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Stop the killing in Gaza! End the occupation!

Statement by the Initiative Sozalismus von unten (“Socialism from Below”)


28/10/2023

The Middle East is on fire. The current escalation began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 6, where many civilians were killed in the commando raid and over 200 were taken hostage. The raid and the subsequent reaction of the Israeli government mark a turning point in the situation.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army is carrying out a collective punishment of the population in response to the Hamas attacks. Every day, hundreds of men, women, and children die from bombs, the collapse of the health system brought about by the violence, and the lack of electricity and food supplies. “We are fighting human animals and will treat them accordingly,” commented Israeli Defense Minister Joaw Galant on the complete blockade of water, food, electricity, and fuel to the more than two million people in the besieged area.

The displacement of over a million people from northern Gaza, in addition to the ongoing attacks on the West Bank, threatens the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

The German coalition government has issued a carte blanche to the Israeli government for its retaliatory actions, supplying it with weapons in support of these actions.

How could this have happened and how can the killing be stopped?

On October 6, the armed wing of Hamas and various other armed Palestinian organizations launched a combat operation, breaching the six-meter high and ten-meter deep barrier surrounding the Gaza Strip, known as the world’s largest “open-air prison,” entering Israel with hundreds of fighters. For the first time in decades, Israel’s army and intelligence services were caught off guard. It was not until days later that the Israeli army was able to recapture its military bases.

For Palestinians around the world – in the occupied territories, refugee camps and in exile – the breakout was a sign of resistance against the occupation after more than 16 years of imprisonment and siege in Gaza.

The people of Gaza knew that this event would result in a massive counterattack. However, the enormous support that ensued from Palestinians must be contextualized against the backdrop of the intolerable daily living conditions that they have been subject to under the occupation for almost two decades. 97% of drinking water is unfit for consumption. Electricity is available for only a few hours a day. Medical supplies and food are rationed. Unemployment is consistently above 50%. All of this is accompanied by daily attacks and arial bombardments by the Israeli army, leading to the ongoing destruction of Gaza’s vital infrastructure. Since 2020, the UN has deemed Gaza an unviable living environment due to years of Israeli blockade and isolation. Under these deadly conditions, there can be no hope for improvement.

As the Israeli military attempts to distract domestic attention from the fallibility of its “security services,” the U.S. has responded by immediately stationing two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean.

Israel’s positioning in U.S. foreign policy arises from the fact that the region’s vast oil resources can be controlled by U.S. policy only as long as the states in question are ruled by regimes dependent on the United States. History has repeatedly shown that these regimes are threatened by revolutions, as seen as recently as 2011 in the “Arab Spring.” 

Israel, on the other hand, has always remained a stable ally, due to the special circumstances surrounding the state’s origins. Israel was founded by European settlers who had only recently escaped antisemitic persecution in Europe, driven by the conviction that as Jews, a Jewish state was the only possible means for them to live safely and securely in the future. This is the basic maxim of Zionism, the Jewish national movement, summarized by the slogan: “A land without a people for a people without a land.”

In order for the state to be “Jewish,” the Zionist movement dictated that it had to consist exclusively, or at least primarily, of Jews. Long before the founding of the Israeli state, the movement thus attempted to remove the non-Jewish population from every piece of land they settled. With the establishment of the State of Israel, this policy escalated into the expulsion of much of the Palestinian population from the area, referred to by Palestinians as “the Nakba” (“catastrophe”). 

From its founding until today and irrespective of the ruling government in power, the state of Israel has stood in irreconcilable opposition to the Palestinians, whom they expelled from their land and continue to displace on a daily basis. Through this positioning, Israel stands, by default, in opposition to every anti-colonial or national liberation movement in the region, and represents the perfect ally for maintaining and strengthening imperialist rule in the Middle East.

German foreign policy is also guided by the motivation to maintain the region’s dominant imperialist structure, rather than by so-called “moral values.” This was the driver of Germany’s close security cooperation with the Egyptian dictatorship until its fall in 2011, and with the new dictatorship after its coup two years later. It is why German arms manufacturers are allowed to supply entire factories to Saudi Arabia. And it is why solidarity with Israel is at the heart of German national policy (“Staatsraison” or “raison d’état”).

Widespread protests against the bombing and expulsion of the Palestinians are indiscriminately treated in the media as antisemitism.

Many people in Germany remember the crimes of the Nazis with disgust, particularly with regards to the Holocaust. In this spirit, we stand firmly against attacks on Jewish institutions and antisemitism.

However, this revulsion has been used for decades to discredit anyone who speaks out against the oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state by labeling them as “antisemitic.” This, in turn, allows the federal government and its allies in the media to perpetuate the discrimination against Palestinians. Displaying Palestinian symbols is banned. Demonstrations, vigils and in some cases, the wearing of Palestinian scarves, are prohibited. Freedom of speech is restricted. The most marginalized and oppressed people in Germany – refugees primarily from regions where experiences with colonialism have engendered a solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement – are thus further disenfranchised. 

As a by-product of these dynamics and policies, the political right often accuse left wing activists of antisemitism and “forgetting the past,” as exemplified by the personal attacks on federal press spokesperson of Fridays for Future, Elisa Baş, by BILD and other Springer media. Activists must contend with the very real fear that speaking on the Middle East conflict will provoke a defamation campaign against them.

The only means of contesting and refuting this framework is by stating clearly and unequivocally that the state of Israel does not speak for or represent all Jewish people. This is exhibited by widespread protests by Jewish activists around the world. In Germany, Jewish activists from the organization “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East” have been arrested on numerous occasions at demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians.

The equation of the State of Israel with the Jewish people, a narrative pushed by both the Israeli and German governments, deliberately and purposefully blurs the true conflict.

Colonialism, racism, anti-Semitism, displacement and war are all elements of a system of exploitation and oppression that exists everywhere.

Every additional death in the region is one death too many. And every fatality is a direct and indirect result of the dynamics of the occupation and settlement policies of the Israeli state, and violent reactions to this oppression. Liberation from occupation and oppression can only be achieved through grassroots resistance from the ground up, alongside the people of the Middle East and against their respective rulers.

  • End the occupation and the war on Gaza!
  • Free Palestine!
  • Stop the criminalization of Palestine solidarity!

EVENT: How can we build solidarity with Palestinians?

with Ramsis Kilani and Elisa Baş

7 November, 7 pm 

Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin (behind Festsaal Kreuzberg)

Meeting in German with translation into English. Zoom details to follow

This article first appeared in German. Translation: Rachael Shapiro. Reproduced with permission

Stop the war and bloodshed in Gaza and Israel!

Resolution of the district executive DIE LINKE. Neukölln passed on the 12 October 2023


27/10/2023

DIE LINKE. Neukölln commemorates the victims of the war in Israel and Palestine and expresses its deep sympathy to the their loved ones. Neukölln is also home to many people with Israeli and Palestinian backgrounds; our thoughts are with our fellow citizens who are worried and grieving for their abducted, injured and killed relatives, friends and acquaintances, and who must continue to fear for the lives of their families and friends.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln condemns the horrific attacks by Hamas on Israel. The attacks on civilians, their murder and abduction, are war crimes that cannot be justified by anything.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln condemns the Israeli bombardments, to which civilians in Gaza are exposed without protection and without the possibility of escape. The complete blockade (electricity, water, food) of the Gaza Strip also takes the entire population hostage and constitutes a war crime.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln stands in solidarity with all those democratic forces who are working for a peaceful solution to the conflict and for a future in which all people in this region can live together in peace, dignity and security.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln demands an immediate ceasefire, the release of the hostages and the lifting of the blockade of Gaza. It advocates an end to the Israeli occupation, which is illegal under international law, and an end to the systematic oppression of the Palestinians.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln calls on the federal government to stop the export of weapons to war and crisis zones and to work for an immediate ceasefire and for the settlement of the conflict by peaceful means.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln criticises the blanket bans on demonstrations in connection with Palestine solidarity in this country and the resulting massive restriction of fundamental rights. The most recent demonstrations on 11 October also faced repression and the use of force by the police. Even a demonstration by students and parents against racism and violence at a school in Neukölln was banned.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln opposes the renewed attempt by politicians and the media to stigmatise people with a migrant background in Neukölln and to expose them to a racist campaign.

DIE LINKE. Neukölln remains steadfast in the struggle against antisemitism, anti-Muslim racism and any other form of racist discrimination. It will continue to work for a peaceful and mutually supportive coexistence of all Neuköllners, whether from Palestine, Israel or other parts of the world, and whether they are religious or not. For a peaceful coexistence of all people in a Neukölln of solidarity!

The original version of this statement (in German) can be found on the LINKE Neukölln website. Translation: Priska Komaromi. Reproduced with permisson

Decisive moment: Oct 7 and the consolidation of rightwing power in Germany

It’s time we call a spade a spade on the current state of repression and police brutality in Berlin and beyond.


25/10/2023

By now, most people reading this are likely familiar with the police violence and general climate of repression of our civil liberties here in berlin. Many of us have already seen it with our own eyes or even experienced it firsthand.

Protests are being banned moments before they are due to start so that police have a pretext to brutalize and arrest those assembled. Every morning, new videos circulate on social media of police beating, choking, and pepper spraying people on Sonnenallee the night before. Signs of solidarity with Palestine are forbidden, and in a Neukölln school, a teacher physically attacked a student for wearing a Keffiyeh. All of this has been aided by the media who help to peddle a narrative that these measures are necessary due to the “imported antisemitism” infiltrated by Middle Eastern people, and expressions of support for Palestine are criminalized as such.

On this website, we’ve written about how the label of antisemitism is used as a carte blanche to revoke our democratic and constitutional rights, and how the police are able to operate with impunity as they racially profile, beat, and arrest Arab people by projecting this label onto them. We’ve also discussed how this justification barely holds up when even Jews and Israelis demanding an end to the genocide are labeled antisemitic or even detained for expressing the wrong opinion, as they are also brutalized and their constitutional rights are denied. 

To those foreigners living in Berlin who were not raised in this culture of so-called German guilt, this all looks infuriatingly backward and disturbing. We’ve written about that too. And there’s surely a lot more to say about the kind of psychosis that German society appears to be experiencing with respect to their handling of their own genocidal past. Namely, how they’ve increasingly managed to disavow this guilt by outsourcing it onto Muslim and Arab people in alarmingly racist ways.

These are all important cultural questions, and there are certainly people more qualified than I am to unpack them. So here I would like to draw our attention to what is still veiled – albeit thinly – behind the scenes of our anger and frustration with Germany’s response to the genocide in Gaza. What I see is a growing consolidation of power in line with a rightwing, authoritarian agenda. Such is well encapsulated in the following anecdote:

This is something we should all be concerned about. I would even wager that this increasingly emboldened current of white supremacy represents the greatest threat to all minority groups, to civil society, and to the creative cultural enclave that is Berlin. 

Beyond the above anecdote, we can also see this phenomenon expressed in the unprecedented alignment of Die Linke with AfD. Recently, they came together to vote unanimously in favor of Germany’s decision to back Israel in its collective punishment of Gazans. The relentless efforts to manufacture consent for the racist treatment and targeting of Muslim and Arab people should also be understood through this rapidly accelerating turn to the right. For example, the center left party SPD, lead by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is now openly putting forth the idea of mass deportations. This is all taking place as CDU suggests revoking dual citizenship for those who express support for Palestine, the consistent labeling of protesters as “Hamas sympathizers,” and I have already started to hear anecdotes of refugees having their asylum status threatened for the same. 

What if we also look at the widespread and unchecked police violence that’s been occurring over the last days as a growing expression of rightwing authoritarianism, rather than an attempt to cleanse the city’s streets of so-called antisemites hailing from the Middle East? And by the way, statistically speaking, 93% of antisemitic attacks in Germany are committed by rightwing extremists. In light of this, it makes sense that in a recent letter co-signed by over 120 Jewish artists, writers, and scientists living in Germany, its authors explicitly state that rather than fearing their Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian neighbors, “What frightens us is the prevailing atmosphere of racism and xenophobia in Germany, hand in hand with a constraining and paternalistic philo-Semitism.”  

While it seems much of the white German public is content to sit in silence or even turn their backs as the police violence and criminalization of Arabs and Muslims continues, our current state of affairs ought to come as a word of warning. The repression and suspension of civil liberties might not seem to directly affect those who are insulated by their German passports and their whiteness, and many may delude themselves into thinking that they can remain unaffected if they simply don’t step out of line. 

Yet, if as I’ve argued we should, we frame all that’s happening as part of a larger trend towards rightwing authoritarianism that has been years in the making, it should scare us all. Not long ago, the AfD was merely a fringe party, and other politicians aimed to distance themselves from it. Now, polls indicate that 20% of Germans would vote for the AfD in the next election. I recently commented to a friend that the flagrant state repression and police violence we’ve been seeing here in German society since the 7th of October marks another step toward our descent into fascism, and he remarked that we are probably already wading in it.

As the powers that be – from our political and cultural institutions to the media to our labor unions – continue to try and pit Jews and Muslims against each other through racist fearmongering, we can easily become blinded to the real threat to our society. Now is a time to remain vigilant and to hold onto our outrage as our civil liberties are revoked at will. This moment calls upon us to push through our fears in the face of the very real institutional intimidation and state violence, which leave us feeling as if we might be punished next by the police or in our workplaces. Our chance to take a stand is now, and that window might be closing more rapidly than we think.

The good news is that every time we manage to do so, we get a small taste of the liberation that we are fighting for – in solidarity with Palestinians and in defense of our freedoms here in Berlin. 

Syriza’s new leader. Game over for the Left?

Who is Stefanos Kasselakis, the newly elected leader of Syriza, and what does this mean for the Left in Greece?


24/10/2023

“…the modern Left acknowledges the economic environment in which we live. The word “capital” is not a word to be demonized. And the word ‘work’ has to be an appeal for ‘cooperation’, for a new social contract in which workers are actively involved in the development of the corporation.”

(Newly elected president of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, speaking at the Annual General Assembly of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) on October 9 2023).

On June 29 Alexis Tsipras submitted his resignation from Syriza’s leadership under the load of a humiliating defeat at the consequent parliamentary elections of May 21 and June 25, in which Greece’s left party scored a mere 18% (in comparison with 33% in 2019), while the ruling right wing party of New Democracy received 41% and the mandate to form a self-reliant government for a second time.

Although it was obvious that the opposition party was entering a new phase in the search for a new strategy, hardly could its members expect that the president to be elected three months later would shamelessly express such political opinions. After all, Syriza is still considered a party of the radical Left, one that 8 years ago was promising a break with the ruthless capitalist institutions of the EU and a better future for the many. So how did it end like this?

At the aftermath of the elections, Syriza members could fairly agree that Syriza had failed to provide opposition to the harsh neoliberal policies of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his government, despite the opportunities offered by the combination of the latter’s economic incompetency and the social struggles which broke off, including strikes, anti-racist struggles, a #metoo movement, unrest inside universities, etc. During this period Syriza voted in favor of more than 50% of the government’s laws.

Four party cadres rushed to express their candidacy for the leadership: Former minister Effie Achtsioglou, Euklides Tsakalotos, former minister of finance, representing the left tendency “Umbrella” inside Syriza, Tsipras’s close ally Nikos Pappas and veteran social democrat Stefanos Tzoumakas, who originally came from PASOK. Everyone was talking about a match between the left Tsakalotos and the more pragmatic Achtsioglou until, on August 29 Stefanos Kasselakis announced his own candidacy.

Who is Stefanos Kasselakis?  

Back in May, almost nobody knew the handsome young gay man who, following Tsipras’s recommendation, was included in the parliamentary elections ballot. Born in Athens, Kasselakis moved to the U.S. after receiving a scholarship and graduated with a B.A. in International Relations and a B.Sc in finance from the University of Pennsylvania. While he was a student, he volunteered for Joe Biden’s campaign during the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries. A clear supporter of free market, “less” state, and liberal reforms, he had expressed openly his admiration for the right wing leader Mitsotakis in articles he used to write for the conservative Greek newspaper “The national Herald of New York”, but ended up a supporter of  Syriza. He had worked for Goldman Sachs, for the think tank of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. and later founded Swift Bulk shipping company. Before standing in the parliamentary elections and running for Syriza’s leadership, he hardly had any relation with the party. He appeared just in one TV panel to replace someone else and attracted lots of sympathy as he stood against homophobic accusations expressed by a far-right candidate. After the elections he returned to the US, where he was permanently residing.

Nevertheless, running a short-term but super modern and glossy campaign, Kasselakis enjoyed a clear victory over Achtsioglou in the second round of Syriza’s elections. He hardly focused on the country’s issues (poverty, wild fires, floods, repression), but mainly on his own advantages as a qualified leader capable to defeat Mitsotakis by transforming Syriza into a type of U.S. Democrats party.

Pro- government press welcomed the victory of Kasselakis in SYRIZA, seizing the opportunity to celebrate the “end of the Left” and commenting that “the government of Mitsotakis has practically no opponent”.

This is far from the real picture, but then, where did he get his support from?  For the lovers of conspiracy theories, Kasselakis is the perfect case for CIA involvement in Greece’s political life and, considering the country’s rough post war history, this sounds possible. However, such theories explain neither the disappointment among older members that did not show up to vote in the leadership elections, nor why some 40,000 new-comers showed up and waited patiently in long queues to join the party (total participation was around 150,000 members), in the vivid hope that they will elect the leader to save the people from the hated right-wing government of New Democracy.

Today everyone knows that Kasselakis was introduced by Alexis Tsipras himself and the group around him, notably the feisty ex-health minister (and ex far-leftist) Pavlos Pollakis, (in)famous for being tough against the right wing. Tsipras did not make any official statement, but what happened is that considerable sections of the party apparatus, which before were blatantly aligned with Alexis Tsipras, moved to Kasselakis, using exactly the arguments that the leadership had previously set up against the internal party minority, i.e. blaming the Left for the party’s isolation from Greek society. Only this time, the same arguments were used against both, Achtsioglou and Tsakalotos. Pappas of course rushed to support Kasselakis.

This was the second time that Syriza practiced the system of electing the party leader with the system of polls for all party members and not in the party conference, following conscious political discussion among the active members and decisions on the party programme. Alexis Tsipras had introduced this reform in 2022 on the argument of “empowering the rank and file” and had himself elected with 99.05% (!). Until his resignation last summer, no one in the party dared question his politics or his leadership, including the left Umbrella tendency. The latter focused their differentiation on organizational issues and the lack of internal democracy but, how can these issues be separated from politics?

Kasselakis is the outcome (not the cause) of Syriza’s right-wing trajectory

Syriza’s rise, U-turn in 2015 and eventual fall has been broadly discussed and analyzed elsewhere in this webpage. There is however a milestone: When the party lost the 2019 elections and moved from the office to opposition, the leadership team around Alexis Tsipras decided that Syriza should get rid of its radical past, because this was a legacy of the era when the party was hovering only between 3 and 5%. In this context, a party that sets itself to become a government partner but at the time had to be in opposition, had to adopt the attitude of a “government in anticipation”. This “violent maturing” of 2015 became a fundamental principle and was incorporated to Syriza’s programme and organizational structure. This describes in summary the tragedy of a left party delivering right-wing opposition, one that failed to face the horrible right wing government of Mitsotakis.

There was no “novelty” in this strategy. In Italy the Communist Party changed even its name from P.C.I. to Democratic Party, and completely dumped the old remnants about the “government of the Left”. It became evidently a party of neoliberalism, with Renzi as prime minister, who implemented a harsh programme of cuts, unemployment, abolition of collective agreements and undemocratic amendments to the constitution. These developments paved the way for Salvini and later Meloni to increase their influence even in the main working-class regions of Italy. Despite negative international experience, the leadership around Tsipras engaged in this destructive project. Internally, they humiliated every leftist voice that disagreed or even wavered along this path. SYRIZA’s last conference was a triumphant domination of Tsipras and his politics. No organised tendency dared question him or his political direction.

The members of the left opposition “Umbrella”, stayed loyal under the slogan “there is only one President” and tried to stick to the “unanimously proposed political programme of the conference”, they only questioned the proposed organizational reforms. The method and arguments with which they fought this battle turned out to be piece of cake for Tsipras, who accused them of conducting “a game of thrones that is indifferent to Greek society”!

Syriza was already in the trajectory of transforming itself to a “modern” European social democratic party, one that has since long disengaged from the commitment to organised members, grassroots organisations and bodies elected by and accountable to the rank and file. For “modern” social democracy, this kind of  party is nothing more than “inner apparatuses detached from society” that has to be abandoned. What is needed is a “charismatic leadership” that is free to make decisions independently from party structures, and the people “judge” those decisions by voting in general elections.

SYRIZA finalized this process at its latest conference. And of course it made sure to carry out the right-wing agenda in practice, even when the government of New Democracy was shaken by scandals, mass anger and mobilizations. In the period of the pandemic, when hospital workers were fighting battles demanding the strengthening of the Greek NHS, the proposal of the “new” Syriza to the government was that a “commonly accepted” health minister had to be appointed. When the island of Evia burned out by wild fires in 2021 and the anger culminated to the slogan “Mitsotakis fuck you”, SYRIZA delivered lessons of “political culture”.  When the train accident at Tempi caused by train privatizations and leaving 57 people dead sparked massive mobilizations in March this year, SYRIZA spoke about the need to “move smoothly” to general elections. Even after the horror of the shipwreck at Pylos, one that cost hundreds of refugee lives just before the second polls, Alexis Tsipras’ SYRIZA insisted on supporting the EU policy against refugees and defending the wall built at the border with Turkey. It is impossible to separate the entire rightward trajectory of Syriza from the election of Kasselakis.

What next?

While this article was being written, the second round of council and regional elections was finalized, with New Democracy on the one hand remaining dominant, but on the other losing bastions of their influence. The three biggest cities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras are now under the control of the opposition. In Patras the communist member Peletidis won for the third consecutive time and in six prefectures the government’s favourites lost. However, Syriza gained almost nothing, most of the winners came from the broad influence of PASOK, or were right wing dissidents. The Communist Party increased their overall vote and influence. The radical, anticapitalist Left managed to elect a fair number of counselors, especially where groups and formations stood together (as in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki for example). The electoral law is scandalously undemocratic, tailored to assist big candidacies (they get elected from the first round if they score 43%) and excludes smaller ones with the threshold of 3%. Abstention was huge, signifying that a great number of voters feel alienated from all candidates and this kind of representation.

The results opened a new circle of dispute which, coupled with Kasselakis’s pro capital statements and recent unquestioned support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza created inflammable material. But the leadership’s respond is to transfer the anticipated party conference from this November to end of February 2024 and avoid any discourse. A couple of days ago Stefanos Tzoumakas was expelled via a Twitter message by Kasselakis, after the latter read several bitter statements expressed by the former in the press. European Parliament MP Stelios Kouloglou just resigned from Syriza complaining for both, right wing political moves and manipulations. So did an increasing number of the (not so few) left wing members still in Syriza. There is an on-going discussion inside “Umbrella” on whether to stay or resign in co-ordination.

The Left in Greece has never been a marginalized political force. Although split in several formations spanning from the Left of Syriza to the Communist Party and the anticapitalist Left, it has always played a significant role in social confrontations. The momentum and the plain numbers of the people who took to the streets after Tempe or in strikes and anti-racist demonstrations far exceeds the votes the Left gets in elections. The social power of the Left is many times greater than its electoral power.

The question to be answered therefore is not whether the Left is gone, but what kind of left ideas, left strategy and left organization is needed today, so that the upcoming social struggles will be victorious.

Civil Liberties a Small Price for Defending Israeli Aggression

Rising anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia in Germany is evolving into a generalised threat to civil liberties. Nowhere is this more apparent than Neukölln.


23/10/2023

“The rally that was scheduled for today has not been allowed to take place. Please continue on your way home or to other activities.” With these words, the police dispersed the students and parents of the Ernst Abbe High School in the Berlin district of Neukölln. The rally had been called under the slogan “Against violence at school, against racism,” following a physical assault by a teacher at the school against a student carrying a Palestinian flag. A police spokesman justified the ban to Berlin and Brandenburg public radio as follows:

“We could have expected in advance that possibly Hamas sympathizers would instrumentalize this rally for their purposes.”

These alleged sympathizers were supposedly from groups that had called for another demonstration to take place nearby, which had itself been banned the day before.

The limitation of the freedom of expression and the right of assembly is therefore justified on the grounds that if the participants of another banned demonstration might join the institute’s demonstration, the latter is also banned. To better understand the context of this reasoning, it is necessary to address the question of why the first demonstration was banned: there was a chance of anti-Semitic expressions or hate crimes among the demonstrators.

Paradoxically, if this chain of bans had been a mere anecdote, the event would have been scandalous and would have echoed in German public opinion. However, the truth is that bans on demonstrations in defence of Palestinian self-determination, against the Israeli occupation and, in general, of anyone who strongly criticizes the State of Israel have been taking place for years. The bans are preventive, i.e. even if the calls for these demonstrations do not contain any anti-Semitic allusions or any advocacy of violence, the competent authorities consider that, given the possibility that during the celebration of the protest such cases of incitement may occur, they should be banned. In this regard, the authorities are presuming a particular minority group guilty before the fact. 

Especially in Berlin, a systematic ban on demonstrations organized by the Palestinian diaspora has been imposed in recent years. The cases of May 2022 and 2023 around the anniversary of the Nakba (“the catastrophe”, the expulsion of Palestinians from their land in 1948), or in April 2023 are examples in addition to the demonstrations called these days because of the escalation of violence in the Middle East. The rights to freedom of expression and assembly are fundamental rights. International Human Rights standards provide for a restriction only on very specific occasions, where there is a concrete danger to public safety.

The authorities in Berlin base the existence of a specific danger on precedents from similar demonstrations in the past. In its statement of September 12, 2023, Amnesty International warns the authorities of what it considers systematic bans on protests by the Palestinian people in Germany:

“On such grounds, the rights of the Palestinian people and their supporters to organize and demonstrate peacefully are restricted in general (…) and for an indeterminate period of time”.

In addition, Amnesty International’s statement points to the racist bias of these bans. In May 2023, after the Nakba anniversary demonstration was banned, a second demonstration called under the slogan “for freedom of expression and assembly” was banned on the grounds, among others, of the Arab origin of potential attendees. In these circumstances, the site of the planned demonstrations become a zone of racial profiling, with police exercising unchecked authority to abuse, assault, and arrest people. Neukölln, an area characterised by a large concentration of people with Arab origin, increasingly feels like a city governed by a police state.

There have also been cases of limitations on the rights of expression in the cultural sphere when there is a clear criticism of the State of Israel. Examples are the banning of concerts by Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) this year or the banning of the Madrid band Ska-P from playing their song ‘Intifada’. The justification in all these cases is always the same: “anti-Semitism”. The concept of anti-Semitism has been enlarged in such a way that any criticism of Israel fits under the same label. The government website explains how the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism has been supplemented in Germany with an appendix: “In addition, the State of Israel, considered as a Jewish collective, can be the target of these [anti-Semitic] attacks”.

This institutionally anchored German broadening of the concept of anti-Semitism puts pressure on positions critical of Israel. In this context, anyone’s professional or political career hangs in the balance when a possible accusation of “anti-Semitism” threatens. This refers to Germany’s alignment with the Hebrew state: “Israel’s security is Germany’s reason for statehood,” the German parliament ratified in a declaration adopted on Thursday, October 12, which also states that “Germany must make available to [Israel] everything necessary and desired for its defense” (Bundestag motion for resolution 20/8735, registered on October 10).

On the same Wednesday 11, a few hours after the rally in front of the Ernst Abbe high school was broken up, around 5 p.m. around 70 activists gathered at Hermannplatz square,  North of the same Neukölln district, to show their solidarity with Palestine despite the bans. The rally was proscribed. The police surrounded the demonstrators, preventing them from leaving, and proceeded to identify and fine them. The police presence in the vicinity is typical of a mass demonstration. Among the astonished passers-by, a few voices can be heard: “Free Palestine!” All the neighbors seem to be under suspicion by the police, who warn through the megaphone: “Anyone who shows solidarity with this unauthorized gathering will be considered part of it”. Fundamental rights in Germany are in force, but not for everyone.