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French Farmers Give Macron a Headache

As Macron’s government, under new Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, moves ever further to the right, once again a radical mass movement is shaking the country.

John Mullen
31/01/2024

Last year, the biggest workers’ movement for decades mobilized millions across France in an attempt to defend retirement pensions. This year it is the turn of the farmers to revolt. On Tuesday, 6 000 tractors were present at 120 blockades, and at least sixteen motorways were immobilized. Regional government headquarters have been covered with manure, and a number of hypermarket distribution centres (as well as Toulouse airport) were paralysed. On the day that this article is published (Wednesday, 31st January), a column of two hundred tractors from the South of France is heading for Paris, intending to blockade the main wholesale food market of the capital at Rungis. In every town they pass through, locals express support and bring food. A “siege” of Paris and of Lyon has been announced.

France counts over 400,000 farmers, as against 100 000 in the UK. Over four decades, farmer income has fallen in real terms by 40%, and a quarter of French farmers live below the poverty line. In particular, sheep farmers, cattle farmers and fruit producers are often extremely poor. This, along with unsocial hours and isolation, can have tragic consequences. Statistics show that at least two farmers a week in the country commit suicide.

Slogans painted on the barricading tractors vary. They include the following: “I love my work, but I need to earn a living”, “We shouldn’t import food whose production is banned in France”, “Cattle farmers, wine producers, vegetable growers, one struggle !” or “ We want decent prices, not subsidies!”

Radical action works. The government has already made concessions, reducing taxes on tractor fuel, increasing compensation to cattle farmers hit by disease, and promising to put a little more pressure on the big supermarket chains, who use their market power to pay criminally low prices. This is very far from sufficient, and the vast majority of farmers are determined to continue the movement.

We must not see farmers as a homogeneous bloc. The largest farmers federation, the FNSEA, is dominated by owners of huge farms. The farmers’ movement can put forward progressive demands or reactionary ones. The Left should support moves to guarantee minimum prices for producers and to cut into the mega profits of the food and supermarket industries. But other demands, such as for the abolition of the new rule that 4% of land must be left fallow at any one time, to help restore biodiversity, and similar calls to scrap green regulations, must be opposed.

Defend green options

There are three major national farmers’ federations. The biggest, the FNSEA, (which got 55% of the votes in 2019 elections to choose farmers’ representatives) has a leadership who are hoping that the government will concentrate on scrapping green regulations and increasing agricultural subsidies, subsidies which benefit above all the biggest farms. In contrast, the left wing Confederation Paysanne (20% of the votes) is putting forward demands for minimum selling prices and a reduction of the profits of agrobusiness and supermarket chains. The Confederation says blockades should be mostly aimed at supermarket chains. Both federations are, meanwhile, protesting at new European Union treaties which aim at reinforcing the dictatorship of the market and allowing imports into Europe which are not subject to the same environmental and animal welfare rules as local production is.

Macron is hesitating before sending riot cops in, since the farmers have often been solid conservative voters. His interior minister even declared “We do not respond to suffering by sending in riot police” (which must be surprising news to the many strikers, antiracists and ecologists maimed by police on demonstrations in recent years). And farmers interviewed in the media said they were confident the police sympathized with them. This is likely to change as the actions go on, and armoured vehicles were in place around Paris Wednesday, while fifteen farmers have been arrested near Rungis. The situation is changing every day.

The most radical major workers union, the CGT, has called on its activists to attend farmers’ pickets and blockades and discuss common interests. The radical Left France Insoumise also called for support, supporting demands to freeze the profit margins of the supermarket chains and impose minimum pricing. In some towns left wing mayors have organized meetings in support. But some on the left mistakenly refuse to support the movement because of the right wing domination of the main farmers’ federation.

This week’s radical tactics were inspired by the Yellow Vest movement of a few years back, and by last year’s pensions protests, which were particularly spectacular in smaller provincial towns with a solid conservative tradition.

More and more of the distribution centres of supermarket chains are being targeted as days go by, and this is a welcome development. With a major one day teachers’ strike planned this week, a taxi drivers’ protest growing and bus drivers’ strikes in the offing, let’s hope the farmers’ example leads to more generalized revolt.

Why the British Junior Doctors’ strike is so important

Support doctors striking t o preserve a national health service

John Puntis

Becoming a doctor requires five years at medical school; this is then followed by two years of foundation training before entry into core/specialty training (three years for general practice and five to seven years for a hospital specialty). Only when this lengthy postgraduate period has been satisfactorily completed do doctors move from the ranks of ‘junior doctor’ (JD) into senior roles. The term JD is considered by some to be misleading since it encompasses not only newly qualified staff but others who have many years’ experience, leading some to call for a change in terminology.

JDs have been among many sections of the NHS workforce (nurses, physiotherapists, midwives, ambulance staff, radiographers, and consultants) to have taken strike actions throughout 2023 and during a time that Jeremy Hunt had declared the greatest staffing crisis in the history of the NHS and social care.

The first ever strike undertaken by JDs was in 1975 – with the second not until 2016 – over a new contract that sharply reduced the number of hours paid at higher rate and to which they were forced to concede. The third dispute is ongoing with 34 days of action throughout 2023 ending with an unprecedented six days in succession in January 2024. A further ballot is now planned from February 7th – March 20th seeking to extend the mandate for industrial action.

What is the strike about?

The BMA is asking for a 35% rise to restore pay to where it was 15 years ago, recognising this may need to be implemented over several years. The figure was arrived at by using the Retail Prices Index to assess the impact of inflation on salaries, arguing that since 2008 there has been a 26.1% loss of earnings. While the Office for National Statistics criticised this approach (advocating for the Consumer Prices Index) the Royal Statistical Society opined that RPI is the better indicator of change in cost of living, backing the BMA. Additional demands included that the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration become more independent of government when making recommendations for pay awards, and that once pay had been restored, consideration be given to how such severe erosion could be prevented in the future.

Of the 75,000 whole time equivalent JD in training roles, around 50,000 are members of the British Medical Association (BMA), while smaller numbers are members of the TUC affiliated Hospital Consultants and Specialist Association and Doctors in Unite. For the BMA, 77% of those eligible to vote in the February 2023 ballot did so, with 98% voting in favour of strike action. Six months later the figures had barely changed at 71% and 98%. Public support has been strong, but given the BMA does not have an established strike fund (relying on voluntary donations), some doctors may find extending action increasingly difficult for financial reasons. Government has taken the stance that 35% is unaffordable and unreasonable, and has offered only a sub-inflation figure of around 11%. JDs have pointed out that to accept such an offer would be agreeing to a pay cut in real terms.

The JDs have appeared solid and well organised, sharing a wealth of useful information to guide effective strike action and gaining support from consultants (engaged in their own pay dispute). This has led to right wing opprobrium, for example, in Policy Exchange. Reports in The Telegraph have also suggested that a small group of “radical activists” must have taken over the BMA, putting forward such “revolutionary” demands as calling for an NHS Staff Charter, a fund to meet postgraduate medical examination costs, and improvement in representation of junior doctors in deliberations about rota and service design across the NHS!

It is not just about pay

There are many other reasons for JDs being disaffected, with 40% saying they are thinking of leaving the NHS. Causes include chronic vacancies, short staffing on any given day (1,400 doctor posts), burnout from experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic – including the huge scale of deaths, feeling undervalued by government, and ‘moral injury’ caused through being unable to provide the appropriate standards of care to patients. In addition, the old close-knit hospital teams offering mutual support have long since disappeared. Some observe that doctors have become ‘proletarianised’, their activities increasingly circumscribed by a dominant management body preoccupied with cost savings and budgets.

Other persistent grievances involve bureaucracy, lack of a quiet space to write up notes and order tests, outdated and slow IT systems, no provision for a restorative nap on night shift when quiet and no food availability, nowhere to safely store personal possessions/drinks bottle/packed lunch when at work, working long shifts with anti-social hours, no guaranteed breaks for rehydration, eating or even to use the toilet, and bitter memories of being refused PPE by some managers who wrongly insisted that Covid-19 was not principally spread by aerosol. Complaints also focus on strict training structures, the pressure to make an immediate career decision and a bullying culture at work.

Car parking costs have risen to around £1000/year, and child nursery care averages £1000/month. Of course plenty of other less well-paid staff feel these pressures too, and unsurprisingly, just as with JDs, many have come to regard the NHS as a bad employer. Note also that the average medical student debt at the start of their working life stands at £71,000. There are then mandatory recurrent costs in the form of medical Royal College membership subscriptions, General Medical Council (GMC) fees, and medical indemnity. Fees for college exams and during specialty training can add up to thousands of pounds.

On another front, with 8,728 vacancies across the medical workforce, the planned increase in Medical Associate Professionals (MAP) from 3,500 to 12,000 raises concerns that rather than appoint more doctors, workforce gaps will be filled by non-medical graduates. Although medical student places are being increased, retention is a huge challenge when around a third of medical students plan to leave the NHS within two years of graduating, and only 56% of those doctors who enter core training remain working in the NHS eight years later. Writing off student loan debt has been suggested as one strategy to improve retention. With unsustainable workload pressures, General Practitioner (GP) trainees are opting to work part time, meaning the NHS gains only one whole time equivalent GP for each two training places. JDs have raised questions as to why MAP are initially being paid more than themselves – despite having much less training and responsibility – and whether they are in competition for training opportunities. The development of medical apprenticeships as an alternative way into medicine piles on further worry as do bottlenecks in training which see career progression to senior positions blocked.

We must value and support staff to keep them in the NHS

A survey by the GMC found an increasing number of medical trainees experiencing burnout (emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion), with one in five junior doctors at high risk in 2022, compared to one in seven in the previous year. For some specialties, such as emergency medicine, this was as high as one in three in 2022. Doctors experiencing burnout are more likely to consider leaving the profession. A recent survey found that 18% of doctors considered leaving the profession in 2021 – up from 12% in 2019. Problems retaining JDs have knock-on implications for the number of consultant vacancies. A report on staff retention by the Nuffield Trust found that in the year to December 2021, one in 12 GPs left. In total, around 140,000 of NHS staff (one in nine/11%) left the NHS in the year to September 2021; this included one in 10 nurses and one in 18 consultants.

The most common reasons given for leaving were stress, shortage of staff and resources, and low pay.

Conclusion

It makes no sense to drive staff away from the NHS given the huge and increasing patient waiting lists. While there is now a workforce plan of sorts, throwing more staff into a system that many now consider to be a kind of mincing machine while not addressing retention is both costly and untenable. MAP should not be seen as the solution to this problem and must raise serious concerns over patient safety. Pay restoration should be an immediate priority, but there are many other things the NHS needs to do to become a good employer and show proper concern for staff and their wellbeing. A win for JDs would strengthen the pay demands and negotiating power of other staff groups. Ultimately, good patient care depends upon well-trained staff feeling supported and adequately remunerated and wanting to work in the service.

Geert Wilders and the roots of resentment

Wilders’s election victory might seem shocking, but it is the natural response of a depoliticised society. A Dutch socialist writes

Tobias den Haan
30/01/2024

Last November, Dutch Far-right anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders achieved a landslide election win with his PVV party. Far from a sudden shift to the right, this is just the natural response of a society that has been depoliticised and left out in the cold by decades of neoliberal policy. A diagnosis of this ‘’Dutch disease’’:

Nothing out of the ordinary

Geert Wilders and his “Party for Freedom” (Dutch: Partij voor de Vrijheid, or ‘’PVV’’) clinched the Dutch general elections on the 22nd of November, marking the biggest triumph for the infamous Islamophobe. The resounding victory – totalling 23.5% of the vote share – translates to a staggering 37 out of 150 seats in the Dutch House of Representatives. If he can successfully form a coalition government with the other right-wing parties, Wilders looks poised to get closer to government than ever.

News headlines from all over the world expressed ‘’shock’’ at the PVV’s election victory, calling it an ‘’earthquake’’ and ‘’a dramatic result that will stun European politics’’. But we should know this victory is far from surprising. Zooming out even the slightest bit will help us understand PVV’s win.

Geert Wilders is not the first European far-right populist to make a career out of racism, white nationalism, and Islamophobia – nor is he the first to be successful at it. And contrary to what some media outlets portray him as, Wilders is not an ‘’outsider’’.

No humble beginnings

The Geert Wilders we know today is a direct product of the Dutch political establishment. He started his political career in the late 80s with the liberal VVD party – one of the country’s most prominent parties of the last 50 years – and has been a member of parliament for 26 years. Some of his most formative years were spent as a foreign policy assistant to Frits Bolkestein, then-leader of the VVD. Bolkestein is known for having been one of the first Dutch politicians to drive a hard line on immigration, especially from Muslim-majority countries, and Wilders would follow in his mentor’s footsteps.

His work for Bolkestein allowed him to travel to such countries as Jordan, Egypt, Iran and Israel. These trips filled Wilders with distaste and hatred for Islam and Muslim-majority societies on the one hand, and reaffirmed his love for Israel, which he later called ‘’a beacon of freedom and of prosperity, surrounded by Islamic darkness.’’

In 2006, Wilders founded his own party, the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom, or PVV) after splitting off from the VVD, embittered over its acquiescence to Turkey joining the EU. Over the 18-year existence of the PVV, its political programme has largely remained unchanged. Wilders has always campaigned on a toxic combination of white nationalism, xenophobia, climate denial, racism, and anti-Islam rhetoric. His latest election programme foresaw a complete block of new asylum seekers and a ‘’restrictive immigration policy’’. Wilders wants to ban dual citizenship, detain and deport illegal immigrants, and withdraw the temporary residence permits of Syrian refugees, since ‘’parts of Syria are safe.’’ His campaign plans more or less propose a ban on Islamic life, stating: “the Netherlands is not an Islamic country: no Islamic schools, Korans and mosques.“ Wilders is most famous for his virulent statements on Islam, and produced a horrible short-film in 2006 that sought to expose the ‘’inherent violent nature of Islam’’. Speaking about the film, he said:

“Fitna is the last warning to the West. We can choose to pass freedom on to our children or allow our freedom to sink into a multicultural swamp.’’

Despite migration, law & order, and Islam being Wilders’ main themes, his socio-economic politics are perhaps of a different character than many expect. PVV’s most recent election programme foresees tax-cuts on groceries, shorter work weeks, raising minimum wages, lowering energy bills and taking money from ‘’unnecessary’’ climate plans. His ideas have always been much less developed than those of other Dutch parties – many of them are plainly unserious in their ambition – but some of those promises of material betterment have definitely resonated with parts of the Dutch working classes. Even if some of its social politics sound more progressive than the Dutch political centre, the PVV is an extreme-right wing party, and it knows what to use to appeal to broader sections of society.

Though, at the beginning, the PVV did not garner the broader support from the Dutch conservative establishment that it sought. Its main strategist left the party after mere months and claimed that Wilders ‘’had a natural tendency towards fascism’’. His own brother described Wilders’ character as hard-headed and ‘’uncompromising’’. Something extremely odd, but perhaps not entirely unsurprising, then, is the fact that he is the only official member of the PVV. Unlike the rest of the political parties within the Dutch system, the PVV does not operate as a member-based party, granting Wilders complete authority over both the party’s structure and its programme. Despite this, the PVV has been a constant factor in the Dutch political landscape and has been successful to varying degrees over the six elections in which it has participated.

The roots of resentment

The fact that this toxic cocktail of hate has finally led to a big election victory in the Netherlands should not surprise anyone. As internationalist leftists, we know that the efficacy of such rhetoric has been proven time and again in different countries around the world. Perhaps, the persistent image of ‘’the progressive Netherlands’’ put out by the country’s decades of (neo)liberal governments – something most Dutch leftists have never truly believed in – has now definitively been shattered. The Netherlands, with its overly sober and technocratic political culture, may long have seemed immune from such extremism and borderline fascist ideologies, but why would it be?

If anything, it is precisely because of this overly technocratic and borderline emotionless political culture of the Netherlands that far-right, antidemocratic movements are able to flourish. Like in other European contexts, large parts of the Dutch working class are alienated, inflation has hit hard, and the cost of living has gone up massively in recent years. The housing market is in shambles; the average person is unable to buy a house and many struggle to pay rent in Dutch cities, making the Dutch housing market one of the most overpriced in Europe. On top of that, the Netherlands is internationally known as a tax haven for multinational companies, and ranks as one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of wealth distribution.

For almost 50 years, the country has been ruled by varying coalitions of liberals and Christian democrats. These parties have pushed Calvinist neoliberal narratives of ‘’individual responsibility’’ that have penetrated every corner of Dutch society. Everyday issues such as healthcare, public transport, housing, stagnating salaries, and cost of living have been decontextualised and stripped of their inherently political nature. To top it all off, the Netherlands currently has its longest-serving prime minister ever, VVD’s Mark Rutte. For over 13 years, the robotic technocrat Rutte has overseen various privatisations, enacted austerity measures and further contributed to societal depoliticisation, all while raking in several major scandals.

Pair these facts with the complete abandonment of the working classes by Dutch leftist parties, who over the last decades have shamelessly internalised the dominant neoliberal narratives, and the utter refusal of ‘’the political centre’’ to ostracise the far-right, who instead normalised their rhetoric and talking points, and it becomes clear how Wilders was finally able to win.

Prime Minister Wilders

As this article is published, Geert Wilders is still in coalition talks with the right-wing agrarian BBB party, the liberal VVD party and the Christian democratic NSC party. If they form a coalition, what can we expect of the Netherlands in the next few years?

Without a doubt, this right-wing coalition will further criminalise people who seek asylum and will try to decrease immigration as far as possible. Emboldened by the recent EU agreement which seeks to do just that, Wilders will be able to make work of his decade-old racist plans. He will still have to operate within the skeleton of a liberal democracy, but the societal narrative has been pushed so far to the right that his ideas are more palatable than ever. The previous government even collapsed over VVD’s anti-immigration stance; PM Mark Rutte blocked the possibility of family reunification for refugees, after his party had helped create an ‘’asylum crisis’’ with years of defunding and underfunding agencies responsible for the asylum process. Terrible conditions in shelters ensued, leading to an unprecedented first-time intervention by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Netherlands, and countless media headlines that helped erode public support for welcoming migrants and asylum seekers. The tone was set, migration became a major theme in these latest elections, and Geert Wilders happens to more or less own this issue in Dutch politics. He will continue to do so and seek to implement his campaign promises with the help of his right-wing coalition partners.

In the short term, this coalition will also continue to cover for Israeli war crimes. The Dutch governments of recent decades have always supported the Israeli occupation and policies of ethnic cleansing, current PM Mark Rutte allegedly even asked his Foreign Ministry to ‘’cover Israeli war crimes’’, but no politician is as big of a cheerleader for Israel as Geert Wilders. Having visited Israel dozens of times, as well as spending two years volunteering in an illegal settlement in the Occupied West Bank as a teenager, Wilders’ support for the Zionist entity is truly boundless. Like Trump did in 2017, Wilders wants the Dutch embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. His fanatical love for Israel is inextricably linked to his hatred for Islam, in a 2010 speech he said: ‘’The future of the world hinges on Jerusalem. When Jerusalem falls, Athens, Rome, Paris, London and Washington will be next’’. Wilders openly supports the policy of increasing illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank – or ‘’Judea and Samaria’’ as he calls it – which is ‘’an integral part of the Jewish state.’’

Wilders is also notoriously well-connected with European autocrats and far-right actors like Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, Alice Weidel, Santiago Abascal and Matteo Salvini. Potential prime minister Wilders will no doubt seek closer friendships with these leaders and their countries.

Within the Netherlands, the crises are likely to deepen. A right-wing coalition spearheaded by Geert Wilders and the PVV will not and cannot provide any real answers to the growing alienation of Dutch working classes and the depoliticisation of young people. Geert Wilders’ promises to the average Dutch citizen cannot and will not undo decades of privatisation and the neoliberal erosion of communities. His hateful rhetoric will likely embolden and mobilise extreme right-wing forces to come out of the woodwork and claim their space in the new Netherlands.

While Geert Wilders will not singlehandedly plunge the sober Netherlands into fascism, one thing is clear: his racist plans and anti-Islam rhetoric enjoy the broadest support ever. Although not surprising, his electoral victory is alarming in the context of a pan-European rise of far-right ideologies. It is time for those who so often preach about the values of ‘’liberal democracy’’ to defend it with all their might, and for leftists all over Europe to relentlessly push back against these hateful ideologies. We know the ‘’other’’ is not our enemy.

Between a Rock and a Staatsräson: What’s Up With German Media?

German coverage of Gaza has been substandard at best—is unconstitutional state pressure to blame?

Shav McKay
28/01/2024

‘Freedom of the press and of reporting through radio and film broadcast are guaranteed. Censorship does not take place,’ asserts Article five of the German constitution. Supposedly this encodes journalistic freedom into the fabric of the Republic. Yet, as politicians’ assertions of solidarity with Israel, German reporting on violence in Gaza, is either pro-Israel, or is timid and incomplete. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in a much-praised speech on November 2nd, ‘The security of Israel is German reason-of-state (Staatsräson)’. Through omission, hesitation and manipulation approaching propaganda, some channels reflected his words clearly. But others seemed hindered by them and try to convey that there is more to the story without betraying where their sympathies lie.

Tagesspiegel is headquartered in Berlin. The outlet provides news both digitally and in print. Die Zeitungen, which monitors newspaper activity in Germany, ranks Tagesspiegel as the highest-quality regional paper in the country as reviewed by experts. However reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict tends to concentrate on antisemitism, the Israeli hostages, local terrorism threats, and Israeli military activity.

The 167,000-follower @tagesspiegel Instagram account underwent an apparent tone shift around mid-December, when content became more weighted in favour of Palestinian voices in Berlin and abroad. Posts included headlines like ‘Four in ten of those killed are children’; ‘The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is beyond all imagination’ overlaid on images of young boys among rubble; ‘Protests against Hamas in Gaza following the death of a teenager’; and a post highlighting the conflation of grief with ‘terrorism’ within Germany. These and others, appear to humanise Palestinian victims of the conflict and reflect support of their struggle.

The social media presence contrasts with headlines on the Tagesspiegel homepage. While the reporting illustrated in the above posts is also published on the site, it is interspersed among opinions such as the justification of Israeli attacks on non-military targets due to Hamas’ ‘Fusion with civilians’ and an article quoting Munich cardinal Reinhard Marx in a headline suggesting Islam a whole be ‘stopped’.

A possible explanation for Tagesspiegel’s contradictory social media and homepage presence could be related to the age of readers in differing media. More than half of Instagram users in Germany are under 30, and TikTok has a particularly young user base. Those older than 30 use the Holocaust to base their views on the conflict or have oriented their opinions around violence during early 2000s which culminated in Israeli settlers’ withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. In contrast many of those under 30 likely encounter the conflict for the first time in the aftermath of October 7th. Crucially, civilian narratives out of Gaza now circulate on social media platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok and shape public opinion. “Curated” coverage allows the paper to drive positive engagement via @tagesspiegel while providing enough pro-Israel content on tagesspiegel.de to maintain the status quo. Thus they evade accusations of so-called ‘Anti-Israel antisemitism’.

Beyond local news, the nation’s most-viewed, most-trusted source Tagesschau (ARD) included consistent nightly reports for several weeks on the Hamas-Israel conflict in its 8pm segment. The 15-minute broadcast attracts nearly 10 million viewers on an average night—a 34.5% share of the market. Notably, this cultural institution beloved by the German public was confronted with a decisive event several weeks ago when ARD’s own reporters in Israel were held and threatened by Israeli soldiers.

An article on their website called the event ‘a clear attack on freedom of press’, and a corresponding instagram post received more than 250,000 likes and over 7,000 comments. Five days later, an interview was published on the Tagesschau website under the heading Journalists Are Obligated to Document Crimes. In the article, one of the affected journalists, Jan-Kristoph Kitzler, addressed Israeli campaigning to discredit foreign journalism.

In the weeks following Kitzler’s ordeal, Tagesschau 20 Uhr featured a series urging the public to critically engage with media surrounding the conflict. It illuminated reporters’ unique challenges in the area. For example, a story documenting journalist Mohammed Abusaif’s efforts to flee Gaza. Abusaif claimed that civilians keep a wide berth of journalists, as they are thought to be favoured targets by the Israeli military. The broadcast on the November 29th slot dedicated several minutes to address wartime media literacy. Moderator Judith Rackers said that images obtained during conflict are often supplied by the involved parties, ‘difficult to verify, and often false’. Her words reflected a press release from the Deutsche Journalisten-Verband (German Journalists’ Association or DJV). A clip of celebration during a hostage exchange authored by Hamas follows, after which an interviewed ARD fact-checker affirms that opponents in war ‘naturally want to show their side of the story’.

As the broadcast cuts to the next clip, a voiceover claims that the same is true of Israel—that ‘selected’ journalists are accompanied by Israeli military personnel to document the war’s progression. The example in the clip, was originally from an American news agency. It traced the Al-Shaifa Hospital story. Israel justified bombing the hospital with claims that Hamas commando headquarters were concealed in tunnels beneath its foundation. The voiceover says that the military ‘wants to show evidence of a commando headquarters—journalists are shown tunnels and guns’. Following the footage, media scholar Steffen Siegel explains that the ‘great seductiveness’ of images is in their immediacy and the spontaneity with which the public reacts to them.

Dedicating several minutes of a 15-minute programme to educating the public on media literacy following an ‘attack on journalistic freedom’ victimising colleagues, further coupled with the CBS Morning banner on footage of Al-Shaifa Hospital begs a question. Namely, is the nation’s most popular news source grappling with the line between the German state’s pro-Israel sensibilities and responsible reporting? Tagesschau coverage has reasonably sown distrust toward information transmitted via the IDF and of Israel’s motivations among viewers. However it remains a far cry from, for example, CNN reporting that openly questions the verity of IDF claims that a Hamas commando central was located beneath the Hospital.

While honest reporting on Gaza is in the interest of the German public and therefore the duty of public broadcasters, a wariness surrounding stories negatively reflecting on Israel leaves Tagesschau with few tools to represent the truth. Foregoing what should be abundant ground coverage for a media literacy lesson during their most precious time slot betrays ARD’s ambivalence. But, as with CBS footage of Al-Shaifa, the German media again looked to the USA following The New York Times’ report stating that Israel had received repeated prior warning of Hamas’ plans for attack.

Source attribution is crucial to news media because the credibility of information depends on it. It also allows journalists to present information that they otherwise are not qualified to, separating the presentation from the realm of subjectivity and personal opinion. Their own convictions are muted and they are perceived as a neutral vessel for factual information. On December first, ARD newscaster Susanne Daubner introduced the NYT report with a question: ‘Did Hamas’ attack on Israel really come as a surprise?’ Because responsibility for the information lies elsewhere, her provocative intonation and the following discussion with Tel Aviv correspondent Christian Limpert received a degree of protection from accusations of anti-Israel bias.

Hiding behind Uncle Sam, appealing to viewers to cautiously consume the data they encounter—alludes to an unseen force restricting ARD’s coverage. With freedom of the press and from censorship enshrined in the constitution, what is the invisible rope tying the hands of German news coverage? According to some scholars, it’s the same Staatsräson Robert Habeck mentioned in his speech.

A document published by the Bundestag late 2023 elaborates on German Staatsräson as an obligation to protect Jewish lives and to the security of Israel, assumed within the text to be interchangeable. It provides Staatsräson as justification for Germany’s vote against recognising Palestine as a UN-non-member observer state in 2012. The obligation to Israel’s security is categorised as an obligation to ‘facilitate a political environment which reduces tensions between Israel and neighbouring Arab countries.’ Closer analysis of Palestinian sovereignty as a threat to Israel is not presented in the document.

Deutschlandfunk, traditionally broadcasts through radio and other audio media but also summarises current events on its website. It has taken an interest in politicians deviating from the accepted pro-Israel doctrine. Opinions which include criticising Israel for having ‘no plan’ for its fight against Hamas; or United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres’ opposition to Israel’s actions and warnings against escalation. Early reporting lent significant attention to Israeli and international casualty numbers alongside the Palestinian civilian death toll; an IDF blunder resulting in the death of 13 hostages; collapse of the healthcare system in Gaza; collective punishment per the UNO; protest bans, as well as efforts against domestic antisemitism. Arguably Israel-sympathetic content appears to have dwindled with the war’s progression.

The outlet tackles Staatsräson’s impact on the German media in an episode of their Breitband podcast. An expert guest interviewed on the podcast, was Meron Mendel, the Anne Frank Education Centre director, professor and historian. Mendel argues that while global news had the same point of origin on October 7th—the shock of Hamas’ attack—coverage in the US and much of the world has since developed in a direction unlikely to be followed by German coverage.

Mendel assessed the initial coverage worldwide portraying Israel as ‘victim’ and Hamas as the ‘perpetrator’, as an image that proved increasingly difficult to maintain. As Israel’s counter-offensive progressed, mounting civilian costs became incompatible with the idea that Israel was acting in self-defence. Turning to American media, he cites the Washington Post’s front-page dedication to images of Gazan child casualties, claiming that ‘such a strong gesture of empathy with Gazan civilians would be interpreted as anti-Israel’ in Germnay. Arguing the German media presents as much more reserved than its American counterpart.

Staatsräson is defined in the episode as either ‘the interests of the state bear importance above all others’ or is ‘a critical, unshakeable principle of the state’. On the latter definition, the German state holds Israel’s right to existence as inviolable and that ‘the security of Israel is the security of Germany’. Note that legal scholar Martin Morlok calls this use of the word a ‘terminological misnomer’. Staatsräson provides a foundation for a nation’s geopolitical handlings. The moderators posed the question, ‘does Staatsräson apply only to the state of Germany, or also to the German media?’

Mendel answered, ‘[the idea that a] government tell its people what to think is anti-democratic’; further, the term has no legal underpinning and is propagated by politicians without an understanding of its meaning or regard for the broader consequences of doing so.

These ‘broader consequences’ are evidenced in Axel-Springer Verlag. The owner of BILD, Welt, Politico, and several daily papers including Berliner Morgenpost among other outlets, declared itself ‘unrestrictedly on Israel’s side’ and amended company policy It now demanded explicit support of ‘the state of Israel’s right to exist’, of employees. The move was praised by former Bundestag Member Jürgen Trittin (Die Grünen). In an interview with weekly newspaper Die Zeit Trittin said that so much should be expected of ‘every publishing house and every political party.’ His words prompted a statement from the DJV rejecting politicians’ attempts to intervene in ‘responsible reporting’. Even if no such demands have been made outside of the Axel-Springer family, the shadow cast by so-called Staatsräson on Germany’s most influential sources is inescapable, driving them to reserved and duplicitous coverage of Gaza.

Mendel acknowledges that the German media must be aware of the resonance that reporting could have with an antisemitic German public. Antisemitism had a clear foothold in German society prior to October 7th. The 2022 Leipzig Authoritarianism Study of more than 2.5 thousand participants found that more than a quarter at least partially agreed with the statement, ‘Even today Jewish influence is too strong’, while 23% said that Jewish people are fundamentally different and don’t ‘fit’ with German society, and a similar number saiod that Jewish people use ‘more tricks than others’ to ‘get what they want’. Audiences could therefore be primed to twist information into fuel for preexisting antisemitic beliefs.

Material presented by Tagesschau, concern from the DJV and the content of the Breitband episode overlap in their message that the conflict requires extra care and meticulousness. Mendel’s proposed solution is to simply dedicate more time and pages to reporting on the conflict to avoid reanimating Germany’s fraught anti-Jewish history while also truthfully documenting atrocities in Gaza. In his own words: ‘German antisemitism is no reason not to broadcast civilian suffering—this obligation is essential to all reporting’.

“It’s so Berlin!” 2: “Cancelled Remains”

The second instalment in our series of photographs and cartoons about Berlin and Palestine.

The Left Berlin
27/01/2024

Following last week’s contribution “Blind Orders“, here are the latest works from Berlin-based Palestinian artists Rasha Al Jundi and Michael Jabareen.

The art and cultural scene in Berlin specifically and in Germany as a whole, hasn’t been “Palestinian-friendly” for some time now, long before October 7th 2023. The loose use of the anti-Semitism card against Palestinian or pro-Palestinian culture creators by a curator, art space, event funder or biased politician has led to the cancellation of events or award ceremonies for those culture creators. In some cases, this madness has led to unfair legal action against the latter.

As struggling artists ourselves, we decided to take this issue up in this image, which includes a pair of white sneakers as the abandoned items.

Titled “Cancelled Remains”, this image features two of the most spotted wildlife dwellers in the urban landscape of Berlin. Rats and foxes blend into the general cultural sector of the city, taking up its typical arrogant attitude. The city’s art bosses rushed to cancel Palestinian and pro-Palestinian artists’ activities including talks and exhibitions (we don’t even know where to pitch any work in this hostile context).

At the time of writing this caption (31.12.2023), we had lost more than 22,000 Palestinians in occupied Palestine. Many of those lost lives were culture creators. In the midst of the genocide, a mother in besieged Gaza held up what remained of her killed son: his white shoes. She screamed in agony and kissed the shoes.

Now imagine her son was an artist and the “civilised” world held an exhibition of his remains for entertainment.

Image taken in Kreuzberg, Berlin (2023).