This year’s Nakba demo, held on May 16, 2026, commemorated 78 years since the Palestinian Nakba, the violent displacement of two-third of the indigenous Palestinian population between 1948 and 1950.
The commemoration of the Nakba strikes a central nerve in Germany, which sees in Israel’s violent settler-colonialism its Staatsräson, or reason of state, in an attempt to whitewash its own genocidal past during the Nazi era. Therefore, Nakba protests have been typically met with massive police violence and state-aligned media campaigns smearing protestors in order to distract from the ongoing violation of Palestinian rights.
This year was no different. Shortly after the demonstration began marching from Oranienplatz to Wassertorplatz in Kreuzberg, police brutality commenced. Protestors were attacked with tear gas and pepper spray and savagely beaten in the face and body, leading to hospitalizations and severe shock.
The brutality continued throughout the demonstration, which nevertheless marched steadfastly and bravely to its endpoint. Several times, police stormed the crowd in attempts to disrupt the demonstration and create mass panic. Yet pictures and videos show an experienced and courageous crowd of activists taking care of one another, lifting comrades run over by police from the ground, and shielding those on the ground from the fists and batons of Berlin’s mafia-like police force. The routine nature of such violence would by now lead anyone to (rightly) assume that brutalizing protestors at the Nakba demonstration has become a state-sanctioned outlet for aggression and racism.
While the well-organized demonstration organizers were able to prevent mass arrests this year, it is important to remember that last year saw yet another attempt by German police to fabricate lies in order to give the state a pretext for more repression.
After a police officer pretended to have been assaulted by unarmed protestors and shamelessly claimed that they had attempted to seriously injure or even kill him – despite the fact that he was armed and wearing a helmet and protective clothing – the Attorney General took charge of the case, leading to widespread raids and a crackdown in the aftermath of the demonstration.
Shortly afterward, however, videos emerged proving the police version of events to be false. Left-wing newspapers picked up the story and showed that the officer who had allegedly been attacked had in fact fallen during one of the police’s most brutal beatings of demonstrators. Subsequently, even liberal newspapers – which otherwise barely bat an eyelid while supporting Germany’s genocidal Staatsräson – covered the story, and it became increasingly clear that the state would not be able to sustain its bogus version of events.
It remains to be seen whether this year will bring similar absurdities. What is certain, however, is that no matter how often the claims of the state and its Israel-aligned henchmen against the movement are proven false, the broader anti-Palestinian narrative in the German mainstream media shows no sign of changing.
