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Outrageous

How The West Enabled The War on Iran


29/06/2025

On 13 June, Israel launched its most reckless campaign yet — a brazen, unprovoked strike against Iran, openly backed by US president Donald Trump. After the US joined the assault, Iran retaliated with a largely symbolic missile strike on a US base in Qatar, leading to a tentative ceasefire. Both sides now claim victory, but in war there are only losers — and accomplices.

For 12 perilous days and after more than a year and a half of genocide in Gaza, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyhu threw the Middle East into further jeopardy. Considering Iran is a major oil and natural gas producer, this also put the stagnating world economy at risk too. As expected and naturally warranting no mention from Western leaders, the casualties were asymmetrical, with many more killed in Iran than in Israel. Just three days into the conflict, Israel further broke international law by going out of its way to terrorise the Iranian population by attacking civilian structures including a television studio in Tehran. 

Meanwhile, Trump called for the evacuation of Tehran, a city of over 8.7 million, bringing to mind the repeated evacuation orders issued by the Israeli Army for Gaza and Beirut. Trump then authorised unprecedented strikes by the US military on three key Iranian nuclear facilities. Netanyahu and Trump both floated regime change as a possible desirable consequence of the attacks. This is  a blatant violation of international law on principles of national sovereignty and protection from foreign interference.

What was the reaction around the world? The day after the first attacks I used the word “limp” to characterise the initial Western response. But “limp” doesn’t begin to describe the attitudes expressed in the days after. European leaders sent all kinds of mixed messages: From vehemently defending Israel’s right to self-defence to calling for “de-escalation and restraint from all sides”; from saluting the Israeli state’s “courage” in attacking Iran to blaming the latter for “destabilising the region”. The latter type of solidarity continued to be strictly reserved only for Israel even after the US attack. In contrast, countries like Russia, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia issued repeated strongly worded statements, citing how the Israeli and American attacks violated the United Nations Charter. This was something the Europeans never did.

Many argue that the Israeli attack was not unprovoked, but was in fact a warranted pre-emptive attack. One by “The Only Democracy in the Middle East” against an evil and allegedly nearly nuclear power, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Evidence points to the falsity of this presumption. It is just as happened with allegations against Saddam Hussein as possessing  weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion of Iraq.Now with Iran we see the same media complicity we saw before with Iraq. 

n March 2025, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the US Congress that the American intelligence community “continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized a nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” Despite rebuking Iran for not meeting its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency also stated that they didn’t find any evidence that Iran was building a nuclear bomb. Some sources state that Iran was up to three years away from being able to build such a bomb, and even if it was built, it would hardly be a threat to Israel, the only nuclear power in the region.

All this begs the question: why did Israel attack now? The fact is that all of Iran’s traditional allies in the region — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria — have all but left the picture in the past year and a half. Other than strategic alliances with Russia and China, Iran is essentially alone, isolated from the “international community” and facing an emboldened enemy in Israel. Additionally, Netanyahu is barely holding together an ailing coalition government and is likely to go to prison for corruption charges once he leaves office. Furthermore, the US had essentially disengaged from the region in recent years, hindering Israeli interests. Netanyahu therefore saw little political downside in taking this risk, and had much to win – a patriotic boost and a renewed vigour for its core alliance.

This might just have been the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he had been hoping for to realise his long-held dream of launching a massive attack on Iran. Netanyahu has been warning of the imminent nuclear threat from the Islamic regime since the 1990s, since at least the mid-1980s. He has tried time and again to use it as a pretext to attack Iran. In truth, his ultimate goal is and has always been not to simply destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities but to destabilise the country and attempt to topple the Islamic regime. He stated this unabashedly in the week following the initial attack, in numerous videos posted to social media and interviews with American outlets. In these he attempted to convince the American public of the righteousness and necessity of the attacks. 

Americans were largely opposed to the US intervening in yet another war in the Middle East. Donald Trump was elected a second time on a platform of being against renewed American involvement in foreign wars. This war on Iran has divided the Make America Great Again/America First movement. Some key MAGA figures like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are vocally against US involvement and facing significant pushback from establishment Republicans as the war machine heated up.

Up to the days before the initial Israeli attack, President Trump maintained that he was still trying to negotiate a deal with Iran to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon. He publicly stated that he didn’t want Israel to attack its nemesis. In a dramatic twist, however, soon after the attacks started Trump quickly changed face. Now he openly expressed support for the Israeli attacks and his knowledge of them, while still expecting the Iranians to return to the negotiating table. Days later the US joined the Israeli war effort. The USA operation targeted three key nuclear sites in Iran with “bunker-busting” bombs unavailable to Israel.

Contrary to the public’s will, and despite statements of the US State Department (that the US were not initially actively participating in the attacks), US warships stationed in the Mediterranean were already involved. They had been intercepting Iranian missiles aimed at Israel. Furthermore, the United States continues to supply Israel with much of its arsenal, and billions of dollars in aid the US every year. Unsurprisingly many figures in American politics, Democrats and Republicans alike — a majority funded by the Israel lobby — doubled down on the overblown nuclear narrative. Many rejoiced at the Israeli attacks and instigated the American intervention, or tacitly approved of the operations. Some simply criticised the Trump Administration for not having sought Congressional authorisation for the bombings as the US constitution mandates.

Another question comes up: why end the war “so soon”? Many point to the depleted state of the Israeli Armed Forces’ arsenal. This was evident by the increasing failures of the much vaunted Iron Dome air defense system as the war dragged on. The official Israeli position is that the stated mission — to dissuade Iran from building a nuclear weapon and undermine its ability to do so — was achieved. Although serious doubts remain about the success of even the powerful US attacks.

Indisputable, however, is the horrifyingly high human, and economic cost of wars that defy all international norms of rule of law and protection of human rights. The war drums keep building. As Israel, led by the ever belligerent Netanyahu, and the United States, led by the reckless Trump, escalated the conflict, the risk of a wider, highly unpredictable regional war grew. So did the risk of a global economic meltdown due to spiking oil and gas prices. This benefited the big producers like the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The full ramifications of this brief but intense war will likely take time to reveal themselves.

But one thing is clear, it was never about the nukes. It was always about provoking a destabilising war. Yet another outrageous attempt at regime change to add to the history of brazen Western imperialism. Fuelled by the careless hubris of Western elites, this war was about nothing but destruction from the start.

Fact Check: Was October 7 the “Worst Massacre of Jews Since the Holocaust”?

Answer: No. In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin looks at the 1976 military coup in Argentina


27/06/2025

As Israel continues its genocide in Gaza and its bombing of five different countries, the same lines keep getting repeated: “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Otherwise, there will be more attacks like the one on October 7, 2023, which was the “worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” This phrase has been used by Netanyahu, Biden, Harris, etc., attempting to link the armed struggle against Israel with the Nazi genocide.

Is it true, though? On October 7, a total of 736 Israeli civilians were killed (though not all of them were Jewish). At least 14 of these were killed by the Israeli army, and likely more. In addition to roughly 700 Jewish civilians, Palestinian militants also killed 379 armed combatants.

How does this compare to other antisemitic massacres since the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945? The military coup in Argentina on March 24, 1976, killed an estimated 3,000 Jews.

The “National Reorganization Process,” as the generals cynically called it, aimed to crush Argentina’s powerful workers’ organizations and left-wing groups. This included mass killings and forced disappearances. Prisoners were thrown from airplanes into the ocean. Newborn babies were seized from their detained mothers and given up for adoption. At least 8,961 people were disappeared in the Dirty War — but human rights groups put the real number between 22,000 and 30,000. Argentinian courts have called this a genocide.

Argentina’s Jewish Community

As Saúl Sosnowski told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 2016: “Jews in Argentina only made up 1 percent of the population, but they were about 10 percent of the disappeared.” As was the case in other countries and epochs, Jews were overrepresented in the revolutionary movements like the Montoneros and the Trotskyists — and thus drew the ire of the generals. 

As Juan Pablo Jaroslavsky explained to the Guardian in 1999, “We have identified 1,296 Jewish victims by name out of the official list of 10,000 victims. But if the unofficial figure of 30,000 total victims is correct, then the number of Jewish victims could be over 3,000.”

This was no coincidence: After the Second World War, the government of Juan Perón provided refuge to thousands of Nazi war criminals, and the Argentinian military was full of antisemitism. Many officers believed in the Andinia plan, a conspiracy theory about Jewish subversives hoping to create a second Jewish homeland in Patagonia. (Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, had indeed considered Uganda or Argentina as possible locations for a Jewish state, but rejected them in favor of Palestine in the early 1900s.)

U.S., German, and Israeli Complicity

Today, the U.S. government and its Israeli vassal claim their warmongering in the Middle East is necessary to protect Jewish lives. So, how did they react to the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, as it was taking place in Argentina?

The military coup was part of Operation Condor, a U.S.-backed plan to eliminate the Left in the Southern Cone. Henry Kissinger gave a “green light” to the mass disappearances in Argentina. The junta got tens of millions of dollars in military aid from the U.S., and Germany was another vital backer.

The Israeli government did help some Argentinian Jews emigrate to the Holy Land. This is consistent with Zionist policy during the Holocaust: they would help Jews find refuge only so far as it contributed to their goal of colonizing Palestine. As David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, put it

If I knew that it was possible to save all the [Jewish] children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.

This cynical policy was repeated in Argentina.

At the same time, Israel continued to supply Argentina’s military with weapons — weapons that were being used to murder Jews. Tel Aviv remained one of the Junta’s main allies, even as disagreements grew between Buenos Aires and Washington.

Javier Miliei, Argentina’s far-right president today, is a big supporter of Israel and also a defender of the generals who murdered thousands of Jews. This is yet another example of how antisemites love Israel and vice versa.

October 7 was not the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The military coup of 1976 was several times more deadly. The U.S., German, and Israeli governments, who today claim that a genocide is about “protecting Jewish lives,” were actively supporting the antisemitic massacre in Argentina. Imperialists and Zionists only care about Jewish lives when it serves their geopolitical interests.

Red Flag is a weekly column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel Flakin has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

We are all slaves to the clout machine

On brain rot

Two people sit in a podcast setting with mics. One is listening and the other is speaking with intensity.

One could say that the essential innovation of capitalism is the commodification of time itself. Perry Anderson wrote about how it was the wage relationship, which allowed capitalism to reproduce its depredations on an hourly basis, which transformed society. Where previously the economy could never be clearly demarcated––it was always a mosaic of religious, feudal, social, and economic rights and obligations––the wage relationship, for the first time in human history, isolated the economy, as we understand it today, as a completely separate pillar of civilisation.

The urgency that the commodification of time imparts in the productive forces of society infects us all with a certain anxiety. We all struggle to relax completely even when we have “free time”, because all time is ripe for being used “productively”. One asks: “who can put a value on the time we spent on a warm summer’s day at the shore, sitting on a picnic blanket, sharing a sandwich made with love and care at home, and letting the sea breeze disperse our anxieties like the seeds of a dandelion?” Well, the market can.

The market is utterly sociopathic in the way that it relates to human beings. It would prefer that we, too, become sociopaths, and I am sorry to say the market often succeeds in drawing out our worst tendencies. One direct consequence of this is that in our current age of information saturation––where time in the form of attention has been elevated into a prime commodity––we have been manipulated into having a pathological inability to reserve our judgement before we fire off our “hot takes”  for the sake of building an audience. Inevitably a segment of people, motivated in part by money but also because of an egoistic desire for adulation, debase themselves to cultivate an online following, a phenomenon called “clout chasing.” I believe this is one of the worst things that has ever happened to humanity.

Bad history as a symptom of brain rot

The problem with giving your hot takes on matters of the day is that it reduces the take baker into a jester in whatever sad, irrelevant, and inward-looking court of public opinion to which the take baker finds themselves contractually obligated to cater. I am sympathetic to the person who, sub-consciously, knows that they are setting themselves up to fail but feels that they must preserve the clout they have worked hard to farm, especially when it is intrinsically tied to their economic survival. I am especially sympathetic to people on the left, where there is a dearth of billionaire money sloshing around to feed little attention-starved piggies at the trough of ignominious evil. Unfortunately, this means that aesthetic leftists––who can churn out condemnatory takes at a rate far exceeding the productive capacity of more measured, reflective people––get an outsized influence on the left. In the process, they infect everyone with a flawed framework of thinking that is divorced from reality––like actual, measurable reality in a Marxist materialist sense. However their frameworks are comfortingly insular in their packaging; think takes luxuriously lathered with reference to Rosa Luxemburg, evocations of the First World War, famous betrayals, references to war credits, etc.,.

The first grave error one can commit in understanding the world is to not read history. The second grave error is to read it in a way that seems to confirm everything you believe in already. Recent discourse regarding Germany’s planned budgetary largesse for its military on the left, frivolously labelled as “war credits,” is a textbook example of intellectual self-debasement for the sake of chasing clout. For one, the obsession that some irrelevant left-wing sects have for concentrating the bulk of their criticism toward die Linke reeks of a certain envy. Some would burn down the kingdom to be sovereign over the ashes. But this isn’t even a kingdom; it’s a township at best. A pointed bitterness towards die Linke’s unexpectedly strong showing in the recent elections is my only explanation for this obsessive Mean Girls-style approach to discussing issues of international importance. But let he who is free from sin be the one to cast the first stone. It is not pertinent for me to aggravate this internecine feud. However, the historical analogies used to decry the actions of the German government, die Linke’s support for it in the Bundesrat, as well as the hyperbolic descriptions of the plans themselves assumes that every left-leaning person reading these furious takes is blithely uncritical and, furthermore, plainly unhelpful in devising a strategy to resist them.

Consider, for example, the hyperbolic claim that the current plans to upgrade the Bundeswehr are akin to Great War era war credits. Germany intends to increase spending on the military to about 5% of GDP, of which 3,5% would be pure military investments and the remaining portion for dual-use infrastructure (think trains and bridges that can actually withstand transporting men and material). It would be helpful to set this level of spending in some context if you are going to make comparisons to WWI, but of course that would undermine your argument. In WWI, Germany’s economy shifted to focusing on advancing the war, with spending reaching a peak above 40%. In WWII similar scales of spending were seen, anywhere from 30% to 50% at historic peaks. This is easily Googleable information but it seems that supposed historians inhabit an econometric world that is rooted firmly in the early 20th century.

Plainly, the comparisons to WWI or WWII militarism are bafflingly divorced from reality. But so are the political comparisons. If people spent a bit of time thinking about how modern militaries operate, how defense and attacks work, how wars are played out today, they would begin to see the need for warding off certain threats with an excessive projection of force. The level of human casualties that people tolerated in the wars of the 20th century are simply not acceptable today. We are blessed to live in a world where the horrors of those wars are a distant memory, beyond our wildest comprehensions. Tens of millions of people died in those wars as a direct result of military actions, i.e. bombs and bullets. The level of casualties seen in the Russian war on Ukraine, after over three years, is estimated to be currently around 200.000 people (an underestimate of course). Each of those lost lives is a human tragedy and we should never lose sight of that. By the same logic we must also not devalue the lives lost in the wars of the 20th century simply because they were orders of magnitude greater. Investing money in the military so as to build an overwhelmingly powerful defensive capability (overkill, shall we say) is meant to limit the ability to inflict harm on civilian populations on anywhere near the scale of the world wars; a hugely expensive endeavour in peacetime but one that can at least be explained if not wholly justified.

It is therefore all the more astounding that people who wave flags with hammers and sickles, supposed stewards of the legacies of Lenin and Luxemburg, make hyperbolic comparisons to those conflicts when assessing a wholly different contemporary context. I suspect that the reason such people lead their flock down these blind alleys and intellectual cliff-edges is that they don’t really respect themselves or their flock. Politics is an aesthetic struggle to these people and the only game in town is to chase clout in a diminishing space for serious left-politics––the township whose ashes they wish to be sovereign over. In so doing, they mislead us and encourage us into becoming insular caricatures of ourselves. Marx was a rigorous materialist, a bean counter extraordinaire, and we would do well to ground our understanding in exhaustively researched material facts. This is something that clout chasers are constitutionally incapable of doing because they need to bake their hot takes quickly while the news cycle is favourable. It takes time to synthesise information and then give a considered analysis, something which contemporary society strongly discourages. I doubt Lenin or Luxemburg would have been particularly resistant to these forces either.

What is to be done?

There are three concrete criticisms that can inform a strategy for die Linke––or any leftist organisation––to oppose the plans to raise military spending. First and foremost is the pork barrel constitutional coup that the incoming government carried out to coerce approval of these plans. A famous example of a lame duck session of the legislature used to rubberstamp controversial acts is the confirmation of justice Amy Coney Barrett after the death of liberal girl boss, queen Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The German public has a romantic attachment to the sacrosanctity of its institutions and its procedures and it would behoove the left to attack such ham-fisted procedures, not strictly because of a negative sentiment towards militarism, but also a positive sentiment towards constitutional democracy. Enabling such tactics erodes the fabric of democracy, something that, for all its faults, is a terrain leading to fewer dead comrades than states of constitutional anarchy. In this regard, the Green party in Germany has become an accomplice to the worst act of constitutional vandalism in the party’s sordid, betrayal-studded history.

Secondly, the fact is that Germany’s fiscal fetishism has only been loosened for the sake of military spending and no other sector of the economy. In this sense, the government treated security solely through the lens of militarism. But security as seen through the lens of gainful employment, food, healthcare, social support and care are all demoted in importance. What is the point of feeling safe from Russian bombs when the social fabric of society continues to degrade? On this point at least, I think the left has been adequately vocal but in a siloed manner, where the link between this social fabric is not drawn to grander constitutional and political concerns. In this sense, the left is conducting a form of retail politics that fails in the face of nationalistic jingoism, Sinophobia, and ideas of Germany’s responsibilities on the world stage. But credit where it is due, the left is making the case for something and not solely against something.

Lastly, and most importantly, for all the complaints one can make about Germany and the German public, the nation is by and large against the idea of the AfD holding the levers of power. Voters across the spectrum list resisting the AfD’s advance as a primary concern. Heidi Reinichek’s speech deriding Merz’s razing of the Brandmauer was considered a turning point in the election campaign. Well let’s take this further, let’s establish the left as a bulwark against the AfD and not the cowards in die Grünen or the SPD, and certainly not the leftwing of the AfD that is the unholy union. Do we really want to beef up the military in this haphazard manner and then one day see the AfD in charge of governing a nation that has been re-armed? We can accept the need for re-arming in the face of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, for economic stimulus, for much needed infrastructural upgrades, and also for breaking free from dependency on the US military as a guarantor of European defence. But the case needs to be made that, much like ICE in the USA, much like the Freikorps in WWI, we do not want to build an arsenal that will one day fall under the control of fascists.

Such a political strategy that taps into the fears of the AfD, that makes connections to international events with which broad swathes of the public are familiar, that taps into a deeply ingrained historical memory is a holistic strategy for the next five years. We must dismantle the economic and social forces that have fed the beast that is the AfD. Merz is playing a dangerous game vilifying immigrants, cutting social spending, playing pork barrel, anti-constitutional politics while beefing up the Bundeswehr. The capital-L Left is the sentinel of democracy, not the SPD, not the Union, and certainly not die Grünen. But don’t expect a clout-chaser to spell that out for you.

German Authorities Separate Baby from Mother Over Palestine Solidarity  

Statement by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC)


24/06/2025

The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) is challenging a ruling by the Higher Administrative Court Berlin-Brandenburg before the Federal Constitutional Court after German authorities forced a Palestinian-Jordanian mother to separate from her one-year-old son for months, who was initially deemed as a “security threat” in a letter from the German Embassy in Amman.
 
This case involves the prolonged and seemingly weaponised separation of a young Palestinian family on behalf of the notorious German domestic intelligence service “Verfassungsschutz” (Office for the Protection of the Constitution) in an inhumane and barely legal bureaucratic process. It highlights how migration laws are being weaponised against activists in Germany to suppress the Palestine solidarity movement and stands as one of the harshest examples of this tactic being employed by the German state especially against Palestinians. 

It also exposes the ease with which vague and unsubstantiated security claims can override fundamental rights when targeting Palestinians. 

Background: 

B. M. (Name anonymized for security reasons) is a Palestinian mother who holds Jordanian nationality and has been living and working in Frankfurt am Main since 2018 with a valid residency permit. As a professional nurse, her profession is of high demand on the German labor market and German authorities actively invite and encourage such professionals to migrate and work there. She arrived in Germany with residency status as a “skilled worker”.  

B.M. is married to a Palestinian man from Jordan who joined her in Germany in 2022 through the family reunification residency. In 2023 the couple received their first child, born in Frankfurt am Main. In October 2023, B.M. applied for permanent residency, and in the meantime, the migration office issued temporary residence permits (Fiktionsbescheinigung) to her and her family. Since her son was born in Germany and the parents had a legal status here, this entitles him to a separate residency status (independent from the family reunification process), a legal right that was conveniently ignored by German authorities in the events to follow. 

The beginning of the separation: One year old baby deemed a “security threat” to Germany

In August 2024, a year after their son was born, the family traveled to Jordan for a two-week family visit. Upon attempting to return to Germany, while the temporary residence permits for all family members were still valid, B.M.’s one year old baby was denied boarding as it was declared he lacked the necessary permit to re-enter Germany. German authorities failed to inform the family that re-entering will not be possible for the baby upon departure from Germany, his birthplace.  

At the time, the German embassy in Jordan made it seem a mere bureaucratic matter and advised B.M. to stay in Jordan for a few weeks, before her son would receive the required permit. 

In November 2024, B.M. received a letter from the embassy stating that her son was not allowed to reenter because there were reasons for refusal according to Section 54(1) no. 2 or 4 of the Residence Act which outline that residence may be refused if an applicant was convicted of one or several criminal acts or had violated residence restrictions or prohibitions and thereby endangered public safety and order. This effectively deemed the baby a “security threat” to Germany, and as such, he would not be allowed to travel with her back to Germany. In the meantime, B.M.’s husband had to travel back for work in Germany, assuming that this “bureaucratic” procedure will be resolved soon and he will welcome them in Frankfurt am Main. He left not knowing that he would not see his child again until returning to Jordan in May 2025. 

Highly unusual prolonging of the legal proceedings 

After consulting lawyer Ebru Akcan Asiltürk in Frankfurt am Main, another letter was received this time from the migration office in early December 2024, clarifying that the issue was not with her son but in fact with the mother. For the first time, German authorities acknowledged that she was under security investigation by the domestic intelligence service Verfassungsschutz which could potentially result in the revocation of her residency status. The German foreign ministry later argued in court this was because of her alleged involvement with the Palestine solidarity groups/organizations, namely Samidoun Deutschland, Masar Badil und Palestine e.V. This, in turn, would also affect the residency status of both her son and husband. Even though her son has a separate right to residency due to his birthplace in Germany, B.M. was told her son’s entry permit – a simple bureaucratic act and the child’s legal right – was no longer deemed necessary until a final decision on her residency status was made.  

B.M.’s lawyer filed an urgent appeal in November 2024 against the German foreign ministry’s decision arguing that:

  • A one-year-old cannot constitute a security threat to Germany, and the child holds a valid residency status separate from the parent’s reunification residency status. 
  • Both parents hold valid residency permits.  
  • While there might be an ongoing investigation, it has not yet concluded – there are no officially declared security concerns which could justify the separation of the family.  
  • The urgent appeal is necessary because of the financial and legal disadvantages for the family resulting from the arbitrary decision. 
  • German authorities are aiming to prevent the mother from re-entering Germany and because there is no legal basis to do so, they are disenfranchising her child. 

The German foreign ministry in turn gave a remarkable first response:

  • The urgent appeal should be dismissed because: “There are no circumstances apparent or substantiated that would require the immediate presence of the applicant in Germany.” 
  • The family of the mother in Jordan could provide care for the child.
  • The residency permit for the child is dependent on “one involved security agency” and while the child does not constitute a security threat to Germany, allowing the child to enter Germany could possibly constitute a security risk.

An urgent appeal usually results in a preliminary ruling after a few weeks but in this case it took several months, until February 2025. The administrative court in Berlin ruled that reentrance of the child to Germany was not urgent with complete disregard to the legal right of the child to reside in Germany, along with his parents, and the severe impact on the family’s well-being.
 
B.M. was told to wait for the completion of the security check regarding her permanent residency application. If approved, she would be able to bring her son back to Germany. Her lawyer appealed the decision at the Higher Administrative Court Berlin-Brandenburg with another urgent appeal in February 2025. In the meantime, she also returned to Germany, separating from her child, leaving him behind with her parents to avoid losing her own residency not knowing that the higher court would take another 4 months to decide. 

It is noteworthy that it is entirely unclear to the public or even the subject under investigation how such a security check is conducted: neither which authorities are involved apart from the notorious Verfassungsschutz nor on which criteria or information they base their decision and when they are expected to conclude the investigation.  

The so-called security check is still ongoing to this day, nearly two years later. This raises questions about whether the Verfassungsschutz has been abusing vague rules to prolong the process and pressure the family into “self-deportation”. 

In June 2025 the Higher Administrative Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the previous decision despite the legal flaws, arguing that the parents could move back to Jordan or accept the separation from their child temporarily.  

ELSC’s intervention

The ELSC has now taken the case to the Federal Constitutional Court in an urgent appeal.  
ELSC Legal officer Hisham comments: “The German state systematically exploits residence, asylum and citizenship law to punish already marginalised communities. This must be recognised for what it is: a blatantly racist system with devastating consequences. There is no justification for separating a newborn from his parents, yet to label the child a “security threat” marks a grotesque new low, even by their own oppressive standards.” 

This shocking, inhumane and politically motivated abuse of bureaucratic power and migration laws is not an isolated case. The ELSC has documented over 22 incidents where threats to residency status or restrictions to freedom of movement were weaponised to repress Palestine solidarity in Germany. More information on our database on anti-Palestinian repression Germany here

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The true scale is far greater.  High ranking German politicians routinely incite migration offices to target Palestine solidarity even for something as minor as social media likes. The German parliament recently urged with overwhelming majority to use all repressive methods at hand in residence, asylum and citizenship law against Palestine solidarity in Germany.  

There is an increasing concern that the German domestic intelligence service Verfassungsschutz is highly involved in this process. Its purpose is almost completely unregulated and opaque surveillance of “enemies of the constitution”. The tools at their disposal are increasingly used to target the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany as they openly admit in their latest report

Germany’s Highest Administrative Court in Leipzig recently ruled to allow deportations to Greece. This affects almost every Palestinian asylum seeker from Gaza in Germany and corresponds with the clear will of the German Government to deport as many people as possible in complete disregard of fundamental human rights. Legal observation suggests that German administrative courts are bending the law in adherence to political pressure. 

The ELSC will challenge this case before the constitutional court. Migration laws in Germany are being abused-turning legal residency into a weapon to punish dissent. Now the constitutional court faces its test: will it uphold fundamental rights and stop these unconstitutional and inhumane practices, or will it bend to political pressure. 

Mr. Merz, your ‘dirty work’ has consequences – End support for Israeli war crimes now

Open Letter to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz

This open letter was initiated by members of the Iranian diaspora

Dear Mr. Merz,

On the second day of the G7 summit, in an interview with ZDF – set against what the interviewer described as the “picturesque backdrop of the Rocky Mountains” – you commented on Israel’s attack on Iran with the words:

“This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.”

At a time when terms such as antisemitism, self-defense, and human rights are increasingly devalued through their inflationary and instrumental misuse – rendering a number of minorities who are directly impacted by extremist ideology in Germany increasingly vulnerable – your choice of words is chillingly revealing. Your chosen words aptly indicate your willingness to cheer on the breaking of international law. The only ambiguity in your statement lies in your use of the pronoun, “us.” Whom exactly do you mean by “us,” Mr. Merz? Whose voices do you imagine that you represent via this hate-filled endorsement of the killing and displacement of innocent civilians?

Allow us to remind you of the preamble to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, which declares Germany’s commitment to “promoting world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe.” The warfare that your statement supports falls far from supporting global peace. In this sense, how dare you assume that “we,” the German people and inhabitants of Germany, stand behind your belligerent words? Perhaps then, the “we” that you mention is a reference to the German government and other European states? If that is the case, then those governments must now be called upon to publicly respond to your statement.

Your choice of words warrants serious scrutiny, given the immense historical and moral implications. Referring to the deliberate killing of human beings as “work” – a term used for the production of goods or the provision of services – is nothing less than an act of linguistic dehumanization of the victims. The phrase “dirty work” troublingly echoes language formerly used by SS leadership: In his testimony before the Polish tribunal, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, described the systematic extermination of human beings as a “task,” as necessary “work” to be carried out.

Mr. Merz, how convenient it is to have other parties carry out the “dirty work” for you at this moment in history without German hands having to be literally stained with blood! The “dirty work” is now carried out by the Israeli government at a comfortable distance. The resulting civilian deaths are cynically whitewashed via trivialization, omission, and selective reporting in mainstream media.

In your comment, you speak of the same Israeli government that has already been responsible for the deaths of over 55,000 people in Gaza, a government that should not be conflated with the civilian population of Israel, just as the current dictatorial regime in Iran cannot be conflated with Iranian civilians and just as German government policy vis-a-vis Israel-Palestine and the Middle East must be understood, at this moment in time, as distinct from the will of the German people.

You speak of the same Israeli government whose prime minister, on 21 November 2024, was issued with an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, a court whose authority your government seems increasingly unwilling to recognize. The Israeli government’s violations of international law were explicitly pointed out to you by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Regrettably, it has become apparent that it is no longer necessary to adhere to and respect international law and basic humanitarian principles in order to hold high political office in Germany.

We, the undersigned, are Iranian citizens with German citizenship or residence status. We live, work, study and engage in social work here – as academics, doctors, nurses, artists, craftspeople, activists, teachers, childcare workers, engineers and others who contribute significantly to German society. What you refer to as “dirty work,” Mr. Merz, is a cruel euphemism for the murder and displacement of our family and friends in Iran. What you wish to sell to the German public as “targeted strikes on nuclear facilities” is, in reality, a bloody war carried out by a corrupt far-right government in the Middle East, under the guise of “self-defence.”

Our German, European and international colleagues, friends, and allies – many of whom have also signed this letter – are well informed about the crimes committed by the Israeli government in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. They are bearing direct witness to how deeply shaken, desperate and traumatized we are by a government which, at least before your tenure, appeared to want all who live in Germany represented. Your “dirty work,” as carried out by the Israeli government, is reviled not only by the deeply impacted civilians of Iran, but also by a great number of attentive Germans – some of whom have signed this letter.

We strongly urge you to immediately halt all arms exports to Israel and to issue a public apology for your hateful and degrading use of language. Let this letter be a reminder that we will continue to inform and educate the growing number of Germans who are deeply alarmed by the crimes that the Israeli government consistently perpetrates. We will continue to disseminate the images and reports that we receive directly from Iran and other contexts impacted by Israel’s indiscriminate violence. Be aware that those who have enabled or been complicit in this violence, including your government, will be held accountable for having directly or indirectly perpetuated the “dirty work” that you so callously evoked during your ZDF interview.

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You can find this Open Letter in German, English, and Farsi with a list of the existing signatories here.