voted (124 for, 14 against) for states to “prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation” in the OPT.
Could BDS help end the genocide and other Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) attacks? A similar vulnerability occurred within SA’s own apartheid system forty years ago, in September 1985: financial sanctions caused such a squeeze that President PW Botha declared a debt default, imposed exchange controls and shut the stock market. Business leaders’ furious response included an urgent visit to Zambia to meet exiled African National Congress leaders.
South African whites fearful of further meltdown accepted ‘one person, one vote’ democracy in 1994. Because anti-apartheid sanctions had split white business away from the racist government, it had the most powerful, external, non-violent impact on ending this crime against humanity. (And U.S.-based General Motors even paid reparations for earnings in apartheid SA, as should Glencore-Motsepe for profits from Israeli-bound coal.)
The merits of SA’s own BDS success against racial apartheid forty years ago, and Pretoria’s January 2024 ICJ case against genocide, can never be forgotten. But the importance of the period ahead, is never to forget nor forgive genocide and apartheid profiteering, here in our wretched coal fields, or anywhere else.
Spain and Palestine – two years of genocide: A brief chronology of half-truths and lies
Spain’s government profits from arms sales to Israel while posing as a defender of Palestine
Roser Gari Perez
10/10/2025
The Spanish government presents itself as one that fights for peace, and Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) as one of the international leaders working hardest for a ceasefire in Gaza and for recognition of the Palestinian state. Compared with figures such as German chancellors Scholz and Merz, American presidents Biden and Trump, or British leaders Sunak and Starmer, Sánchez may sound supportive of the Palestinian cause—but looking good by comparison with rabid genocidal maniacs is cheating.
In truth, despite all the kind words and promises of solidarity with the Palestinian people, Sánchez and his government have been opportunistic hypocrites. They cannot hold a candle to true leaders who have shown genuine commitment to the Palestinian cause and to human rights—such as Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, or the South African legal team that brought the genocidal, terrorist state of Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Despite the fact that the peoples making up the Spanish state overwhelmingly declare themselves anti-war, the state itself profits from war and genocide as one of its most lucrative industries. Spain ranks ninth among the world’s top arms exporters, responsible for 3% of global military exports.
Over the past 20 years, Spain has sold more than €84 million worth of military equipment to the Zionist state. Pedro Sánchez’s government has traded the most with Israel. As Nicolás Ardila and Alejandro de Santiago noted in their article of 9 September 2025:
“In total, from 2005 to the first half of 2024, Spain has sold €84,872,875 worth of weapons and dual-use technology to Israel, according to the Subdirectorate General for International Trade in Defence and Dual-Use Material. Of this figure, €49 million corresponds to the sale of dual-use technology, i.e., technology that has both civilian and military applications. This includes items such as machinery, toxins, propulsion systems, information security, avionics and sensors, among other capabilities. With regard to armaments, Spain has sold just over €35 million worth to Israel in the last two decades, notably including bombs, torpedoes, missiles, infrared imaging equipment, sights and targeting equipment, and ammunition.”
For years, Spanish presidents have engaged in pure hypocrisy—such as José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s 2009 claim that “the weapons we sell to Israel have not been used to kill Palestinians.”
Such absurd and demonstrably false statements may reflect the government’s awareness that these trade relations violate the eight criteria of Council Common Position 2008/944/CFSP, including “respect for the international commitments and obligations of Member States”; “respect for human rights in the country of final destination”; the “internal situation in the country of final destination, as a function of the existence of tensions or armed conflicts”; “preservation of regional peace, security and stability”; and the “behaviour of the buyer country with regard to the international community, as regards in particular its attitude to terrorism, the nature of its alliances and respect for international law”.
In 2022, the Sánchez government authorised arms exports to Israel worth €9.3 million, though deliveries totalled only €2.3 million. Yet as analyst Alejandro Pozo points out, even more significant are Israel’s weapons sales to other countries—since “the occupation is very expensive.” Although the figures remain opaque, Spain is known to have purchased more than it sold from Israel, which markets its weapons as “combat-proven”—tested on the bodies of Palestinians and Lebanese. According to the Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau’s report Businesses Proven in Combat, many of these weapons were tested in the Gaza Strip, which Israel has long treated as a laboratory.
Since 2023, the Spanish government has continued doing business with Israel, allowing companies that profit from genocide to operate in Spain and permitting the transit of military shipments through Spanish ports, airports, and NATO bases. This pattern of half-truths and deception reveals the political and media trickery of the Sánchez government.
Between October 2023 and January 2024, the government expressed its “strongest condemnation” of attacks on Gaza’s civilian population and concern for the humanitarian situation—but stopped short of announcing an embargo or suspending arms sales. The response remained purely diplomatic. Meanwhile, on 7 October, both Sumar and Podemos refused to condemn Hamas’s actions and instead called for an end to the occupation.
On 23 January 2024, weeks after the International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares claimed on Cadena Ser radio that “since 7 October 2023, there have been no arms sales to Israel.” Sánchez repeated the same claim in Congress in April 2024: “Since 7 October, Spain has not carried out any arms sales to Israel, none whatsoever.”
In reality, Spain not only purchased €1.027 billion worth of weapons from Israel but also sent ammunition there. As journalist Olga Rodríguez reported on 8 July 2024, “Since the beginning of the massacre in Gaza, Spain has not suspended imports of military equipment from Israel. Furthermore, it has continued to award contracts to Israeli military companies, including Elbit Systems and Rafael, the first and third largest in Israel’s defence sector.” Rafael is a public Israeli company; Elbit is private but maintains deep strategic ties with the Israeli Armed Forces.
In April 2024, public pressure and Sumar’s efforts forced the cancellation of a contract to purchase ammunition from IMI Systems worth €6.6 million. Yet Rodríguez reported that the government had already signed 31 contracts for Israeli weapons since October 2023, totalling over €1.041 billion. On 19 August 2024, the Ministry of Defence formalised another contract with PAP Tecnos, a Rafael subsidiary, worth €289,256 for maintaining remote-controlled weapon systems.
Unsurprisingly, further investigations continue to uncover additional contracts and deals.
In September 2025, the government triumphantly announced it was “consolidating” a total arms embargo on Israel—supposedly banning imports of defence equipment, dual-use technology, and products from illegal settlements. It also pledged to deny requests for transit of fuel that could be used militarily. But this “embargo” contains a glaring loophole: the Council of Ministers can grant exceptions “when the application of the prohibition would undermine the national interest.” The policy also says nothing about banning contracts with Israeli subsidiaries abroad or halting financial support from banks like Santander and BBVA, which together fund Israel’s war machine to the tune of nearly $4 billion, according to the Centre Delàs report Armed Banking and Its Complicity in the Genocide in Gaza (October 2024). Conveniently, arms purchases spiked just before the embargo took effect.
Ships and aircraft involved in the genocide
On 16 May 2024, the Spanish government announced that it would prohibit ships carrying weapons bound for Israel from docking in Spanish ports. In practice, these routes have continued. Only public pressure has prevented some ships from being serviced. Researchers from Progressive International and the Palestinian Youth Movement documented 1,185 military shipments—over 13,000 metric tonnes—between May and September 2024. This complicity of Spanish ports does not seem to have changed since then, with monthly reports of such shipments.
Spanish airports have also facilitated the genocide, with more than 60,000 pieces of weaponry departing from Zaragoza since 2023. In September 2025, the government again reiterated that it would prohibit ships and aircraft carrying weapons to Israel, but violations were quickly reported. Days later, Podemos denounced the refuelling of a military ship in Valencia, and in October 2025, Barcelona’s port workers’ union condemned the arrival of the Zim Virginia, carrying weapons from the US to the genocidal Israeli army.
The Spanish government and the flotilla
Public outrage has intensified, culminating in the suspension of the Vuelta a España cycling race in September 2025 due to Israel’s participation.
Under pressure, the government dispatched a warship to escort the Gaza aid flotilla in October 2025. Yet hours before the flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces, the Spanish vessel withdrew, citing “security risks” and claiming that “the mission of the flotilla is commendable and legitimate, but the lives of its members must come first.” The government even urged the activists to abandon their attempt to break the blockade.
This gesture—combined with the government’s failure to respond to Israeli attacks on Spanish-flagged vessels—has fuelled widespread discontent. Sánchez’s administration has limited itself to vague threats of “legal action” against Israel.
All these half-truths and contradictions have popularised the term PSOED—a shorthand for the PSOE’s repeated deceptions, false solidarity, and empty gestures.
German repression of Palestine solidarity protests did not start on October 7th
The current bans and police violence have their roots in a sinister pattern of repression that has been happening for much longer
Phil Butland
08/10/2025
We are all aware of the level of repression against the Palestine movement in Germany since 2023. While the police crackdown has clearly increased in the last 2 years, it is not new. Systematic repression of Palestinians and their supporters was part of German Staatsräson long before October 7th.
In May 2019, the German government passed a non-binding resolution criminalising BDS. The resolution, which was supported by all mainstream parties, has no legal status, but had two direct effects. Firstly, it increased the uncertainty of venue owners, local councils, and academic institutions, which made them less likely to allow “controversial” (ie pro-Palestine) events. Secondly, it emboldened the forces of repression and censorship, who felt more confident to go onto the offensive.
In an article in die Zeit, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum argued that the Bundestag resolution created “a climate of legal insecurity, which leads to institutions racking their brains, not about the quality of a project, but about the political stance of those involved vis-a-vis the Middle East conflict”, resulting in a “form of advanced self-censorship.”
In 2021, 15,000 people demonstrated on Nakba Day in a united action which was not just confined to Palestinians. It was also the largest demonstration for Palestine in Germany for a generation. This made the German State see the growing Palestine movement as not just a distraction, but a formidable threat, resulting in harsher crack downs.
In the period between the BDS Bundestag Resolution and October 7th, theleftberlin.com was relaunched as a website, concentrating more on news and campaigning, particularly around Palestine solidarity. We’ve put together some of our coverage from that time in this article to provide a far from exhaustive overview of anti-Palestine repression in Germany before October 7. These examples show that the repression did not start in 2019 any more than it did in 2021 or 2023, but that with each year past it has only intensified.
“Cancel Culture” comes to Germany
The month after the BDS resolution was passed, Peter Schäfer, then director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, was forced to quit over a pro-BDS re-tweet.
A few months later, Palestinian-German academic Dr Anna-Esther Younes had been invited to present her report on Islamophobia in Europe at a conference “Strategies against the Right” organised by Die LINKE Berlin. The day before the event, she was uninvited because she was “probably close to BDS” and was compared to the right wing murderer who had recently attacked a synagogue in Halle. It was later discovered that the Antisemitism Research and Information Centre and Mobile Advice Against Right Wing Extremism had compiled a secret dossier on Younes and sent it to Die LINKE.
In Spring 2020, Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe was disinvited from speaking at the Ruhrtriennale festival, for comparing South African apartheid to the oppression of Palestinians. The disinvitation was ordered by Germany’s unelected antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein. Academics conducting research on the memory culture in Germany, Irit Dekel and Esra Özyürek reacted to Mbembe’s exclusion saying it was “not an isolated event but part of a long series of other high-profile cases in which Arab, Turkish, African, and Jewish background Germans and non-Germans, a significant number of them women, have been accused of antisemitism or of promoting antisemitic sentiments.”
In October 2022, the German teaching union GEW, invited Israeli anti-Zionist academic Dr. Shir Hever to talk to them about Child Labour in Palestine. Before the lecture took place, it was cancelled by the GEW, who claimed that Hever was an antisemite. They based this judgement on a secret letter from Dr. Michael Blume, the antisemitism commissioner of the state of Baden-Württemberg.
Restricted Spaces
One of the most obvious effects of the resolution was the generation of a feeling of uncertainty among venues. With a few honourable exceptions, it is now almost impossible to book a room in Berlin for a meeting on Palestine. This is not because most venues are pro-Israel – rather that they fear being tarred with accusations of antisemitism and possibly losing financial support.
The war on venues is particularly strong in places which depend on state funding for their existence. This is particularly strong in the academic world. For example, in October 2020, the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee withdrew funding for The School for Unlearning Zionism, a series of online events and an exhibition, both organised by Jewish students.
The repression reached its height post October 7th, when in December 2023 the multicultural centre Oyoun was closed down for hosting an event organised by the Jüdische Stimme (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East) – sister organisation of the Jewish Voice for Peace. The Berliner Senat justified closing down Oyoun, by accusing the centre of “hidden antisemitism.”
But Oyoun, which has played a stalwart role in defending Palestinian rights, had been subject to state repression for many years. In June 2021, The Left Berlin and others tried to organise a workshop “Is it possible to talk about Israel/Palestine in Germany?” at the anti-racist Offenes Neukölln festival. Speakers included Wieland Hoban, board member of the Jüdische Stimme.
We were uninvited from the festival because “it might be possible that antisemitic statements would be made”. We were able to carry out the meeting online, but Oyoun, which had originally agreed to host the event, were told in no uncertain terms that hosting the event would lead to them losing their funding.
Job losses
In September 2021, German broadcaster WDR announced that prize-winning German-Palestinian journalist Nemi El-Hassan would not be presenting a science show as planned, because she had liked tweets by the Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish, pro-Palestinian organisation. As an Open Letter in support of El-Hassan reported, Bild Zeitung regularly, and without foundation, branded her an “Islamist”.
In July 2022, Deutsche Welle fired 7 Palestinian journalists using dubious claims of antisemitism which were later disproved in court. One of the 7, Farah Maraqa, told Novosti Hoboctn: “my experience at Deutsche Welle wasn’t an isolated case. It’s part of a much larger pattern of repression that Palestinian journalists in Germany and across Europe face.”
I have already mentioned Palestinian academic Dr. Anne-Esther Younes being uninvited by die Linke. Anna was also deprived of many job opportunities. As Hebh Jamal reported for The Left Berlin in 2022, “Since completing her Ph.D, Younes had issues with applications, so she stopped applying for jobs in Germany or engaging with academia. One academic employer told Younes that if they hired her they would ‘lose funding, be torn apart in the media for hiring me, and their institutions would be destroyed.’”
Censorship of the Arts
Between June and September 2022, the documenta15 Art exhibition in Kassel, the first to be curated by an Asian artist or collective, ended in chaos, as the curators Ruangrupa were accused of antisemitism, following an intervention from the German Chancellor. Exhibitors Taring Padi were forced to remove a 100m2 mural.
Another participant at documenta15, Hamja Ahsan reported being ”stalked, abused, and called a terrorist by members of the SPD” and described as an extremist by Beatrix Storch from the AfD because of her support of BDS.
In 2022 and 2023, Jewish South African artist Adam Broomberg was repeatedly attacked in the mainstream press by Stefan Hensel, Hamburg’s commissioner for combating antisemitism. Hensel claimed that Broomberg was a “hateful antisemitic person who supports terrorism against Jews”. The false claims were not challenged by other journalists, and led to Broomberg losing grants and his teaching job.
Artists were particularly punished by their support for BDS. In October 2019, Lebanese-American artist Walid Raad was denied a cash prize from the German city of Aachen after refusing to condemn BDS. In September 2019, the city of Dortmund withdrew its decision to award the British-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie a literature prize, citing her support for BDS.
Following October 7th, the cancellations and repression intensified. In November 2023, Christine Streichert-Clivot, Saarland’s Minister of Culture and Education, cancelled an exhibition by Jewish South African artist Candice Breitz. As Candice acidly remarked at the time: Streichert-Clivot “is likely to go down in history as the first Minister of Culture to preside over the cancellation of a major exhibition by a Jewish artist at a German museum since the Nazi era”.
Police violence
One of the aspects of state repression with which we are most familiar is heavy-handed policing of demos. This, too, did not start in 2023. In May 2021, police violently attacked a rally commemorating the victims of Israel’s attack on Sheikh Jarrah. The following April, Berlin police banned all demonstrations for Palestine until the 1st May.
From 13th-15th May 2022, all demonstrations commemorating the Nakba received a similar ban. According to the European Legal Support Centre: “the police disrupted a Palestinian cultural event on 13 May in Neukölln, banning any political public speech, attempting to stop the distribution of books on Palestine on a discretionary basis, and preventing attendees from dancing the traditional Dabke, claiming that it was a form of ‘political expression’.”
Two days later, police violently attacked people mourning the murdered US-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Some people arrested that day were later found non-guilty in court. Others received fines for taking part in an illegal assembly.
In April 2023, all demonstrations related to the 75th anniversary of the Nakba were once more banned by the Berlin government. In May 2023, after the Jüdische Stimme was finally allowed to organise a rally, the rally was shut down by police after some attendees shouted: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Conclusion
The censorship and repression reported here are just the tip of the iceberg, and is mainly limited to incidents which we directly covered on our small website. Many events are not included, not least the self-censorship of venues, academics, and artists who decided not to speak out on Palestine either because it made their lives easier, or because the dominant German narrative that Palestine is “too complicated” made them feel too uncertain to put their heads above the parapets.
I would hope that one of the side-effects of the mass demonstration for Gaza on 27th September 2025 will help initiate a shift in this narrative, that it will become easier for isolated individuals to speak out for Palestine, and more difficult for the German State to repress them.
Censorship on Palestine – in Germany and elsewhere – depends to a large extent on how much our side is willing to accept, and how much their side is able to impose. As said, the BDS resolution, which helped initiate the new wave of repression, had no legal status, but served to embolden the forces of repression. I hope, and believe, that the new round of resistance will strengthen our ability to resist.
It didn’t start on October 7th, but it didn’t end there either. We can learn from repression, and resistance in the past, in order to strengthen resistance in the future–and the present.