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Left Surfboards

As Germany goes on trial at the International Court of Justice, join the protest outside the Bundestag


07/04/2024

Surfboards, plates, wheelchairs, dates, coriander, wedding dresses, pianos. What do these things have in common? They are all benign objects, incapable of hurting anybody (even though some music scores can bring you to tears.) They are also all things Israel has banned from entering Gaza over the nearly two decades of inhumane blockade.

Israel apologists like to act as if October 7th is the only day in history that matters. What came before is irrelevant, and what came after is simply “justified self-defense”. But history did not start and end on October 7th, however tragic that day was for the many innocents killed and taken hostage. 

Since 2007, Israel has imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the tiny Gaza Strip. Israel controls what goes in and out. The rules are arbitrary and obscured – last summer, an acquaintance of mine managed to bring ten pieces of kak al-Quds, a Jerusalem specialty bread coated in sesame, into Gaza. But upon returning, was denied entry with a jar of Gazawi zaatar. CNN reported that in fall, one truck with direly needed humanitarian aid was turned away because the sleeping bags were green – a military color, and thus considered dual use.

This blockade has created unlivable conditions for the Palestinians of Gaza, cutting them off from medical access, family and friends in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the rest of the world, and from living their lives as normal people. This situation was called an “incremental genocide” by Israel historian Illan Pappé as far back as 2017. Yet Germany continued to supply weapons to Israel.

The “total siege” imposed on Gaza since October 9th has created the conditions estimated to kill thousands, if not tens of thousands through starvation and disease. And still Germany supplies weapons to Israel.

The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to immediately end all killing of Palestinians and to allow unrestricted humanitarian aid. Israel has not complied. And still, Germany supplies weapons.

Over the last 20 years, Germany has consistently exported large amounts of weapons to Israel. It was always at least in second place, sometimes even outranking the US in terms of value of weapons exported to Israel. Since October 7th, Germany has supplied 47% of weapons exports to Israel, as a new report by Forensics shows. While Israel has a booming weapons industry, it could not achieve its current mass onslaught without the help of Germany. 

This economic and political support and shielding of Israel has sparked widespread and persistent protests, as well as a wave of legal cases. Several lawyers, Nadija Samour and Ahmed Abad among them, just announced they are suing Germany for its weapons exports to Israel, as it is plausible that these weapons are/were being used to commit war crimes. 

Also on an international scale, Germany is facing some sort of accountability: Nicaragua has sued Germany at the ICJ for aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The trail will take place this week, on April 8th and 9th.

It is a misguided belief, unfortunately, that courts can bring justice alone. Law is always shaped by political will, and even the International Court of Justice has no enforcement methods of its own. We must continue to apply political pressure from the inside to bring Germany to accountability and to end the complicity in this genocide.

So we, activists and artists, invite you to join us in the protest on April 8th, the date Germany faces the International Court of Justice. The protest will take place outside the Bundestag, where politicians decide every day to continue supporting Israeli war crimes while silencing dissent.

As artists, we believe in the power of art to fight injustice. Thus, the rally will showcase an installation of all Israel has and has not allowed into Gaza. We invite all participants to bring any items banned by Israel – from crutches to dates, from children’s toys to blankets.

Life – Banned from Gaza protest Monday 8th April 10am – 6pm, Platz der Republik

Livestream – Germany before the ICJ Monday 8th April and Tuesday 9th April, 9.30am – 12.30pm, oyoun

Police violence against Israeli – where does antisemitism begin?

The Israeli Berliner Yuval Carasso was injured by Berlin police, and now is supposed to pay a €2,000 fine


06/04/2024

The letter is actually kind of cute. Last week, the Israeli Berliner Yuval Carasso got a letter from the Berlin District Court, with a legal document in German and a translation into Hebrew – except the Hebrew pages were upside down in the stapled packet, because apparently someone didn’t know that Hebrew is written from right to left. A German government agency tried to show sympathy for Jewish people, and ended up revealing its ignorance.

The content of the letter, however, was not amusing. Carasso is supposed to pay a fine of €2,000 or spend 25 days in jail. He is accused of »resisting arrest« on September 13 of last year. The Israeli artist was detained by two plainclothes cops in front of the Neukölln bar Bajszel – at an event about antisemitism, no less – and they claim he pushed back when they threw him to the ground and handcuffed him.

Carasso explains to »nd« that he complied with the cops’ instructions, even though it wasn’t immediately clear they were police. The next day, he was covered in bruises – an ultrasound showed that his ribs weren’t broken, but they still hurt for weeks. As critics of German police have long maintained, anyone who complains about experiencing police violence almost automatically gets a charge of “resisting arrest”. Berlin police declined to answer questions from »nd«, citing privacy laws, although they had previously told the English-language publication The New Arab that “In order to reduce the risk of injury for everyone involved, the officers brought the rioter to the ground, restrained him and handcuffed him.”

This is a highly political case. Carasso had been at a public event at Bajszel presenting the booklet Mythos#Israel1948. It has since faced widespread criticism for its claims that the massive displacement of Palestinians in 1948, called the Nakba, is in fact a myth. Carasso listened patiently for roughly half an hour, he says, until a security guard approached him. In a statement, the organizers wrote that a young man was filming without permission, while Carasso denies having filmed or taken photographs – the latter was confirmed by an eyewitness sitting right next to him.

Asked to leave, Carasso stood up to speak for about one minute about his own experiences in the Israeli military, and about his grandmother, who fled Nazi-occupied Europe and then saw Palestinians getting expelled from their villages. The organizers’ statement says, in contrast, that a young man “insulted us for about one minute, which is why he was banned from the establishment.” Both the bar Bajszel and the association Masiyot, the publishers of the pamphlet, denounce his “aggressive” behavior, while numerous eyewitnesses counter that he was completely peaceful. Versions differ sharply.

When Carasso left the bar, attempting to go home, he was violently detained by undercover cops. It is noteworthy that Carasso was accused of filming without permission, yet the organizers say they have a video “that a participant at the event recorded, clearly to document the aggressiveness of this gentleman.” So at least one other person in the room was filming, yet only a Jewish participant was told to leave for supposedly doing the same thing. Is this a case of antisemitism? Carasso thinks so. “I don’t feel safe,” he says to nd.

Let’s look at some analogies. Der Spiegel printed accusations of antisemitism against the cultural center Oyoun, also in Neukölln, because an Israeli was supposedly ejected from an event. They subsequently had to issue a correction that the person asked to leave Oyoun after disrupting an event was neither Israeli nor Jewish – yet they still list this as evidence of antisemitism. Similarly, when several pro-Israeli students were asked to leave a Palestine solidarity event at the Free University of Berlin because they were disrupting, this was reported across the German press as a case of antisemitism – even though numerous Jewish students had organized the event. So what do we call what happend to Yuval Carasso?

“The German establishment doesn’t count Yuval as a Jew because he doesn’t support Israel” notes Wieland Hoban of the group Jüdische Stimme (Jewish Voice). Carasso wanted to express a political opinion based on his experience as an Israeli, and ended up with weeks of pain and now a criminal penalty. The German government says it protects Jewish life in Germany. But this only applies to Jews who support the far-right Israeli government. Critical Jews have been beaten up, detained, arrested, spit on, fired, doxxed, and denounced in the press. As Emily Dische-Becker has calculated, 30 percent of cancellations in Germany due to alleged antisemitism have been against Jewish people.  Where are the Antisemitism Czars? Where are the solidarity rallies? Where are the newspaper reports?

German state officials need to learn not only that Hebrew is written from right to left – but also that the Jewish community is diverse, full of bitter arguments and Talmudic debate, including about Israel. Carasso plans to appeal the ruling.

This is a mirror of Nathaniel’s Neues Deutschland (nd) column Red Flag. Reproduced with permission

FMP1’s new room booking policy bans Palestine-solidarity

As the “Neues Deutschland Building” forces groups to sign a contract about Israel to use its space, the list of rooms for discussing Palestine in Berlin shrink even further


05/04/2024

Franz-Mehring Platz 1 (FMP1) has long been a meeting point for activists in Berlin. Colloquially known as the “Neues Deutschland building” it hosts the left-wing newspaper, and was until recently also the home of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. I have attended many interesting conferences at FMP1 which have contained challenging and progressive discussions on Palestine.

It is a shock, then, to learn that FMP1 has become part of the current attack on spaces in Germany available for discussing Palestine and Palestinians. Recently, a group of activists asked if they could hold a meeting on Palestine in FMP1. Their request was accepted, but only if they signed a contract accepting the following conditions:

“In particular, we declare that we will refrain from making any statements at the above-mentioned event or prohibit such statements by participants who
a) represent antisemitic content and positions in any way whatsoever
b) question the right of the State of Israel to exist,
c) oppose a two-state solution,
d) support the terror of Hamas or other groups against Israel and its support by organizations, networks and individuals in Germany
e) defend calls for or declarations on the use or justification of terrorist violence as a means of resolving the Middle East conflict or
f) are racist, chauvinistic or glorify violence in any other way”

This appears to be a standard form which will now be sent to anyone who is planning a similar event.

In December 2023, FMP1 updated their statute regarding booking meetings. The statute now includes the following text: “Calls or declarations which justify terrorist groups or other violence to solve international or civil conflicts have no space in FMP1.” The new contract gives us a clearer view of what this means in practise.

Who is banned?

According to the new contract, I – and many others – would be banned not just from organising an Event in FMP1, but from even making a statement there (regardless of whether that statement mentions Palestine).

I have written articles which explain why I think that the One State solution is the only democratic option for Palestinians. Furthermore, as an international socialist I question any State’s right to exist. This includes Mesopotamia, East Germany and Rhodesia, but also Germany, Great Britain and Israel. I specifically oppose the right of a State to exist on the basis of the exclusion and oppression of many of its inhabitants.

Some of the other restrictions in the FMP1 contract look reasonable enough, but are inherently problematic given the current state of debate in Germany. What is “antisemitic content”, for example? Daniel Bax recently wrote eloquently in the taz about how accusations of antisemitism are being used to exclude Jewish artists and intellectuals.

Presumably antisemitism “in any way whatsoever” is meant to include anything which comes into conflict with the highly contested IHRA definition of antisemitism. IHRA has been used to conflate criticism with Israel with antisemitism. This could be used to exclude Judith Butler, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, Noam Chomsky, and many others from FMP1.

And what counts as “supporting the terror of Hamas”? Hamas’s politics are not my politics, but Palestinians are hardly unique in using political violence. The Algerian FLN used what could be called “terror” in their fight against colonialism, as did the ANC when they overthrew apartheid in South Africa.

Like many other national liberation movements, the ANC regularly used “terrorist violence as a means of resolving conflict”, including the particularly gruesome strategy of “necklacing” their political opponents (killing them by putting a burning rubber tyre over their necks). We may oppose this strategy, but it is surely clear that the ANC stood on the right side of history. Would Nelson Mandela be banned from FMP1?

Paternalistic White Germans are once more telling Palestinians and anti-Zionist Jews what they are allowed to do or say. Violence is unacceptable, apparently, but the Bundestag has already rejected the non-violent strategy of BDS. When Israeli bombs rain down on Palestinians, German politicians offer muted criticism at best, while German arms exports to Israel are ten times what they were a year ago. But Palestinians must sit back and turn the other cheek?

The main argument, though, is not even about whether Palestinians are allowed to resist their oppression. It is an attempt to forbid us from even talking about it. If we want to end the current inhumane bombing of Gaza, which has cost the lives of at least 30,000 people (probably many more), then we must be able to openly discuss what methods are legitimate (and which we reject). This discussion is now forbidden in many German institutions, including FMP1.

Part of a general trend

The FMP1 contract is not an isolated incident. At the end of last year, the progressive cultural centre oyoun had all its funding withdrawn by the Berliner Senat because it hosted an event by a Jewish organisation. This year the Senat tried, and failed, to refuse funding to any artist who would not sign a declaration which effectively calls any opposition to Israel antisemitic.

More recently, students in Berlin have been threatened with ex-matriculation if they engage in political activity. This is clearly an attempt to clamp down on pro-Palestine activity on Campus, but could also be used to threaten anyone who politically disagrees with this government or any of its successors. With the AfD currently gaining support in Germany, this is a seriously worrying prospect.

The repression is not just a general threat. It has also significantly affected many individuals, like the Documenta artists, Achille Mbembe, Anna-Esther Younes, Candice Breitz, Masha Gessen, Laurie Anderson, Palestinian journalists sacked by Deutsche Welle, plus countless more Palestinians whose names we never hear.

Censorship does not just come from the political Right. Even the left-wing pub the Syndikat has banned any meetings supported by Palästina Spricht. Syndikat – and now FMP1 – joining the censorship bandwagon only strengthens the Right and encourages them to come back for more.

Palestine Congress

In a week’s time, Berlin is going to host a congress which has been described in various media as “a conference of hate” (Bild Zeitung), or “a catalyser for antisemitism, Israel-hatred and an endorsement of Islamism and terrorism” (Kim Robin Stoller to the taz). Leader of the CDU parliamentary fraction Dirk Stettner has called the congress a “disgrace for Berlin”.

The Berliner Senat is discussing whether it should ban the Palestine Congress. Two organisers have already had their houses raided by the police. The state bank, the Berliner Sparkasse, has frozen the bank account of the Jüdische Stimme, which was being used to accept ticket payments. This is not the first time that the German state has closed Jewish bank accounts.

And who are the speakers at this dangerous conference? Former Greek finance minister Yannis Varoufakis, Irish MP Richard Boyd-Barrett, editor of the Electronic Intifada Ali Abinumah. Palestinian journalist Hebh Jamal, and several members of the Jüdische Stimme who we have been proud to interview for theleftberlin.

The press and right-wing politicians are whipping up a climate of fear, and it is not beyond question that the conference will be banned or raided by the police. The cooperation of left institutions like FMP1 in the exclusion of Palestinian voices only encourages such state censorship. In the face of the genocidal bombing of Gaza, Germany is not a safe space to discuss the safety of Palestinians.

It is shocking that FMP1 is contributing towards the shrinking spaces available for discussing resistance to the oppression of Palestinians and the repression of people in Germany which is used to sustain it. We should demand that left wing spaces remain open for everyone challenging capitalism and imperialism, not censoring these voices on the State’s behalf.

Letter from the Editors, 4th April 2024

Watch Germany on Trial


03/04/2024

As we approach the six month anniversary of Israel’s assault on Gaza, there will be (at least) two demonstrations this week. Tomorrow (Friday) at 4pm, Israelis for Peace are organising a rally: This has to stop! Impose an immediate Ceasefire! outside the German Foreign Office at Werderscher Markt 1. And on Sunday, Hände Weg von Wedding is organising a rally: Wedding for Palestine. “We call on you: join us in Wedding to take a stand against the occupation, expulsion and murder of Palestinians and for an immediate ceasefire!” The rally takes place at  Leopoldplatz (Otto und Elise Hampel Platz) at 3pm.

On Saturday, the satirical anti-gentrification group myGrüni is organising a Spring break for more residential areas with a lake view. “Berlin needs housing space – but if there are to be more residential areas, then with a lake view! There is still a little space for building social housing on the luxury island Schwanenwerder! With a Spring home visit, we want to view the building land with much potential. Waterside promenade for all! FKK fun not posh tristesse! The problem zone is private beaches!” Wrap up warm and join the party at midday at S-Bahnhof Nikolassee.

On Saturday at 3pm there will be a memorial rally for Burak Bektaş to mark the 12th anniversary of his murder. This will take place at the memorial site for Burak on the corner of Rudower Straße and Möwenweg. “On the night of 4th-5th April 2012, Burak was shot in front of the Britz hospital. The act has still not been explained. After 12 years we are still asking: was the motive racism? Together with Burak’s family and friends we want to commemorate Burak and invite you to join us. From the middle of April, Burak’s murder will be debated in a parliamentary committee of inquiry. We will be critically observing and accompanying this committee. Susmak yok. Mücadele var! In memory of Burak.”

Our next Palestine Reading Group is on Sunday at 6pm. Note this is 1 hour earlier that usual, to allow people to celebrate Iftar at the end of the event. This week we’ll be discussing “Manufacturing global Islamophobia”. You can find the selected reading here. The Palestine Reading Group takes place every week, on either Friday or Sunday. Check the page of Events we organise for the coming dates and discussion topics. If you’d like to get more involved in the group, you can join our Telegram group and follow the channel Reading group. Meetings are in the Agit offices, Nansenstraße 2. There is a meeting for moderators (open to anyone who’s interested) half an hour before the meeting starts.

Next Monday and Tuesday.  Nicaragua will be prosecuting Germany in the International Court of Justice for giving military aid to Israel and defunding the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). theleftberlin website is showing a livestream of the hearings at oyoun from 9:30-12:30pm, Lucy Lameck Straße 32. If you would like to join us to watch the hearings together, please come along.  There will also be an action all day Life banned from Gaza. The venue is currently secret, but we will be going after the livestream event.

On Monday at 7pm, Right2TheCity (R2C), the international working group of Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen has its April Welcome Session. “Are you affected by abusive landlords, by never-ending sublets or by Eigenbedarf eviction? Are you sympathetic with the fight for socialization of housing in Berlin and want to know more about it? Or are you just interested in R2C and the wider @dw_enteignen campaign? Join us in AGIT, Nansenstr. 2.”

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

If you are looking for Resources on Palestine, we have set up a page with useful links. We will be continually updating the page, so if you would like to recommend other links, please contact us on team@theleftberlin.com. You can also find all the reading from our Palestine Reading Groups here.

This week’s Campaign of the Week is a new project by Palestine artists Rasha al-Jundi and Michael Jabareen, regular contributors to theleftberlin. Anakeb Communications Consultants is a communications consulting firm whose mission is to combine diversity, uniqueness and ingenuity to address communication needs in a distinct and original style. “Anakeb” is plural for spider in Arabic. Spiders have a sense of design, are industrious in building their homes and they think big. If you want a communication job done right, get a spider to do it. You can find out more about Anakeb from their website.

In News from Berlin, celebrations as Germany legalizes cannabis, and video surveillance planned for Wedding.

In News from Germany, teachers’ union calls for more discussion of the AfD in classrooms, petrol consumption in Germany rises for a third successive year, football shirt design contains apparent SS symbol, and dual citizenship law is passed.

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

New on theleftberlin, we report on the protests against German press coverage of Palestine, we interview students threatened with ex-matriculation for just protesting, as Oppenheimer wins the Best Picture Oscar, Ilya Kharkow looks at how nuclear weapons threaten us all, Dr. John Puntis looks at a fresh attack on British doctors, Phil Butland asks what has happened to the German Left Party?, and Isobel knight questions left-wing attacks on woke.

Our Podcast of the Week is one for the German speakers, but gives more details on an article on theleftberlin this week. Lena Obermaier and Yusuf are the guests of Lange Rede kurzer Dschinn, where they compare the treatment of Palestine in German and English Universities in the light of the recent threat of ex-matriculation for activists in Berlin.

In this week’s Video of the Week, Berlin based Jewish socialist Rachael Shapiro looks at why the Sparkasse froze the bank account of the Jüdische Stimme, and argues that the Jüdische Stimme is not just being attacked for being Jewish, but also because they’re fighting alongside to their Palestinian siblings and comrades.

You can follow us on the following social media:

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

Keep on fighting,

The Left Berlin Editorial Board

“For the Workers not the Wokers”

The Rise of the Anti-PC Left


In a tweet in early February, George Galloway claimed he stands ‘for the workers, not the wokers’. He was recently elected as MP for Rochdale in Northern England, as a representative of the Workers Party of Britain; a hard-left party, founded by Galloway himself, that strongly opposes the ‘woke left’, and promises to combat ‘increasingly unhinged identity politics’.

The word woke, once used within Black communities to draw attention to inequalities and racially motivated threats, has been weaponized by the right wing around the world. It is used pejoratively to refer to a wide range of ‘liberal’ ideals; ranging from the serious to the deeply trivial. The word’s original meaning has been essentially erased, coming to stand for anything vaguely left-leaning or politically correct, especially when it comes to identity politics. 

The debate surrounding ‘woke’ culture has escalated so massively that many on the left are tired of its constant discussion, or also feel that things have gone too far, and politicians like Galloway are jumping on the woke-bashing bandwagon to win over these voters.

Yet, who exactly are the ‘wokers’ Galloway scorns? They are reminiscent of the populist enemy number one, the Metropolitan Elite. This mystical group of globalised, flat-white-drinking city slickers have long been the target of right-wing politicians, as they supposedly attack institutions like the traditional family, the dairy industry, and the very concepts of nationality and gender. 

In a YouTube video titled ‘Sick of the woke left’, Galloway condemns the ‘woke madness’ in Scotland that he believes has been imported from the US, and is met with hundreds of comments of support. But does he actually believe that the ‘wokers’ are Britain’s biggest issue? It is thought that Galloway won the (formerly Labour) seat in Rochdale primarily due to his strong pro-Palestinian stance, so it’s hard to determine how much his party, or his constituents, care about this fight against the ‘woke’.

Galloway has long been a controversial figure of British politics – be it his infamous meeting with Saddam Hussein, or his play-acting as a cat on Celebrity Big Brother. Yet, cancel culture doesn’t seem to have particularly damaged his career, and try as they might, mainstream British politics cannot seem to get rid of him.

In Germany, an equally divisive figure has attempted to mix leftist fiscal policy with populist-leaning, anti-PC rhetoric. Sahra Wagenknecht – a prominent former member of Die Linke – founded her own party (BSW) in January 2024, promising a combination of pro-Russia foreign policy, strict immigration laws, and left-leaning economics. She claims that leftist politics have become more about gender, race and ‘lifestyle’, as opposed to issues such as pensions, wages and the social state, and her party aims to combat this.

For voters in Germany who feel angered by ‘woke’ culture and the ‘elites’, Wagenknecht’s new party could offer an alternative to the far-right AfD, which is also strongly opposed to PC culture (co-chair Alice Weidel has said that political correctness belongs in the ‘dustbin of history’). If these issues are going to swing elections, then it is arguably better, from a pragmatic point of view, to choose the lesser of two evils – socially right and fiscally left vs. socially right and fiscally right. Yet, Wagenknecht’s BSW party is new, its politics are shaky, and only time will tell how successful it will be in June’s EU elections and September’s local elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. 

(Galloway has shown his support of Wagenknecht, responding to a video of her calling for an end to German military aid to Ukraine with a tweet saying ‘This woman is the only sane future for Germany’.)

In Westminster, ‘woke’ is no longer just an alluded-to concept, but rather unironic terminology used in Parliament. Former GB news presenter Esther McVey now serves as the Minister of State without Portfolio – yet is unofficially known as the ‘common sense tsar’, dedicated to fighting the ‘scourge of wokery’. Though this may sound like a quest from the Lord of the Rings, it shows how desperately the Tories are clinging to the battle against ‘woke’ as a last-ditch attempt to win voters before the General Election. 

Perhaps the most polarising topic under the ‘woke’ umbrella is trans rights. In February, Rishi Sunak’s joke in Parliament about trans women was strongly criticised by Keir Starmer, as the mother of murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey was present. Through mere critique, Starmer gained a temporary moral high ground without having to do anything material to benefit trans individuals, demonstrating perfectly how these debates and arguments are often just empty words, designed to create and then soothe moral panics.

It can feel like contemporary Western politics is drowning in culture wars, with social issues, many of which only affect a small minority of the population, taking up enormous amounts of space – be it in the media, the Bundestag or the House of Commons. Regardless of personal opinion, it is clear that these issues are utilised as political weapons, aimed to divide and polarise, to win over voters who care more about tangible social issues than they do more abstract economic ones. 

The continued attacks against ‘wokeism’, and its constant discussion at the expense of more pressing matters, are just contributing to the noise, adding fuel to the culture war fire. Perhaps the only way to combat ‘woke’, ‘wokers’ or ‘wokery’ (take your pick) is simply to retire these phrases from political debate once and for all.