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Berlin Judge declares “From the River to the Sea” chant to be illegal

Analysis plus interview with defence lawyer Alexander Gorski


10/08/2024

Israel, Israel “Über Alles”

On Tuesday, August 6, the first trial for the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” was held in Berlin. The defendant was found guilty of condoning Hamas’s attacks on 7th October and fined €600 (40 days at 15 euros per day), plus court costs. The sentence sets a bad legal precedent and further jeopardises freedom of expression in this country.

Judge Birgit Balzer presided over the trial for events that took place on 11 October 2023, a day on which dozens of people demonstrated in front of the Ernst-Abbe secondary school in the district of Neukölln, Berlin, after a pupil at the school was assaulted by one of the teachers for displaying the Palestinian flag. At that demonstration, activist Ava M. said “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free“. The slogan has been used since the 1960s – decades before the founding of Hamas. It is perfectly legal in almost the whole world, including Israel and its great ally the USA, but not in all of Germany, now specifically in Berlin. 

Other trials in this country for the same slogan, such as the one held in Mannheim, have given the activists the right to demand a free Palestine. In the Mannheim trial, the judge took his time, did his job and ruled that given the history of the slogan and its widespread different uses, the slogan is used to express the desire for a territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, where all its inhabitants enjoy the same rights and freedoms, as opposed to the apartheid regime, brutal occupation and genocide that the Palestinian people are currently suffering. As the defendant may well have used the slogan to express this aspiration, it should be covered by freedom of speech. The defendant’s lawyers, Alexander Gorski and Roland Meister pointed out this ambiguity in meaning and intentionally. This was confirmed by Ava’s statement that she meant it as a cry for a “secular state without repression” in the whole territory.

Both the Berlin state prosecution and the judge demonstrate in their accusations and verdict a complete ignorance of the origin and use of this phrase, of what is and is not antisemitism, and of the history and present realities of the region. In stating that the defendant that day was clearly “denying Israel’s right to exist” by having to evaluate this phrase “in the context of the largest massacre of Jews since the Shoah” the judge ignores centuries of Middle Eastern history where Jewish communities have lived in peace with their Arab neighbours. The Berlin judiciary has therefore rewritten the last 100 years of history, confusing Jewish people and communities with the state of Israel, and portraying a state, Israel, instead of Jewish people, as the main victim. This implicitly makes everyone who sympathises with Palestine, whether the person is of German origin or not, co-culpable for Nazi crimes. 

Judge Balzer herself, like most of the German establishment, cannot or does not want to imagine a state where Jews and Arabs live together with the same rights and freedoms, since, with the creation of a secular state without a clear majority and dominance of people of European origin, the West would lose one of its most important and strategic colonies in the Middle East.

The same judge quoted some of the lies that Israel fabricated to justify its genocidal campaign. This does not only mean that she neglected to study the geo-political situation and the widespread international movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people, it also indicates that she did not even bother to check the veracity of the worst accusations made by Israel, which have already been largely disproved. This points to a clear bias on the part of the Berlin judiciary in the service of the establishment.

Although it is shocking to this day to keep hearing the same lies that were published and debunked months ago, it is not unusual in the German state. Its own Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Baerbock, lie shamelessly, and claim to have seen a video of rapes committed on 7 October by Hamas, a video of which not even the Israeli government has any record.

The verdict of this trial is a sentence to the whole Palestinian solidarity movement, which is making an increasingly authoritarian and proto-fascist regime uncomfortable with its post-colonialist truths. And it sets a precedent that will soon affect other movements that are a nuisance to the German state.

This was clear to the more than fifty people who gathered at the gates of the court not only to accompany Ava during this political show, but also to shout loud and clear for solidarity between peoples and struggles, and for a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

 

Interview with defence lawyer Alexander Gorski (questions: Phil Butland)

 

Hello Alexander. Thanks for agreeing to talk to us. I know you are very busy at the moment. What happened in court yesterday? (this interview took place on Wednesday, 7th August)

My client, Ava Moayeri, was fined for shouting “From the River to the Sea”, and for encouraging other people to join the chant. This was at a demonstration in Neukölln on 11th October 2023, which she helped organise. 

The judge called this incitement but ignores the context of the demonstration, which was called after a teacher hit a pupil for carrying a Palestinian flag. 

The slogan “From the River to the Sea” has been allowed in other German states, though?

There was a ruling in Mannheim, but this was made on account of freedom of expression. This one is according to Section 140, Paragraph 1, point 2 of the German criminal code which is about incitement and disturbing public peace.

Does this mean that anyone who uses the phrase “from the river to the sea” is breaking German law? This is a phrase that Benjamin Netanyahu used earlier this year.

According to the judge, this has to be combined with “Palestine will be free”. Then it is seen as justifying the attacks on October 7th and denying the right of Israel to exist.

So, anyone who calls for the freedom of Palestine is seen as supporting and justifying Hamas?

According to the judge, yes.

You will be appealing the ruling. What happens next, and how long do you expect it to take?

We are expecting another court case in around 2 months.

But this is not the only case around “From the River to the Sea” in Berlin. There’s another one coming up soon.

Yes, there will be another court case on 22nd August.

Ava has been fined €600. Is there any campaign to collect money for her if she loses the appeal?

You will have to talk to her and her organisation Zora about this.

If people are enraged by this judgement, what can they do?

Stay on the streets and stay active.

Far-right Violence Sweeps Britain

Violent riots are just the tip of the iceberg of Britain’s xenophobia


09/08/2024

A number of violent riots led by the far-right have taken place across the UK over the past week, many of them targeting mosques and hotels currently housing asylum seekers. Almost 500 people have been arrested for crimes including criminal damage and injuring police officers; a disgusting display of hatred, racism and xenophobia that has caused many across Britain to fear for their safety. Thousands attended counter-protests, protecting asylum centres and holding signs with slogans like Unite to Stop the Far Right and No to Fascism. 

It seems that the far-right has mobilised significantly in a short space of time – but why? A key factor in the explosion of xenophobic violence was false information regarding the perpetrator of the tragic Southport stabbings that occurred on 29th July. Rumours began spreading on X (formerly Twitter) that the 17-year-old boy responsible was an asylum seeker who had recently entered the UK. These tweets were posted before his identity was officially released, yet were being presented online as though verifiable fact. (The killer was in fact born in Cardiff, Wales.)

Responses to this rumour were rife; including a tweet from notorious media figure Andrew Tate. He claimed that the killer was an “illegal migrant”, using the tragedy to support his own anti-immigrant agenda. For Tate, who was charged in a Romanian court with rape and human trafficking, to purportedly care about the well-being of young women, is both hypocritical and deeply offensive.

Elon Musk’s X is a breeding ground for mis- and disinformation; a cesspit of far-right, Islamophobic and racist rhetoric going almost entirely unmonitored and unverified. Musk himself tweeted “Civil war is inevitable”, in response to a user blaming the violent riots on migration. He is a key player in the amplification of populist, bigoted voices – deliberately allowing users like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate huge platforms to spread hate. In fact, Labour MPs Chi Onwurah and Dawn Butler said they would like to hold Musk accountable for the role his platform has had in inciting these riots.

Of course, social media and disinformation is not solely to blame. Infamous far-right leader Tommy Robinson (who founded the English Defence League) led a huge rally in London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday 27th July, predating the stabbings by two days. Thousands attended, waving English and British flags around the capital. The tragedy in Southport may have added fuel to the fire, but it seems that the far-right were gearing up already. 

This did not happen in a vacuum. The Islamophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric used in Westminster over the past few years (and beyond) has worked to normalise hateful language and ideas. If Tommy Robinson is the criminal face of the far-right, then Nigel Farage is its ‘respectable’ one. His Reform party democratically won five seats in the House of Commons in July’s elections, meaning the xenophobic hard-right has a legitimate sway over the future of British politics. And the link between Robinson’s rioters and Farage’s politicians is overt – according to Robinson, Farage was invited to speak at the Trafalgar Square rally, and cheers went up in the crowd when Reform was mentioned.

Piggybacking on tragedy to push racist, xenophobic politics is the oldest trick in the far-right playbook. By taking advantage of people’s fears and giving them a clear enemy to blame their worries on (be it Muslims, asylum seekers, or immigrants), they can conjure up support for their cause. Pretending that there is anything other than opportunism behind their “concern” is naive. To use the murders of three girls, aged between six and nine, to benefit a violently xenophobic agenda is disrespectful not only to the grieving community of Southport, but also to the memories of those who tragically lost their lives. 

In the past decade, moral panics regarding immigration have been conjured multiple times following reportage on crime. Tommy Robinson has long spoken about “grooming gangs” in the UK, using horrific real-life events and victims of police malpractice for his own goals – to demonise immigrants and Muslim men. His racist commentary about a grooming court case in Huddersfield broke reporting restrictions and almost collapsed the trial, showing his priority is never to get justice for victims, but rather to turn attention to himself and his abhorrent politics.

And yet, the past few days have also shown that the rioters do not speak for the people of Britain. Counter-protesters turned out in their thousands to fight against the far-right, proving that the vast majority of Britons are appalled by the behaviour exhibited during the riots. A social media post told of plans for multiple racist riots across the UK on Wednesday 7th August, so anti-fascist, anti-racist protests were planned in response, protecting the immigration centres, law firms and hotels housing asylum seekers that were due to be targeted. These counter-protests turned out to be enormous – with thousands gathering in cities such as London, Newcastle, and Birmingham. In Brighton, the far-right protesters were so vastly outnumbered that they required police protection. 

Though these counter-protests have shown that majority of citizens oppose the behaviour of an outspoken few, actions must be taken to combat the ugly culture of xenophobia within British society that led up to the riots. Violent riots, looting, and physical attacks have made Muslims and People of Colour fear for their safety in the country they call home – a devastating reality that must be acknowledged and remedied as a matter of urgency. Harsh consequences, both legal and social, are required; not just for physical violence on the streets, but also for the violent rhetoric used on social media, in the news, and by Westminster politicians. 

Werner Tübke in Retrospect: Neo-Renaissance Nostalgist or Connoisseur of Social Realism?

The East German artist provided more than simple social realism


08/08/2024

Next year Bad Frankenhausen, an otherwise sleepy little town in Thuringia, will be crowded. For May 15th 2025 marks the 500th year anniversary of the great 1525 Peasant War. The town’s ‘Panorama Museum’ sits atop the battle-field of Mount Battle or ‘Schlachtberg’.  There were many peasant wars, as Frederick Engels described in 1870. This one provoked the most savage butchery of the peasants in their greatest uprising. 

I will review that war and the museum, and then consider whether the GDR painter Werner Tübke (1929-2004) was a bourgeois or a socialist artist. Or neither.  

What happened at Bad Frankenhausen? 

Grinding poverty and exploitation sparked many peasant wars or Jaqueries. In Europe these were directed against feudal lords including the clergy. The “peasants” of the 1525 Peasant War, were actually a united front of peasants and early city plebians. Müntzer had welded their disgruntlements together. The plebians of Bad Frankenhausen were formed from the salt-worker knechts (labourers or sometimes slaves) whose labour enriched the princes and the clergy. 

The insurgent leader Thomas Müntzer (or Muenzer) was born in 1498. He differed from Luther in espousing a ‘communism’. Luther began the Reformation against the Catholic Church, but flinched at thorough-going reforms, and compromised with the feudal exploiting classes. Müntzer in contrast continued his early struggles from early on against reaction to a bitter end. Inspired by “the chiliastic works of Joachim of Calabria, he became a popular preacher.  Engels Chapter Two

“Chiliasim” or “Millenialism” was the popular belief that a Messiah would arrive to establish a new world of freedom – and before the “Last Judgement”.  Chiliasim included the doctrines of Anabaptism, and the Hussites. Müntzer sought those who had survived the persecutions by the feudal princes and clergy from earlier rebellions. Defending them, Müntzer had to flee both Thuringia and later Prague. Müntzer argued to extend Luther’s Reformation against the corrupt clergy, by including “the sword”. He became  “a direct political agitator.” While primarily attacking the church, he also targeted Christianity itself. Calling for “heaven in this life”, he praised “reason” as true “faith”. According to him:

“the task of the believers to establish Heaven, the kingdom of God, here on earth. As there is no Heaven in the beyond, so there is no Hell in the beyond, and no damnation, and there are no devils but the evil desires and cravings of man. Christ, he said, was a man.”

He had entered atheism and communism, and Engels summarised that:

“By the kingdom of God, Muenzer understood nothing else than a state of society without class differences, without private property, and without superimposed state powers opposed to the members of society.”

The confrontation was inevitable, as was the disparity between the opposing forces:

“Muenzer (had)… 8,000 men and several cannons… The men were poorly armed and badly disciplined. .. The princes promised amnesty should they deliver Muenzer alive. Muenzer assembled his people in a circle… A knight and a priest expressed themselves in favour of capitulation. Muenzer had them both brought inside the circle, and decapitated… (but) the princes’ soldiers had encircled the entire mountain… cannon balls and guns were pounding the half-defenseless peasants, unused to battle…  over 5,000 were slaughtered… Muenzer, was captured… put on the rack… and decapitated. He went to his death with the same courage with which he had lived. He was barely twenty-eight when he was executed.” Engels Chapter six 

Entering the ‘Panorama Museum’. 

The museum website presents the monumental painting “Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany”. Visitors enter a dark, very large circular room from below. As people lift their eyes to the walls, most are stunned on being greeted and surrounded by a unique circular painting. The canvas is fourteen metre high spanning a giant 123 meters to depict 3,000 figures. At the bottom level a simple parallel perspective is used, but the upper part of the painting has a central perspective leading onto a seemingly endless horizon. Werner Tübke with one assistant took eleven years (1976-1987) to complete it.

The Museum opened in 1989, shortly before the GDR collapsed.

Initially a long awe-struck period is experienced as one’s wits slowly recover from the sensory assault. Slowly comparisons come to mind. The content matter of Pieter Brueghel the elder (1525–1569) and Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) is wedded to the giant scale of Michaelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475-1565) Sistine Chapel ‘Last Judgement’. Here are Breughel’s peasants and plebeians preyed on by princes and clergy. They play out the real every-day earthly life of -accounting of Heaven and Hell, in contrast to Michaelangelo’s promised eventual end. Accelerating the imagination are Boschian symbolisations. 

The result is an extreme realism mixed with such Boschian imagery as to create an intense vivid and highly ‘expressionist’ image. It is not ‘naturalist’ art, but most figures are evidently real people. A partisan painting it is the opposite of neutral.  If you enter from the left passage, you are confronted by Müntzer in the center between swirling, warring parties. Tübke used his face from a medieval wood-cut, but paints Müntzer lowering the rebel-flag with its peasant boot insignia. Müntzer realises that the surrounding princes, and mercenaries have wiped out his forces. He stands under a rainbow enclosing the Schlactberg and the green battlefield, signifying hope and a binding with ‘God’.  

Undoubtedly the content of this painting is progressive. But Tübke is not about to explain details. In the film “Werner Tübke” (Director Reiner E. Moritz, ArtHaus Musik, RM Arts 1991) he bluntly says: 

“It is not my goal to lecture people through the visual arts, or even to enrich them… I don’t employ methods that are popular or the easiest to understand. But I work strictly according to what gives me pleasure. I have no sense of mission and I don’t ask whether I’m understood or not.“ 

Does this forthrightness not remind one of Käthe Kollowtiz’s response to being castigated by the KPD? Unsurprisingly, one of his teachers Tübke most fond of, Katharina Heise, was a sympathiser and follower of Kollowitz. 

Returning to the picture, how does one read this spectacle? For me one central message of the whole drama is that one must act for justice, even if action leads to failure.  As if this is not powerful enough, hundreds of acts are performed by meticulous writhing figures. An excellent audio guide helps interpret them, in several languages. But the museum site states:

“Instead of a painting that illustrates the history of the “early bourgeois revolution in Germany” and educates the visitors in the sense of the state, he wants to focus on painting. In this way, the original concept recedes into the background; Tübke creates a picture that evades being fixed on a single statement.”

I dispute that. As mentioned an abiding theme is justice and the exploitation of the people. Another is the sway of reason as opposed to the play of chance. Let us briefly scroll through fragments.

Witness an elderly peasant woman and her husband bringing eggs, a goose and other victuals – as a tax to their feudal lords dining on a long table. A finely dressed young lady aristocrat glances over her shoulder dismissively, but the peasant woman witheringly holds her gaze. Over there a ship is stranded on dry land as a boatman vainly paddles to ferry the dignitaries of state. Here a clergyman is strung up on a dead tree surrounded by angry and mocking peasants. Wait! there are three gaming tables – at one kings and emperors (Kaiser Kari V and Francis I of France) play poker for Northern Italy – the English king has arrived too late! There soldiers pillage houses of peasants. Here the finely dressed Pope is roped in struggle against Luther while named academics debate in the guise of pigs, foxes and rats. But Luther is also shown as a two-faced Janus – one talking to poorly dressed people, the other face ignoring them. 

Scattered throughout are several ‘Narr’, or fools or jesters. They comment on the cruelties that unfold. But as they prance about, an opposing path not taken is shown. Just above Tübke’s signature, and below Müntzer’s flag-lowering, is shown a huge Well of Reason. Around it are figures of the German Renaissance – including Hans Hut and  Melchior Rinck both Anabaptist leaders; Hans Sachs a shoemaker-poet; Tilman Riemenschneider the wood-sculptor; Martin Luther and the painter Lucas Cranach; Albrecht Dürer the artist; Nicholas Copernicus the physicist-astronomer; Paracelsus physician and chemist; and the merchants Jakob Welser and Jakob Fugg. Yes an eclectic and sometimes contradictory mixture – Luther and Anabaptists? Tübke presumably sees no straight line in history.

Onlookers are enthralled, moved and fascinated, and wish to learn about the acts depicted. It is in short, a masterpiece that engages with its audience.   

Where is Tübke to be placed in art?

How did this masterpiece come about, how does Tübke’s worldview fit into the art history of the GDR? 

In 1976 Tübke was Rector of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, when he was invited to do this by the GDR government. Before he accepted he demanded and obtained complete freedom in execution. Three years of painstaking research into the 15th-16th century (clothing, materials, painting etc) allowed him to build a working model scaled down to a tenth, which was endorsed as ‘historically authentic’:

“The first think I did was to refuse to use the set pieces, or to use central perspective… Then came the three year phase of invention in which I made the 14.2 m version… Following extensive theoretical studies I noted down, as if in a very large diary, the mood of the week, the month, painted in ancient robes. “

Mortiz, Around 30 minutes 55 sec

“I was able to assert my concept without much trouble. I’d half finished the small version when the employer came from the Ministry of Culture, and 14 days later I received a letter of acceptance. Strangely enough it all went very smoothly.”

Mortiz Ibid; at about 34 minutes

Well before the Panorama, Tübke was already deeply immersed in the styles of the 15th-16th century – in particular Italian mannerism. 

“My interest lies exclusively in art produced before Modernism. Up to Delacroix, roughly… It just turned out that way. There’s no concept behind it. I base my work on art from earlier centuries, but in my own way. I think it is legitimate… In particular it is the transition periods, Italian Mannerism, for example, or old German masters, who have always inspired me. I don’t think you can choose what you relate to and how you do it. 

“Moritz, about 0.45 sec

“This world is not unfamiliar to me. Particularly the Old Testament. I feel very at home in that entire world. I can’t be more precise, nor would I want to be.“

Film Dir. Moritz 5min 0s

He joined the Workers Party in 1950. But he was attacked for his passion for 15th-15th art in 1956 (“backward-looking’, ‘eclectic’) and lost his lectureship at the Leipzig Art Academy. He was reappointed in 1962, where later his students defended against another dismissal:

“I was dismissed in 1957 for allegedly doing Western Art as it was then called, Madness! Or Surrealism. I returned to the Academy two years later, and in 1967 I was almost dismissed again, for the same reasons, but the students protested so I ended up staying.”

Film Dir Moritz. 11 min 45s

“Critics spoke of a misunderstanding of heritage reception and warned that eclecticism was contrary to Socialist Realism. … I don’t think that discussion affected my work. I admit that in the 50s and for quite some time, this tiresome, silly discussion did take place. And it was very destructive to artists, I have to say. It was never a big problem for me, it was terroristic and extremely tiring on a personal level. one can’t imagine it today.“

Film Dir Moritz. 19 min 30s

He resisted moving away despite offers:

“Working as a painter in this country was not easy. In the 50s and 60s there was a lot of interference, a lot was changed for ideological reasons. Nonetheless it was possible to do what you felt was right even if it meant less money. But you can make do. There was also many opportunities though I won’t be specific, to leave the country. There were good offers, food financial offers with villas in Hamburg and so forth, but I remained in Leipzig where the children are. It’s not that I cling to Leipzig, but I never considered leaving the GDR. For whatever reasons I simply did my work and it worked out. But it wasn’t easy. It started getting easier after 1970, .. my first exhibition in Milan and northern Italy. And then as is common in Germany and other countries it was officially recognized that I had something to offer.” 

26 minutes 50 seconds

He became a professor in 1972, then became Rector of the Academy. He produced a series of works on Hiroshima, and in 1965 his works on fascism received plaudits. Awarded a commission on  “Workers and the Intellectuals” in 1970 for Leipzig university, he placed the leaders of Karl-Marx University and Party officials in the background. The brings students and workers together, placing the carpenters in front. 

After the Pinochet coup in Chile he painted 1974 “Chilienisches Requiem”. Above it Tübke placed the words of Pablo Neruda “Nothing will be forgotten, ladies and gentlemen, and through my wounded mouth the others shall continue to sing”.

By now I hope the reader is convinced that his paintings confirm that whatever criticism he faced, he was clearly a committed progressive. In fact I think he was a committed ‘socialist’. However, what category was his art is to be classified in? I propose it was a unique form of a marriage between socialist content, realist but also ‘magical’ realist forms.  

His positions were not taken alone, but were those of the so-called Leipzig school. This included Trübke, Willi Sitte and Bernard Heisig. The latter said: “in 1972, “We [artists in East Germany] have the chance to take part in a worldview! “( “Why Heisig Matters” p. 5)

David Elliot curated an exhibition of East German art in the UK in 1984, and put it like this: “Heisig, Willi Sitte, and Werner Tübke had been able to “revalidate [socialist realism] not as a style with recognizable physical attributes and finite duration but as an attitude which gave conviction to art.”   (April A. Eisman; “Bernhard Heisig and the fight for modern art in East Germany; Boydell & Brewer; 2018. p.5). 

Tübke’s art poses a challenge to those who argue that the GDR promulgated an ‘establishment’ socialist realism. Tübke was attacked both in the Ulbricht and the Honecker era. If you believe as I do that neither the Ulbricht or the Honecker governments were ‘socialist’ – how could Tübke’s major works have been state sponsored? The GDR was by the late 1950s part of the Comecon network of states. The original purpose of the ‘People’s Democracies’ moving towards socialism, had been warped into becoming colonial outposts of the USSR revisionist, neo-imperialist state. The camouflage of a ‘socialist art’ tradition was useful to their pretence of being a workers state. That led the GDR to tolerate the Leipzig school. 

If you go, and you are not interested in the alleged healing properties of the spas (‘Bad’) – there is little else to do in the town. So an alternative is to stay in Erfurt and do a day trip via regional trains. 

Manufacturing Consent in the German Media

In continuing to misreport Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians, German media are complicit in genocide


06/08/2024

In recent days, Israel has massively escalated against the Axis of Resistance with attacks on Lebanon and Iran that threaten to drag the world into war.

German media is doing its part to manufacture consent for an all-out regional war through disinformation, lies, strategic omissions, double standards and distractions.

Disinformation: Schrödinger’s “Israelis”

On Saturday 27 July, a rocket struck the village of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, killing 12 members of the Syrian Druze community. German media calls this “The worst attack on Israeli citizens since October 7”, but none of the 12 children killed had Israeli citizenship.

The Golan Heights were occupied by Israel in 1967.  Almost 90% of its inhabitants, mainly hailing from the Syrian Druze community, were expelled. In 1981, Israel annexed the area in violation of international law. That same year, it blockaded the town of Majdal Shams and attempted to physically force residents to accept Israeli identity documents. The town’s residents, certain that they did not want Israeli citizenship and protesting their forcible separation from their Syrian community, proceeded with a 19-week general strike and ultimately successfully negotiated with the Israeli government to be considered non-citizens, which they remain today.

Around 80% of Golan Druze have refused to take on Israeli citizenship and remain Syrian citizens only. The Israeli government also does not consider them Israeli citizens, treating them with blatant racist disregard. They are no more Israeli citizens than the people of Gaza.

The annexation in violation of international law, the presence of Israeli settlers in the occupied Golan Heights, the oppression the Syrian Druze community face from the Israeli occupiers – all of this is mentioned as a side-line in German coverage, if at all.

It is factually incorrect to call the people killed in Majdal Shams “Israeli citizens.” If it were just an error made by an ignorant reporter it would have been corrected after receiving criticism. We’ve already seen that interns and others without background knowledge are allowed to write headlines in major journals, as was the case with a recent article in Tagesspiegel portraying a banner comparing police to pigs as “antisemitic”. But not so for this article: ZDF eventually annotated their Instagram post (over 24 hours later), but without acknowledging the annexation.

Worse yet, Der Spiegel even issued a wrong and disingenuous correction, stating that the Israeli army spokesperson had spoken of “citizens”, not “Israeli citizens.” This ‘correction’ is blatantly false: in Hebrew the spokesperson had said “azarchei mdinat israel” meaning “citizens of the state of Israel.” A reporter can be heard in a video of the press conference correcting him, saying “hem lo azarchei mdinat israel!” – “they are not citizens of the state of Israel!”  Der Spiegel’s sad ‘correction’ betrays either an ignorance of history and unwillingness to engage with criticism, or a malicious rewriting of facts about the deceased, against the will of the families who fought so hard against this.

Other mainstream sites pay some lip service to the annexation, while upholding the Israeli narrative. German media are helplessly tangled up in contradictions: they say the people killed are Israeli, but they don’t have Israeli citizenship. They say the area belongs to Israel, but it is occupied in violation of international law.

Are you confused? That would be because German state narrative has completely lost touch with reality, and because German media props up this cognitive dissonance.

The headline “the worst attack on Israeli civilians since October 7” is not only factually incorrect, but also a direct quote from the Israeli military spokesperson. Any journalist who adopts this quote by a war party without categorizing it, or even labeling it as such, is not practicing journalism, but shorthand war propaganda.

Double standards: whose children matter?

On the same day of the tragic death of 12 children in Majdel Shams, at least 50 people were killed by an Israeli attack on a school in Deir el-Balah in Gaza, and two Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank. Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have been facing continuous bombardment, starvation, and destruction of all means of life. Just last week, doctors returning from Gaza reported that children in Gaza are “definitively” being shot in the head and heart by israeli snipers. But none of this caused a ripple in German media.

The German media’s stance is clear: only one set of children matter, and only when they can be instrumentalized to fit a narrative.

Journalistic Integrity

Of significant note, and reminiscent of a certain Colin Powell or Reichstag Fire in earlier US and German history, is the German media’s immediate attribution of the explosion in Majdal Shams to Hezbollah as an organization.

The Israeli government immediately blamed the rocket on Hezbollah, while Hezbollah – known for taking responsibility for its rockets – categorically denied involvement. Residents of Majdel Shams say they recognized the rocket as Israeli, and Iron Dome rockets regularly fall over their village. Residents of Majdal Shams have collectively protested Netanyahu and Israeli government officials when they visit the town, calling them war criminals and pushing them out of the village when they tried to attend the funeral, as well as publicly calling for no retaliation or bloodshed to occur in their name.

Sound journalistic practice would wait to learn more about the origin or details of the explosion at Majdal Shams, and consider the motivations or consequences of an Israeli counterattack. Evidence and proper investigatory journalism could potentially clarify the origin of the attack. Instead, German media outlets uncritically parrot the Israeli narrative.

Killing journalists

On July 31st, Al Jazeera journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Refee were killed in Gaza by what seems to be a targeted Israeli air strike on their car. Images show Al-Ghoul in the destroyed vehicle, still wearing his press vest, decapitated.

Fake stories of beheaded babies are still being spread by German politicians months after they have been debunked. Real, actual pictures of decapitated journalists don’t elicit any response from German media.

This is not the first time Al-Ghoul has been targeted: in March, he was arrested in a hospital and severely beaten by Israeli forces for 12 hours.

Israel has targeted Palestinian and Lebanese journalists since long before October 7th, including Al Jazeera reporter Shirin Abu Akleh, who was killed by sniper fire while reporting from Jenin refugee camp. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 113 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. At the recent opening of the Olympic Games, the Lebanese journalist Christiane Assi carried the Olympic torch to honor the journalists wounded and killed. Assi had part of her leg amputated after being injured in an Israeli strike on a group of journalists reporting from Lebanon, which killed her colleague Issam Abdallah.

More than 70 media associations from across the world signed an open letter urging Israel to allow international journalists to access the Gaza Strip. In no other war has one party been able to completely bar access to the fighting zone. This, in addition to the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza, shows that Israel does not want information to leave Gaza. But this does not bother Staatsräson (German reason of state): Not a single German association has signed the letter or decried the targeted killing of its colleagues in Gaza.

German complicity

German media has overall ignored necessary context and repeated the Israeli government’s narrative. This serves the purpose of manufacturing consent for further Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and of course Palestine, including the alleged targeted assassination by Israel of Haniyeh, the head negotiator in Gaza ceasefire talks.

Are we really supposed to believe a regime is interested in negotiations if it kills the other side’s negotiator, on the soil of a powerful enemy?

All of this is beating the same war drum.

The Zionist state has learned that its supporters, mainly the USA and Germany, will protect it from any accountability: not the ICJ, not the UN, and not the highly praised international community matter as long as the arms dealers cover up every genocidal massacre, every imperial attack and every war crime. That is why it is so important to keep the German population in line and keep telling them lies: so that they don’t notice that Germany is once again supporting genocide.

Israel is provoking an ever greater war. German media is happy to provide the excuses.

Cologne Pride sides with Genocide

CSD allows space for Israel and the army, but not for people opposing genocide


Christopher Street Day has certainly never had the reputation of being an anti-capitalist, revolutionary event rooted in the radical tradition of the Stonewall Riots. This year’s CSD, however, has proven it is nothing more than a political charade. Cologne welcomed the Zionist block with appropriated Stars of David in rainbow colors, a Bundeswehr advertising van, the police and all political parties from green to black (CDU) with open arms while exercising brutal police oppression and censorship against Palästina Solidarität Köln. PSK had planned to march in a radical block registered by Offenes Antifaschistisches Treffen and Offenenes Feministiches Treffen that included ZORA and Young Struggle Köln, Pride Rebellion Duisburg and Föderation Klassenkämpferischer Organisation. They had joined forces for the visibility of multiple marginalized people in the queer community and PSK was participating under the motto of  “No Pride in Genocide.” 

PSK was banned from carrying all political symbols, including a banner stating “QUEERS* FOR A FREE PALESTINE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA, HOMO/TRANS*PHOBIA, ANTISEMITISM, APARTHEID!” They were told that CSD is not a political demonstration and Palestine has nothing to do with the event. The pro-Israel block, meanwhile, was allowed to proceed unimpeded. Watermelons displayed with Israeli flags were seen as neutral while the colonized and those marching in solidarity with them were excluded. T-online slandered the radical block just three days before, accusing them of taking advantage of the demonstration for their own purposes, stating that regardless if one is for or against Israel, these politics have no place at CSD. The flagrantly hypocritical slogan of the parade, “FOR HUMAN RIGHTS – Many. Together. Strong” was unveiled just one day after a historic ICJ ruling declared Israel to be an apartheid state.

When offered the “compromise” of participating at the very back of the parade with keffiyehs as the only visible symbol of Palestinian solidarity, the block collectively rejected. As comrades found themselves in chaotic discussion with the police, rain began to pour over their handcrafted, sparkly watermelon signs and a PSK heart decorated with banners in the colors of the Palestinian flag. A large police presence was called in to harass the group after they organized their own spontaneous demonstration, deeming chants of “Yallah yallah intifada” unconstitutional and threatening protesters with criminal charges. Additional police officers were subsequently mobilized as the block began to disperse. Members were beaten, kicked and restrained by chokehold inside of a pharmacy in Cologne Central Station. The person who registered the protest was later informed that a counterdemonstration wasn’t legal after their group had already been excluded from CSD.

Though intersectionality has its limitations and can easily tread the danger of losing its class perspective, PSK’s attempt to bring anti-colonial struggles and queer liberation to the streets is an important act of solidarity and resistance as queer Palestinians are being dehumanized and defaced. In addition to facing extermination, Palestinian queerness is also weaponized by the Israeli army through harrassment and outings. 

Attacks against peaceful, pro-Palestine demonstrators at Pride events this year have been widespread. Over thirty people from Queers for Palestine were brutally assaulted and arrested on 26 July by the Berlin police, followed by an estimated two dozen arrests at Internationalist Queer Pride on 27 July. BIPOC Kollektiv from Bonn also reported being attacked by Zionists at CSD in Cologne. After starting a spontaneous protest in solidarity with Palestine within the #niewiderquiet block, they were shown middle fingers and one participant had a beer poured over them. BIPOC Kollektiv wasn’t expelled from the event, but the organizers and the police did nothing to hinder the harrassment mainly affecting FLINTA* protestors, some of whom had Palestinian roots.

It is crystal clear that CSD events are in no way a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Instead, CSD is squarely positioned on the side of pinkwashing and wholesale mass slaughter. Complicit, it facilitated a continuation of the violence committed against queer, trans and BIPOC people in New York City fifty-five years ago.

It is indeed alarming in an time of ever-increasing police violence and rapid armament that the Bundeswehr was allowed to hand out flyers at CSD stating “Freedom Fighters: Your Body, Your Identity, Your Sexuality, For Human Rights, All Genders Welcome” to the crowd. After Netanyahu likened protesters holding up signs saying “Gays for Gaza” to “Chickens for KFC,” one also has to wonder what part of Germany’s already marginalized queer community might be sent to the battlefield in the name of democracy. Our world order is anything but stable after Israel’s assassination of Imsail Haniyeh in Iran and its bombing of Beirut, the latter presumably after manufacturing just cause through a red flag operation in Golan Heights. If Pistorius’s current draft legislation comes to pass, all eighteen-year-old men in Germany who are liable for military service will have to fill out an online questionnaire. It is difficult to determine if a binary, cis definition of men is meant in the context of the Bundeswehr handing out flyers at Pride, but it is clear that the  Ampel-coalition is ready to speed up the domestic production of weapons. As the left-wing, anti-capitalist block was denied a voice at CSD, Amazon, Tyssenkrupp and the green to black alliance were allowed unimpeded presence, all of them directly supporting Israel’s genocidal regime. Just as its horrificly racist, anti-Palestinian float signalled last year at Karneval, for which mayor Henritte Reker served as a festival committee member, Cologne has decided to side squarely on the side of genocide.