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Month: December 2023

Remembering the Kristallnacht in the times of collective punishment of the Palestinians

Kristallnacht should remind us of the barbarity of collective punishment


04/12/2023

November 9-10 is a time to remember the ‘Kristallnacht’. Literally meaning, “night of the broken glass”, Kristallnacht – also known as the “November pogrom” – was a time of widespread violence towards the Jewish population of Germany, committed primarily on 9–10 November 1938. This marked a turning point in the persecution of the Jews in Germany and was a paving stone in the horrific path which ultimately led to the concentration camps and gas chambers. The violence was planned and initiated centrally by the Nazi party, but was carried out at local levels by members of armed wing of the Nazis (the SA and the SS), giving it an appearance of mass anger against the Jewish population.

The Kristallnacht was marked by the widespread destruction of Jewish property and places of worship. More than 1400 synagogues throughout Germany were destroyed, together with 7500 Jewish homes and businesses, community centres and even cemeteries. The broken glass from the destroyed properties gave rise to the name “Kristallnacht”, which is actually a euphemism for the widespread destruction of Jewish lives and livelihoods. More than 400 people were murdered or driven to suicide and in the following days the German security police, the Gestapo, arrested around 30,000 Jewish men, who were sent to concentration camps where many were murdered or died. Kristallnacht was a terrible sign of the horrors of the holocaust to come. While the Kristallnacht is remembered by the world, what is not so well remembered are the events leading up to Kristallnacht used by the Nazis as a pretext for unleashing such violence on the Jews of Germany.

The persecution of the Jews had been increasing in intensity ever since Hitler came to power in 1933 through a series of anti-Jewish laws restricting the rights of German Jews to means of livelihood and dignified lives. This persecution was heightened by the first mass deportation of Jews from Germany in the so-called “Polenaktion” (Polish action) in which more than 17,000 Polish Jews were expelled from Germany on 28 October 1938. They were ordered to leave their homes in a single night and were allowed only one suitcase per person to carry their belongings. They were put on trains to the Polish border where the Polish border police pushed them back into Germany. This continued for days in the November cold and rain, with the persecuted remaining without food and shelter between the two borders. A British newspaper wrote that hundreds “are reported to be lying about, penniless and deserted, in little villages along the frontier near where they had been driven out by the Gestapo and left.” A British woman, who had gone to help the expelled people, recalled that conditions in the refugee camps “Were so bad that some actually tried to escape back into Germany and were shot.”

Among these expelled Jewish families was the Grynszpan family. The family had emigrated from Poland in 1911 and had been living in Hannover ever since. On 3rd November 1938, their 17 year old son, Herschel Grynszpan, who was living in Paris with his uncle, received a postcard from the family describing the dire situation on the German-Polish border. They asked him for any help he could provide. On 7th November 1938, Herschel went to the German embassy in Paris with a revolver and fired five bullets at Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat. Herschel made no attempt to escape and freely confessed to the shooting. He carried a postcard in his pocket with the message to his parents, “May God forgive me … I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest, and that I will do.”

Vom Rath died of his injuries on 9th November, 1938. This assassination provided the pretext for the Nazis to attack the Jewish population with unprecedented ferocity during Kristallnacht. Nazi propaganda portrayed the violence against the Jews of Germany as an outbreak of “spontaneous national rage” sparked by the “cowardly murder” in Paris. For the Nazis, this individual act of “terrorism” was the excuse to inflict collective punishment on the Jews of Germany. What happened subsequently is history, a history that should never be repeated.

The memory of Kristallnacht, therefore, acquires further poignancy at this time of collective punishment of the Palestinian population by Israel, using the “terrorism” of Hamas as pretext. Following Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers on 7th October, 2023 (killing 1200 people and taking 200 Israelis hostage) the relentless bombing of Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces has killed more than 10´5,000 people and nearly completely destroyed Gaza. Houses, mosques, hospitals and refugee camps have been indiscriminately bombed and destroyed. Food, water, fuel and electricity have been cut off and Gazans from the North of the strip have been forced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are now concentrated in the south, desperately trying to escape the death and destruction.

The concept of collective punishment is abhorrent, whoever be its victims and perpetrators. It is also illegal; a war crime prohibited in both international and non-international armed conflicts by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 6 of the Additional Protocol II. Article 33 states “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” Moreover, Article 13 of the Additional Protocol II states that “The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.” The prohibition against collective punishment was specifically incorporated in the Geneva Convention of 1949 because of the Nazis’ prolific use against Jews and other populations in Germany and the German-occupied territories. These include the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia, in Oradour-sur-Glane in France, in Putten in the Netherlands, in Sant’Anna di Stazzema and Marzabotto in Italy, in Kortelisy in Soviet Ukraine and in Pirčiupia in Lithuania (where 119 people, including 49 children under 16, were burned alive by a German punishment squadron following an attack of Soviet partisans in a nearby forest).

It is, therefore, ironic that the Jewish state of Israel, the state formed by and for the original victims of collective punishment, is today using it against the Palestinian population of Gaza, with most world governments remaining silent and simultaneously stating it as a right of the Israeli government to “self defence”. The pretext of self defence in the face of apparent acts of individual “terrorism”, disregarding the contexts producing such acts, has long been used by repressive states when inflicting collective punishment on populations. The description of the Palestinians as “human animals” by the Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant is eerily reminiscent of the Nazi characterization of Jews as “sub-humans”. In the so called “war against terror,” over the last two decades, collective punishment has often been normalized as “collateral damage.” We see this playing out in Gaza too. However, it would be an utter disrespect to the memories of the victims of Kristallnacht, and of the many other instances of collective punishment by the Nazis, not to recognize what is happening today in Gaza as the collective punishment of the Palestinians and to demand an immediate stop to it.

“Against Muslims Today means against Jews again Tomorrow”

Speech by Iris Hefets (Jüdische Stimme) and Nadija Samour (Palästina Spricht) at the anti-war demonstration, 25th November 2023 at Brandenburger Tor


03/12/2023

IRIS:

21 years ago, I—literally—forced my family to emigrate from Israel to Berlin. They weren’t happy with the decision, but I didn’t see a future in an increasingly militarised society. Shortly after I was on the streets with hundreds of thousands of others of all colours protesting against the war in Iraq. Here I was, an Israeli, protesting with so many people against the war—I thought surely I had landed in the middle of a dream.

That was Germany in 2003, where nationalism, militarisation, and war were still up for debate. A Germany, where many still knew the meaning of war.

Twenty years later, those who call for a ceasefire are denounced as “Putin-Sympathisers” and “Hamas-supporters.” This is frightening.

NADIJA:

Yes—20 years later we live in a Germany in which unconditional solidarity with war crimes and genocide is reason of state, and in which Palestinians and their supporters by default no longer have basic rights.

I want to remind us of what is happening right now on the Gaza Strip. Since it seems as though the German media attempt to deny and distort the immeasurable pain caused, with full support from the EU and USA, by the Israeli war machine. As we stand here, more than 14,800 people have been murdered, half of them children. More than 6,800 still lie beneath the rubble of destroyed homes and schools. 1.7 million are fleeing; that is 77% of the total population of one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world.

That begs the question: to where should they flee? The Gaza Strip has not only been besieged and occupied for decades, but since October 9th has been cut off completely from fuel, power, water, and food. Without the international community taking action to save lives. Nearly 100 journalists have been murdered on the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank by the Israeli army, medical personnel, hospitals and ambulances, schools, refugee camps, mosques and churches—everything is being bombed, destroyed. On top of it all comes the claim that the victims are at fault because they supposedly share common cause with Hamas.

But unconditional solidarity with war crimes and genocide did not begin driving politics in Germany as of October 2023. Normalisation and full support in word and deed of Israeli settlement colonialism, apartheid and military occupation of Palestinian territories have paved the way for Germany to once again be involved as a world political superpower.

IRIS:

Germany had to rehabilitate itself after the last World War. Because Germans could not speak with the direct victims—be it because they were murdered or, were they able to escape, wanted nothing more to do with Germany—a suitable proxy for reparations was found: the state of Israel.

That was a good solution for all involved. Chancellor Adenauer could carry on rebuilding Germany with former Nazis. Prime Minister Ben Gurion, who was responsible for the first ethnic cleansing in Palestine, got urgently needed money. One hand washes the other.

It was primarily civil initiatives that triggered the German public’s confrontation of deep-seated antisemitism and the crimes committed during the war. Noteworthy examples include the Stolpersteine and the “Places of Remembering” in the Bavarian quarter.

German politics discovered a moral goldmine; ‘the Jews’ were chosen as the object of reparations and Israel as their representative. From ‘the Jews’, who were nearly obliterated because they were stand-ins for ‘the bad guys’ became ‘the good guys’. Very convenient.

Today, the some 200,000 Jewish people living in Germany comprise neither a political nor an economic or electoral power. The Central Jewish Council—who, even under Heinz Galinski and Ignaz Bubis cooperated and showed solidarity with other minorities – is financed by the German government and instrumentalised against Muslims.

In the 1930s, many German Jews denied the racism directed at them and were certain that Germans ‘only’ had something against Eastern Jews. They thought that they were safe because they fought for Germany in the first world war.

Against Muslims today means being against Jews again tomorrow.

NADIJA:

At the same time Germany has elevated Palestinians to being the enemies of the state, projecting onto them ‘barbaric’ traits such as antisemitism, misogyny, queerphobia, and so on. Painting a portrait of the enemy serves a German nationalism that wants to exist in the world once more. Israel serves to showcase a substitute nationalism. A purified Great Germany, that arms its deadly borders, threatens mass deportation, creates racist exclusions through tightened residency and naturalisation laws, and attempts to hinder every resistance with police violence, protest bans and defamation. A purified Great Germany that measures domestic nationalism in weapons exports, all the while believing, despite its core imperialism, it can maintain a clean image.

IRIS:

Today we lack civil resistance to these alarming totalitarian tendencies found hiding behind the ‘fight for western values’ in the Ukraine, or the ‘fight against antisemitism’.

Much alive, and also to be said, very deadly is Adenauer-Globke-Ben-Gurion-ethnic cleansing,  which merges into Scholz-Habeck-AfD-Netanyahu-genocide in Gaza.

in 2010 I published an article in the “taz” — back then I could still write for the German press. It was called ‘Walking on Tiptoe’. It began like this:

‘What do the two professors Ilan Pappe (Israel), Norman Finkelstein (USA) and the publicist Hajo Meyer (Germany) have in common? All three are Jewish, holocaust survivors or descendants thereof, and vehement critics of Israel’s politics.

‘What do the city of Munich, the Trinity church in Berlin, and the Heinrich Böll and Rosa Luxemburg foundations have in common? They, after granting initial permission, disinvited Ilan Pappe and Norman Finkelstein and denied them the event venues promised to them. Just as the Holy Spirit Church in Frankfurt did to Hajo Meyer a few years prior. And so, the aforementioned institutions gave in to the pressures of pro-Israel circles who denounced Finkelstein, Pappe, and Meyer as ‘Anti-Semites’.

Those were the beginnings of state cleansing – through not the AfD or other brownshirt organisations – but supposed progressive actors. All the while, children and eventually the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, are taught by presumed ‘Jew-friendly’ politicians what antisemitism is.

The Bundestag will gut the constitution by replacing legislation with ‘resolutions’. The anti-BDS resolution, supported nearly without exception from the AfD to the Linke, was an alarming sign. Representatives knew that such content as “law” – had no chance of passing because it transgressed upon the right to freedom of speech embedded in the constitution. The perfidious thing is that legal action cannot be taken against such a resolution because it is not legally binding. A new resolution titled ‘Protect Jewish life in Germany’ now threatens us – a resolution according to which those who criticise Israel, incriminate themselves in so-called ‘anti-semitism in relation to Israel’. They risk deportation or having their citizenship application rejected. The AfD no longer needs to become the ruling party, their xenophobic agenda is already coming to fruition. But Germans shouldn’t consider themselves out of harm’s way, either. Cultural institutions that give criticism of Israel a platform, for example, risk losing future financing. By contrast, it seems almost harmless that our organisation, ‘Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East’ (JVP), had its BFS bank account closed in the name of the fight against anti-semitism a few years ago. Jewish people who do not fit the current German portrait of a Jew are undesirable.

I was invited to speak here because five weeks ago I did not want to be silenced by an unconstitutional protest ban. The JVP was not allowed to protest on Oranienplatz, so I went to Hermannplatz in Neukölln alone with a sign that read ‘As an Israeli and a Jew: Stop the Genocide in Gaza’. There I was taken into custody by the Berlin police. After a police investigation the officers apologised to me because I was right according to the constitution and I was escorted to a spot where I stood with the sign for about two hours. Two weeks ago, at a protest for an immediate ceasefire I was again taken into custody with the same sign. The sign was confiscated and the police filed a criminal complaint against me for Volksverhetzung [1]. The same happened to others at this demonstration. Such cases are counted toward statistics on anti-semitic crimes since October 7th.

NADIJA:

As a lawyer who receives a lot of mandates from the Palestinian community, I can report that anti-Palestinian and anti-Jewish repression as Iris describes have been well-known to us for years.

People are losing their work and residency status; artistic venues and cultural institutions are losing their funding; police violence against protesters is celebrated; the media is overrun with shocking propaganda and a general climate of intimidation prevails. Indeed, since October, we experience all this to a degree that I could not have seen coming. In October in Berlin alone, all Palestine protests were blanket-banned through general decree. Pro-Israel celebrations, organised by the state apparatus itself, naturally were not covered by this ban. In Neukölln, a dominantly Arabic working-class neighbourhood, the police ruled the streets with impunity. Arabic-looking individuals were arbitrarily stopped, searched and registered on the street. Schoolchildren have been subjected to disciplinary action and violence at the hands of teachers because the Berlin education senator wanted to forbid the Keffiyeh or other Palestinian symbols. And we are now dealing with thousands of court proceedings involving people who wanted to take advantage of their fundamentally secured right to assembly. But—we must say, clearly and distinctly: it was the daily, unwavering gatherings on Sonnenallee and other parts of the city that finally succeeded in breaking through the protest ban. It was the solidarity of tens of thousands of Berliners and internationalists who fought for the rights of Palestinians. Today at this protest, too, is it important to demand, loud and clear, solidarity with the Palestinian people. Why? Edward Said, one of the most well-known Palestinian intellectuals, tells us: ‘think of solidarity with the Palestinian people here and all over Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, and think, too, of the fact that there is something which engages many, despite the difficulty and obstacles.

‘And why? Because that something is just, a noble ideal, a moral strive toward equality and human rights.’

Long live international solidarity! Free Palestine!

Thank you very much Iris.

Translation: Shav McKay. Reproduced with Permission

Footnote

1 Literally ‘rabble-rousing’, incitement of the people, mass instigation. Conceptually, this is intended in German law to prevent viewpoints considered dangerous to social order from spreading.

Artists and Musicians in Germany Speak Out Against Genocide of Palestinians

In spite of repression, solidarity with Palestinians is growing in Germany


02/12/2023

German-language media in Berlin, from the Berliner Zeitung to the supposedly left-leaning newspaper taz, have been united in their call for for artists and clubs to show support for Israel and the Israeli government in its ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The Berliner Zeitung wrote on 12 October 2023, “AfD and A100, they are clear opponents, but Hamas is not? Why does it seem so difficult right now to mobilize forces of solidarity in Berlin’s techno scene?”

Despite the lack of solidarity or sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza in the German media, artists and musicians in Germany have been speaking out against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli state. They have also spoken out, more generally, against the occupation of Palestine, the support of the state of Israel by Germany, Canada, the United States, Britain, and other white-majority countries, the violence of checkpoints, and the 16-year-long blockade that has made the Gaza Strip an open-air prison. By choosing to show solidarity with Palestinians, artists in Germany who are not Palestinian risk threats, arrest, and loss of income and opportunities. Artists who are Palestinian simply have had no choice: they have faced repression in Germany their whole lives.

To understand how speaking out has been affecting artists, we at the Antifascist Music Alliance asked those artists to report to us any gigs lost due to posting about Palestine on social media. As Israel bombed Gaza in the first weeks after October 7, most of the artists who spoke out against the indiscriminate murder of Palestinians were Black people and people of colour. Even though white artists have also spoken up, Black artists and artists of colour have been the most affected by cancelled gigs. Such a discrepency can serve as a reminder for white artists to use their privilege in this moment to turn the tides of support in Germany.

Pinkwashing and the German media

You have probably read the term “pinkwashing” in connection with the state of Israel. “Pinkwashing” is an effort by the Israeli state public relations initiative “Brand Israel” to portray Israel as especially welcoming to queer people. “Brand Israel” launched in 2005 after a three-year consultation with American marketing executives, to rebrand Israel as “relevant and modern, instead of militaristic and religious,” as Sarah Schulman lays out in Brand Israel and Pinkwashing: A Documentary Guide, an appendix to her book Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. “Brand Israel” thus makes use of anti-Muslim hate and racism amongst Israel’s supporters to portray Palestinians as homophobic. In Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, Sa’ed Atshan clarifies:

Pinkwashing is defined as a discourse on Israeli LGBTQ rights aimed at detracting attention from violations of Palestinian human rights. […] The dynamic that this term signifies is as follows: rather than improve its global standing by providing Palestinians with basic human rights, the Israeli state and its supporters, increasingly moving to the right, seek to market Israel as a state that supports LGBTQ individuals and communities.

In an article in the Berliner Zeitung (BZ), a Berlin-based Black trans DJ mentioned that they had posted an Instagram story about a “police-banned, anti-Israel ‘Demo in Solidarity with Palestine’ on Neukölln’s Richardplatz.” The BZ reported, “police feared anti-Semitic exclamations, glorification of violence as well as violence.” The reporter then added that the DJ is “queer and trans themselves. Hamas would certainly disagree with this way of life. But there seems to be this certain tendency in the club world, even among people who themselves belong to minorities, to feel solidarity with the Palestinians without any ifs and buts – and to label Israel simply as a perpetrator and colonialist aggressor.”

Queer Palestinian-American @officialjakegyllenhalal published a video response to the argument, “You would be ____ed in Palestine as a (rainbow flag emoji) person.” In it, she says, “Homophobia, transphobia and misogyny unfortunately exist in all parts of the world and just because it can happen in Palestine […] does not mean that Palestinians don’t deserve to exist because of it.” She clarifies a few reasons why this idea is so harmful: for one, it denies the diverse existence of Palestinian people. There are of course many queer and trans Palestinians. She adds that the “attempt to homogenize [Palestinians] is a dehumanization strategy in and of itself,” and it takes away the right of Palestinians to be flawed. Palestinian individuals’ shortcomings must not be used to to garnish support for their Israeli-backed genocide. When someone repeats the idea that queer people would be sure to experience violence in Palestine, those imagined acts of violence came from somewhere. The person imagining this violence, like the Berliner Zeitung reporter, “absorbed that information as truth from a heavily funded, 75-year-long misinformation campaign that is working very hard to dehumanize [Palestinians] to justify [their] genocide.” @officialjakegyllenhalal also makes it clear that saviourism is completely unwelcome; whatever queer Palestinians are facing in their own communities in terms of homophobia, transphobia or misogyny, it is their own battle to fight. Queer Palestinians will certainly not be turning to their oppressors for help, the same people who are “massacring [their] families, demolishing [their] homes, ethnic cleansing [their] people, and taking [their] land – queer or not.”

As leftist people in Berlin reflect on their solidarities, at a time when the German state and media attempt to sanitize the genocide of Palestinians by describing a war on Hamas, this evergreen 2012 quote from Sarah Schulman might be helpful. Schulman grappled with her own failure to “get it” – she was progressive except for Palestine. She writes,

“I have been in antiwar demonstrations with Catholics who actively fight against abortion rights, which I consider to be essential to female autonomy. So the only reason that sharing a common outrage with Hamas at the killings in Gaza disturbed me more than all the other religious fundamentalists I had had some moment of common ground with in the past was my own prejudice. Once that conceptual gap was faced, I examined the specifics. Hamas was democratically elected. It doesn’t matter what I think about Hamas. What matters is that my country, the United States of America, is providing military aid to Israel, who in my name is committing war crimes. So, consistent with my lifetime of work for justice, my responsibility regarding Israel is to speak out against what is being done in my name with my tax money. Period. It’s not always so clean, these decisions, but they still need to be faced.”

(Israel/Palestine and the Queer International, pg. 19)

One way to express your support for queer people in Palestine is to read and share the open letter from the group Queers in Palestine. The statement calls for a refusal of “the instrumentalization of our queerness, our bodies, and the violence we face as queer people to demonize and dehumanize our communities, especially in service of imperial and genocidal acts.”

Open letter to gay nightclub SchwuZ after censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian queers

For an example of what pinkwashing has accomplished locally in Berlin, we can look at two incidents of repression at the gay nightclub SchwuZ. A group called Drag for Palestine wrote an open letter to SchwuZ after an event called “Drag Open Stage Finale” on 13 October 2023. That night, a German-Palestinian attendee with family in Gaza was asked to turn his shirt inside-out. The shirt read, “Anti-Apartheid Club.” At the same event, a drag performer brought a banner on stage that read, “Free Palestine/It is not a conflict, it is settler colonialism against which resistance is justified,” after which the performer was asked not to bring the banner on stage again. SchwuZ staff told the performer that the drag event was, “not about a political agenda,” and that, “it is not possible to show the complexity of the situation in a banner.”

As a response, the open letter was published. They are still collecting signatures and publishing comments from signatories on their Instagram account. The authors highlight in the open letter that, “Queer liberation and liberation from any form of oppression must go hand in hand. Drag is an inherently political art form […] Just as anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist expressions are part of drag, the solidarity with Palestinian liberation has its representation in this art form.” (Drag them!) Drag for Palestine takes a strong stance against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, for which the Antifascist Music Alliance would like to thank the authors. The letter includes a few easy-to-fulfill requests: that SchwuZ not censor Palestinian or pro-Palestinian voices in the future, and that SchwuZ issue a public apology for their acts of intimidation, and express solidarity and support for Palestine and against the apartheid. The authors call for a boycott of SchwuZ as performers or visitors until they show accountability.

Munich club Blitz cancels night after Palestinian solidarity posts

The nightclub Blitz in Munich cancelled a night called VAPOR on 27 October 2023, which was meant to feature artists JASSS, Blawan, LCY, and Lydo. LCY is a UK-based artist who had posted in support of the Palestinian people in the days leading up to the party. As they were about to board their plane to Munich, they were told that Blitz’s club owners did not want them to play because of their posts on Palestine. Blitz then cancelled the night entirely.

In response, LCY wrote in an Instagram post: “I am anti-fascist/pro-equality and in my lifetime would never ever stand to see ANY humans displaced, tortured, murdered and vilified just as what is happening to the Palestinian people. I stand against that.” They added, “It is a shitty situation to lose work and was reluctant to share because I never want anyone to be in fear to voice their opinions on a subject like this […] I’m not the only artist that has been pulled from gigs and there are people being fired all over the country for sharing their opinions – we need to be a unified voice against the genocide or it is easier to pick at the individual.” LCY showed great courage in the face of repression.

Afterward, Blitz made a post on Instagram, saying that it cancelled the event because an artist posted a video on social media recommending the “dissolution of Israel.” The video LCY had reposted was a video made by another person. What Blitz failed to mention is that the video went on to say, “Israel must be dissolved and go back to being called Palestine—a home for Muslims, Jews, Christians.” This statement is not anti-Semitic at all and was taken out of context by Blitz in a way that the club knew would incense their pro-Israel German audience. Later, Blitz deleted their post after many people wrote to ask them to take down this misquote. Blitz apologized for “any harm caused” in a now-gone Instagram story, and they called for an “immediate ceasefire to stop the killing of innocent lives.” Blitz still felt it was necessary to add that they, “profoundly disagree with the idea of dissolving the state of Israel as the only possible chance for co-existence.” It is because of the courageousness of LCY that Blitz backtracked their statement that was so harmful to Palestinians, but a lot of damage was done, including in an article by large-circulation newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which criticizes Blitz for failing to call the video anti-Semitic in their apology story.

HÖR Berlin censors artists’ pro-Palestine clothing

For many artists, getting a mix on local streaming platform, HÖR, has been a career goal for gaining visibility and traction. However, over the last weeks, at least two artists came forward to say that HÖR asked them to stop playing or remove clothing that was in support of the Palestinian people. Several artists are calling for artists to boycott HÖR and remove their mixes from the platform in solidarity.  HÖR, whose owners are Israeli, issued a statement by email to artists who have performed for them in the past. In it, HÖR made it clear that they do not understand Palestine to be occupied land that Palestinians should be able to live on. One censored artist wore a shirt that included a map of present-day occupied Palestine. In their email, HÖR called this shirt, “offensive,” and wrote that it was calling for the eradication of Israel. Confusingly, they also wrote that, “We believe in freedom of expression, and we have not, and will not, censor flags or peaceful slogans” and that “our platform will remain open to anyone looking for an outlet to express themselves via music.”

With respect to the use of the map of pre-occupation Palestine, Ijeoma Oluo said it well in an Instagram post: “The idea that Palestinian liberation would require the mass k*ling of Jewish people is so fucking racist and it boggles the mind how many so-called progressives believe it […] If your safety requires the occupation, imprisonment, and oppression of a people: you don’t have safety and you never will.”

Bored Lord is one artist who called for the removal of her DJ set from the platform in solidarity. About her support of the censored artists, she wrote: “i didnt remove my set from hör as some ‘trendy cancel culture’ thing. i did it bc i don’t want zionists profiting off my free labor. and i dont care about the mix i made. it’s a very small price for solidarity. last waste of breath I’ll spend on this topic. invest in diy radio culture. and free Palestine.” The Antifascist Music Alliance support Bored Lord and other artists calling for a boycott of HÖR wholeheartedly. Other artists who wish to contact HÖR or ask for their mixes to be removed may reach them at booking@hoer.live

Yes… we have something to say about ://about blank

Anti-Deutsch Berlin club ://about blank made a statement via Instagram on 12 October titled, “the horror won’t go away, the nightmare won’t end.” Their statement is a clear example of Jewish trauma and Germany’s white guilt being misused and weaponized against the Palestinian people. This frame is specifically pushed by the Israeli government to justify their ongoing genocide of Palestinian people.

://about blank directly links the horrors of the Holocaust to the Israeli people who were killed on 7 October calling it, “the biggest mass murder of Jews since the end of nazi extermination camps in 1945,” as if these situations are the same. Their statement removes all context: an act of desperation of an oppressed people against an fascist apartheid state is not comparable to Germans’ own (still deeply rooted) antisemitism. The outrageous part is that this framework is so effective in Germany and elsewhere. With this racist approach, German white guilt and fear of being called a Nazi are instantly activated. At the same time, Germans’ superiority complex is activated, because they think they are heroes by criminalizing everyone who opposes the genocide of Palestinians. In this context, ://about blank can propagate their Islamophobia (using phrases like “the islamists of hamas”) and actively support Israel’s genocide.

In the statement there is a heavy emphasis on Islamic and Jewish identity. This is an attempt to justify Israel’s violent colonialism as if it were a religious conflict. To be clear: this is and has always been about stealing land and erasing its indigenous inhabitants. ://about blank ignores completely the many thousands of Jewish people worldwide who have been non-stop protesting the violence of Israel. Not, “Never again to my people,” but, “Never again to ANY people.”

Reclaim Club Culture reposted the statement from ://about blank on their Instagram. Reclaim Club Culture is probably best known for their street rave “A100 weg bassen!” and their organising against the A100 highway that is planned to flatten a good chunk of the Ostkreuz area so it can only be used by cars. They have close ties to ://about blank, having hosted events there in the past. It’s disappointing to see an ostensibly leftist group repost the statement from ://about blank, which speaks over leftist Jewish groups in Berlin like the Jewish Bund, which are calling for solidarity with the Palestinian people and an end to the genocide in Gaza.

Heartening solidarity with Palestine from platforms, venues, and artists in Berlin

Despite all the repression from the music scene and from the German government and media, there have been many encouraging statements of solidarity and actions in Berlin.

Refuge Worldwide is a local radio station that honoured the call for a global strike on 20 October by going offline for 24 hours and making a clear statement calling for an end to the genocide and the occupation. They drew attention to police brutality in Berlin, writing that, “Basic human rights in our home of Berlin are under threat, we are witnessing police brutality on the streets of Neukölln. People must be able to speak out and grieve, and the right to demonstrate must be protected.” They also shared resources and linked to Radio Alhara, a radio station in Palestine’s West Bank, and to Jewish Currents, an anti-occupation Jewish Left magazine.

A new collective of Berlin-based artists and workers called AATMA (Antifascist Art Techno and Music Alliance) was announced on 25 October, with a public statement and call for action in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In their first Instagram post, they “condemn the dehumanisation of Palestinian lives by the Israeli and German state and media,” noting that, “in the past weeks, state and city officials have banned the Palestinian flag, the kafiyyeh, as well as all statements, public gatherings and demonstrations that express solidarity with Palestine.” In the open letter, they draw the connection between artists/art workers with Palestine solidarity, writing that, “We believe that clubs and cultural spaces can play an important political role in refusing the illegal crackdown on the right to freedom of assembly and the debasing practices of media policing,” and call for, “music and cultural venues to offer their spaces for congregation while it is unsafe for us to gather in public.” They added, “We regard music venues and cultural spaces as important places of techno-political assembly that have historically played substantial roles in resisting fascism.”

Trauma Bar is a Berlin music venue that made a public statement on 1 November. In it, Trauma Bar wrote that they, “condemn the ongoing retaliatory actions by Israeli forces, characterised by indiscriminate bombings and a blockade of essential supplies such as water, electricity, and fuel to Gaza.” They also linked to an Amnesty International petition calling for ceasefire, and called for donations to the European Legal Support Center, which is a great place to donate now that most aid is not reaching Palestine.

Passive voice and silence is violence
Berghain only broken its apolitical silence once to post about anything other than its no-photo policy when they expressed solidarity with Ukrainians in March 2022. Their website still says, “Stop the War!” It would be nice to see a call from Berghain to stop this war with a ceasefire and an end to occupation, but don’t hold your breath.

Another not entirely silent yet comparatively violent aproach can be witnessed by CTM Festival’s use of passive voice for Israel’s actions in their statement on instagram. CTM launched a section on their website that specifically shares ideas on how to help and “Stand with Ukraine and Stop War!”. However, after 7 October the festival’s positioning reads at best like a “both sides” narrative. The focus of the aggression is put on Hamas through use of active voice, without mentioning Israel and the ongoing genocide with a vastly disproportionate number of civilian victims. CTM instead focuses on the cutting off of water and electricity as a humanitarian crisis. All of it without mentioning Israel as an actor holding a blockade on resources and their targeted bombing of  civilians, hospitals and schools. After four weeks of this initial statement there has been no follow-up.

DJ & producer Bjarki calls on other artists to use their privilege
Bjarki is an Icelandic DJ and producer in Berlin, who has been using his platform to speak out in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In an interview with the Antifascist Music Alliance, Bjarki noted that since starting to speak out about Palestine in 2020, many people discouraged him. He said, “I’ve been advised by industry contacts and acquaintances not to discuss this topic publicly. The conversations around this issue are often heated, and there seems to be an effort to dissuade me from speaking out. I believe it’s my duty as a human being and as a musician who stands by connecting with people through music, which speaks a universal language of awakening, love, understanding, and togetherness to speak out freely.” From German clubs and promoters, Bjarki said that he hasn’t received a lot of backlash directly, but he did say that, “promoters are trying to silence people.”

When he first decided to speak out by posting information he thought was important, some people began writing to him to contradict the content of his posts, and he realized he needed to further educate himself. At that critical point, his grandmother in Iceland recommended him Hjálmtýr Heiðdal’s book Iceland Street in Jerusalem. The book is an in-depth history of Iceland’s role in the founding of the Israeli state. His grandmother explained that the issue was simple, but profound: it’s about colonialism.

In a statement shared with the Antifascist Music Alliance, Bjarki issues a call to other privileged artists:

To artists who aren’t touched by the fires of injustice, remember, your comfort is not a shield to hide behind, but a platform from which to lift others. […] We’re not just here to create art; we’re here to stir the souls and awaken the minds of the world.

Call for action

As the Antifascist Music Alliance, we call for an end to the occupation, an end to apartheid, and for an immediate ceasefire.

If you are looking for a page where you can publish your letter, essay, poetry, etc. in support of and solidarity with oppressed peoples, we are offering our Antifascist Music Alliance website. Our main focus right now is Falastiin, Sudan, Congo, and Haiti. We published a poem by Edel Ahmed recently. We especially encourage people who are doing a call to action, such as letters addressing institutions that are silencing people and institutions that are silent. this includes nightclubs, art spaces, radio stations, etc. to reach out to us.

Honour Boycott Divestment Sanctions
The 3 demands of the BDS movement are: 1. Ending Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall, 2. Recognising the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

Donate to European Legal Support Center
ELSC is “keeping track of incidents of repression against Palestine advocacy in the EU and the UK” –  – this is a great place to donate within Europe

Share the open letter of Queers in Palestine

Report incidents to 7amleh, the Palestinian Observatory of Digital Rights Violations

This organization collects incident reports of fake news, hate speech, incitement, smear campaigns, hacking, gender-based violence, arrest, and censorship:

Read some books

  • Israel/ Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman, Duke University Press (2012)
  • Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique by Dr. Sa’ed Atshan, Stanford University Press (2020)

Save the Berlin Memorial to the murdered Roma and Sinti of Europe!

Open Letter to Berlin’s Senators for Culture and Transport


01/12/2023

To:
Joe Chialo, Berlin Senator for Culture and Community
Manja Schreiner, Berlin Senator for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment

The memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe murdered under National Socialism in Berlin is in imminent danger. Deutsche Bahn is putting pressure on the Berlin Senate to approve a new S-Bahn line directly under the memorial.

For the so-called S21, old trees on a large scale would have to give way, which are central to Dani Karavan’s artistic vision. Without these trees, the unique atmosphere and tranquility of the memorial site between the Reichstag building and the Brandenburg Gate would be permanently destroyed.

For the Sinti and Roma minority, the memorial is a sensitive place of remembrance of the victims’ suffering and their own loss – a symbolic grave.

“My father, my mother, my sisters and my little brother were murdered in Nazi extermination camps and have no grave where I could go and lay flowers. A place where I can stand still and be with them in my thoughts. That is a great loss. I considered this memorial to be my family’s grave. […] I call on those who are planning the route of the new S-Bahn to take into account the wishes of the Sinti and Roma community in Germany and beyond. The only good solution is an alternative route so that our monument is not damaged and peace is guaranteed. […] Leave our monument untouched so that our dead may find their eternal rest.”

Thus spoke Zoni Weisz in 2021, who as a child survived the genocide of the Sinti and Roma in the Netherlands and lost his entire family.

With the memorial, the Federal Republic of Germany symbolically acknowledges its responsibility for the crimes committed against the Sinti and Roma. Its erection in the heart of Berlin is a centerpiece of historical and political responsibility in the present, in Germany as well as in Europe, a memorial against forgetting. The genocide was only recognized in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1982, and it took thirty more years of political struggle before the memorial could be inaugurated in 2012 – 67 years after the end of the Second World War and 20 years after the first declaration of intent by the federal government to erect such a memorial.

In the summer of 2020, the public and the members of the Sinti and Roma minority learned through the press about the planned construction of the S21 suburban railway line and the associated encroachment on the memorial.

After numerous protests and negotiations, the “variant 12h” was finally presented as a “compromise proposal”. But this too entails the felling of a large part of the surrounding trees and thus the destruction of the overall work of art. Israeli architect Dani Karavan, creator of the memorial, said before his death in May 2021:

“The trees are an integral part of the memorial and a crucial element of the atmosphere I wanted to create. If the trees are altered in any way, the clearing will lose its features and the unique atmosphere of the memorial will be damaged. Any change to the trees would destroy the memorial’s seclusion from the city and drastically affect its function as a place for contemplation and meditation.“

The Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is also responsible for the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under National Socialism, states that with “variant 12h” it would no longer be able to ensure its legal mandate, the remembrance of the murdered Sinti and Roma of Europe and their appreciation, in a suitable manner.

The Berlin government now wants to press ahead with the construction plans. With only a week’s notice, representatives of Sinti and Roma NGOs, Noa Karavan, daughter of Dani Karavan, and the Monument Foundation were invited to a meeting on 28 September. By 13 October, “concrete proposals for improvements to the present proposal (construction variant 12h)” are to be submitted. The Berlin Senate’s goal is a “rapid commitment to variant 12h in order to avoid ongoing costs and estimated construction cost increases in the millions”. Alternative routes that would leave the memorial to the Sinti and Roma untouched are no longer being considered for cost reasons.

Are we allowing the interests of Deutsche Bahn, legal successor to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which transported the victims to the concentration and extermination camps, to destroy the memory of the dead?

We the undersigned and the majority of the Sinti and Roma reject the proposal!

It irrevocably destroys the memorial to the murdered Sinti and Roma of Europe.

It dishonors the victims, the survivors and their descendants.

It fundamentally attacks the commitment of German society to the memory of past crimes.

It is not the task of the affected minority to look for alternative solutions for variant 12h, but the moral and political obligation of all Germans to stand up for the integrity of the monument.

We call on the Berlin Senate not to take any further steps until a route is found that leaves the monument untouched in its entirety.

First signatories:

  • Hava Karavan, Wife of Dani Karavan
  • Noa Karavan-Cohen, Daughter of Dani Karavan
  • Tamar Karavan, Daughter of Dani Karavan
  • Yael Karavan, Daughter of Dani Karavan
  • Hamze Bytyçi, Chairman of RomaTrial e.V.
  • Romeo Franz, Member of the European Parliament
  • Uwe Neumärker, Director of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
  • Alexandra Senfft, Writer
  • Daniel Strauß, Director of RomnoKher

This is a republication of the letter. You can see the original and the full list of signatories here.