The Nova festival exhibition at the former Tempelhof Airport claims to be an apolitical commemoration of the victims of a massacre. On October 7, 2023, 344 Israeli civilians were killed at a music festival near the Gaza border. Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) sponsored the travelling show with 1,383,840.33 euros — while his government is slashing cultural funding. Critics like Naomi Klein and Ben Ratskoff have argued this is not a memorial, but rather war propaganda to manufacture consent for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
There is already a scandal brewing about these subsidies. As Tagesspiegel reports, CDU politicians like former cultural senator Joe Chialo distributed €2.65 million for “projects to fight antisemitism,” including the Nova exhibition, in violation of laws about public procurement. Big chunks of this money went to their friends. Who knows what the CDU believes in, if anything? Whatever they do, you can be sure they are lining their pockets.
The Senate Administration for Education sent out an e-mail to all schools encouraging them to take students to the exhibition — it’s free for them, thanks to “generous donations” (while Berlin museums are raising prices.) The accompanying curriculum is provided by the anti-Islam activist Ahmad Mansour.
In contrast to a museum, this exhibition does not encourage reflection and learning about historical contexts. The word Gaza is never mentioned, let alone the ongoing genocide. Instead, visitors are supposed to identify emotionally with the victims, in a struggle of “good” versus “evil.”
Kahanist
Last week, the “apolitical” exhibition offered a “conversation with heroes of October 7.” (The event has mysteriously disappeared from the official Instagram account, but is still available on Facebook.) The “heroes” included the radical settler Elkana Federman, the son of Israel’s most infamous far-right terrorist, Noam Federman.
Federman the father, a settler in the Palestinian city of Hebron, was a spokesman of the Kach party (known as “Kahanist” from its founder Meir Kahane). Kach has been banned in Israel since the 1990s due to terrorist attacks against Palestinians, including the massacre of 29 worshippers in Hebron in 1994. Noam Federman praised the shooter, a fellow Hebron settler, just as he praised the assassin of Yitzak Rabin.
This is a long family tradition: Noam’s father, David Federman, was a member of the Stern Gang, far-right Zionists who sought an alliance with Nazi Germany, massacred Palestinians, and assassinated UN officials.
Federman the son continues this fascist activism. He is part of the group Tsav 9 that blocks humanitarian aid headed for Gaza — even the limited aid approved by the Israeli government. As an IDF soldier, Federman has posted videos of himself torturing Palestinian prisoners, and subsequently bragged about that on Israeli TV.
This group has been sanctioned by the U.S. and the EU—according to the EU council, “Tzav 9 is responsible for serious human rights abuses.” The relevant regulations state “No funds or economic resources shall be made available, directly or indirectly” to sanctioned groups or individuals.
While I’m not a lawyer, it’s hard to see how both the exhibition and Berlin’s government are not in violation of EU law. I have reached out to the Senate Administration for Culture several times for comment, but they have not responded.
Can you picture the government inviting the Russian army choir to Berlin to commemorate the victims of anti-Russian racism in Eastern Ukraine? This is actually worse: normalizing Kahanism like this would be a red line even for Israeli society.
Criminal Charges
The Hind Rajab Foundation has filed charges against Federman with Germany’s federal prosecutor. Germany can and does prosecute war crimes under its Code of Crimes against International Law, regardless of the location of the acts and the nationality of the perpetrators.
Federman himself seems unconcerned that the German government will enforce its own laws, posting on an Instagram story from Berlin: “Antisemites and pro-Arabs are calling to arrest me in Germany — be my guest.”
This praise for far-right terrorists is particularly disturbing in a German context. The CDU was built up by Nazi war criminals like Hans Globke to rehabilitate the perpetrators of the Shoah. When the German bourgeoisie expresses empathy for Israeli war criminals, they are ultimately making excuses for their own crimes.
The German state claims to adhere to international law, but in reality the law only applies when it is in line with German foreign policy. The government would enforce an ICJ arrest warrant against Putin—but ignore the same warrant against Netanyahu. German courts have a long record of exonerating war crimes —and they are preparing to do so at a much greater scale as German imperialism rearms.
When the management of The Berliner magazine decided to promote the Nova exhibition with advertisements, they argued this was an apolitical event—and besides, they are just a cultural magazine. But it’s clear that the Nova exhibition aims to support far-right ideas, both in Germany and in Israel. That’s why I, along with all the other freelancers from The Berliner, remain on strike.
Red Flag is a weekly opinion column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.
