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Hamas, Apartheid and Peace

A serious reflection on the past few days


17/10/2023

On October 7th, the world woke up to the news that Hamas had fired 5000 rockets into Israel and infiltrated the blockade. As the day drew on, hearts grew heavy as information about the scale and ferocity of the attack on Israel began streaming in. Harrowing footage of Israelis and foreign internationals being killed and taken hostage began circulating quickly, and the devastating search for missing family members began. Until today, six days later, families are still attempting to identify their loved ones from videos and images of dead bodies, while the Israeli government has made what can only be described as a shambolic attempt to reach out to those most affected. Not only are Israelis still reeling from the shock of the attack committed against them, but they are furious with an already unpopular government for failing to protect and support them in their time of need.

Across Europe, the attack was condemned and our national monuments lit up in a display of solidarity. The terrible events were met with public outrage and millions watched with aching hearts as increasingly graphic footage reached us through TV screens and social media networks. People gathered in the streets to show their support of victims’ families and to mourn the lives lost. It has, for many, been a dark few days indeed.

The State of Israel responded with a counter-offensive. The number of Palestinian fatalities resulting from this operation is so far unknown as it is still ongoing but they are likely to exceed several thousand. The ca. two million civilians living under the blockade in Gaza were cut off from food, water and electricity, and the borders shut (or in the case of the Rafah crossing, bombed). Israeli officials have stated that in the past six days alone, 6000 bombs / 4000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on Gaza. This, as on previous occasions, includes the use of white phosphorus and experimental weapons. Due to Israel’s blockade and the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, Palestinians are physically prevented from leaving the strip. Half the population – which already consists almost entirely of refugees – has been instructed to evacuate from the North of the strip to the South in a move eerily reminiscent of the Nakba in 1948. Back to the present day, however, and there was some bombing of evacuees as they attempted to flee to the South, resulting in further civilian casualties. As with previous raids on Gaza, and given that half of the territory’s population are children, the victims of this campaign will overwhelmingly be civilians.

Throughout this entire period, we have seen – as with any conflict – a wave of propaganda and misinformation from both sides. Unsubstantiated reports of Al-Qassam fighters beheading babies and systematically raping women made for sensational news headlines that were quickly circulated, while pro-Palestinian groups declared that Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza, the world’s third oldest church, was razed to the ground in an Israeli airstrike. Despite the vast majority of media outlets, even President Biden himself, amending their statements to reflect the unsubstantiated nature of these claims, the stories are already out there. We have, as a result, seen a concerning number of people resort to Islamophobic and anti-Semitic tropes in order to explain events that do not, until now, appear to have actually occurred. Are the facts as they stand not devastating enough? To highlight the absurdity of it all, a video of what appeared to be a female hostage getting escorted down a street in Gaza was shared widely across both Israeli and Palestinian social media channels. While some shared the video to argue that Al-Qassam fighters targeted women and to speculate upon how she might be treated in captivity, others used it as “evidence” that hostages were being taken care of since she seemed happy and well. On both sides, people asked why she appeared to be among civilians and not with Hamas – a question that was cleared up when she was identified as a Palestinian social media influencer from Gaza.

More shocking to our privileged sensibilities is the footage of celebration and acts of cruelty we have witnessed. Palestinians handing out sweets in celebration of the attack inside Israel. Israelis filming themselves drinking water after the government announced they would cut off all water supplies to the Gaza strip, or dancing and cheering while bombs fall. Reports of Palestinian fighters phoning the family members of hostages on their stolen mobile phones to boast about killing their children, and reports of Israelis phoning Palestinians in Gaza pretending to be the army, asking them to evacuate their homes so that they run into the streets in confusion and are executed. The President of Israel, Netanyahu, posted heartbreaking photos of charred babies to his X (formerly Twitter) account meanwhile Israelis are exchanging gory footage of people murdered by Al-Qassam fighters through Telegram and WhatsApp groups in a frantic effort to identify their missing family members. While this is going on, Palestinians throughout the territories are being exposed to gruesome images of burnt and dismembered children in Gaza, the dead foetuses of women killed by shrapnel, images of the occupying forces urinating on corpses, and footage of armed settlers invading Palestinian villages, shooting civilians at point blank range. Interestingly, images of Hamas’ war crimes and stories about Palestinians behaving badly have been highlighted by mainstream media outlets and through sponsored advertisements while footage of Israeli war crimes and of Israelis behaving similarly appalling has been widely censored across social media platforms. We might speculate as to why this is but the fact of the matter is that everyone involved is human, and neither the horrific imagery nor the horrendous behaviour described here is unusual during periods of conflict or within a system of occupation.

Despite all this, there have been glimmers of hope in the seemingly endless tunnel of despair. In statements to the press, some family members of Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas have empathised with the plight of Palestinians even while grappling with the emotional turmoil of having a child taken away from them, and others have stated that they do not wish the death of their loved ones to be used to justify killing civilians. There have been reports of Israeli settlers tending to the wounds of injured Al-Qassam fighters, even offering food and water while being held captive. Similarly, there is footage of Al-Qassam fighters protecting women, children and elderly Israelis during their operation inside the settlements surrounding Gaza, and of fighters releasing a woman and her two children that apparently civilian Palestinians took captive when the fence surrounding Gaza came down. There has been uproar on both Israeli and Palestinian channels following the release of a video that appears to show a group of Al-Qassam fighters parading and spitting on a naked, female corpse. Everyone expects Hamas to answer for war crimes, no less Palestinians who expect Al-Qassam fighters – as representatives of their issue – to uphold decent moral standards.

Largely absent from coverage of the events is any insight into what is happening inside the West Bank. Palestinians inside the West Bank already live under a brutal military occupation that has claimed the lives of men, women and children every single day this year. Palestinian towns and villages inside the West Bank are cut off from one another by ca. 500 army checkpoints which are all currently closed, illegal Israeli settlements, and Apartheid roads that only Israelis and foreign internationals are allowed to drive on. Over the past few days, the Israeli army distributed weapons among settlers living inside the West Bank (many of whom are already armed) and these settlers have made their way to Palestinian roadsides where they have been shooting at Palestinian vehicles, already killing several people. This is done with impunity and under the protection of the occupying forces who are also shooting at Palestinians attempting to travel. Anyone who was working or visiting friends and family in another town or village is currently stuck where they are, unable to go home. For the most part, however, Palestinians are prisoners in their own homes, in many areas under military curfew, unable to leave in order to buy groceries or collect medication, and unable to sleep as they are kept up at night by the sound of bombs falling on Gaza. Some will undoubtedly attempt to demonstrate against the bombing of Gaza over the coming days and, as with all peaceful or non-peaceful demonstrations inside the West Bank, many will be killed.

On a personal note, my husband’s seventeen year old cousin was killed by the occupying forces last night. After shooting him, the army blocked the ambulance from reaching the hospital. It is nothing new but somehow it shocks you every time. I don’t know if preventing paramedics from doing their work is a war crime but, if so, the Israeli army has years of crimes to answer for. It is a shame I never hear reporters asking Israeli officials whether or not they condemn these things. Anyway, shootings like this usually occur in predictable locations – at checkpoints or along the siege where people protest the occupation – but right now they are happening everywhere and everyone is afraid.

Having witnessed the horrors of Apartheid inside the West Bank, and I have not even begun to describe them here, I often find myself wondering why so little attention is afforded to them, or to the discrimination that Palestinians living inside Israel encounter which is, in fact, enshrined in Israeli law? Do we simply have no explanation for the regular forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and inside the West Bank? The administrative detention of Palestinians whereby civilians are arrested and held for extensive periods of time without any charges ever brought against them? How does one justify the number of child prisoners, all the documented instances of sexual violence, or the unfathomable number of extrajudicial killings that Palestinians have suffered for decades if Hamas is not necessarily there to blame? More importantly, does ignoring this massively violent system of oppression in which organisations such as Hamas form to resist do anything to protect people, Palestinian and Israeli alike?

Rather than meaningfully engage with the issue, experts who have framed the events which occurred on October 7th as an inevitable result of years of subjugating Palestinians have been publicly accused of attempting to “justify terrorism”. Even if we adopt this position and run with the popular narrative that crimes committed by Hamas are somehow inexplicable, committed against Israelis because Al-Qassam fighters are ‘animals’, ‘inhuman’, ‘other’, what does that make us when we bomb civilian areas and cut off food, water, and electricity to civilians by way of response? It is, quite frankly, an odd thing for our Heads of State to attempt to rationalise. The hypocrisy of demanding Hamas be held accountable for war crimes while being complicit in acts defined under international law as war crimes ourselves does not go unnoticed. It is not an oversight, it is a continuation of our foreign policy which, for too long now, has treated the State of Israel with exceptionalism.

The cognitive dissonance is so hard to contain that European governments have begun to ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations, criminalise waving Palestinian flags and arrest people for wearing keffiyahs in public. Showing solidarity with those subject to one of the biggest, if not the biggest, crimes against humanity of our time is routinely conflated with anti-Semitism in order to silence discourse. It is not without a hint of irony that, in Germany in particular, this has involved the arrest and manhandling of Jewish anti-Apartheid activists. While this happens over here, citizens working for Israeli human rights organisations such as B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence also face intimidation, censorship and arrest. Evidently, the thoughts, feelings and experiences of Jewish people are only acceptable to us provided they do not call into question what every single international human rights organisation has called an Apartheid. Why?

The question is bigger than you might think. Bigger than civilians and settlers. Ordinary Israelis want to live in peace and security, and ordinary Palestinians want basic human rights so that they, too, can live in peace – or live at all. It is our leaders, our NATO governments, our foreign policies and our military budgets that are so invested in maintaining the status quo. We must stop asking ordinary Palestinians and Israelis “what’s the solution?” Whether the USA is fighting a proxy war with Iran, or attempting to foster normalisation between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries for their mutual benefit, we should demand they go about their business (or perhaps abandon it entirely) without oppressing and endangering countless people in the region. The reason this has not been achieved so far is not due to a lack of imagination or because the situation is “too complicated”, it has not been done because our governments are not under sufficient pressure to do otherwise. For the sake of the millions of people caught up in this cycle of colonial violence, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, and the security of Israelis, we must remember our humanity and demand that we are consistent in our application of international law. We must speak out. We must demand accountability. We must end Apartheid.

My thoughts and prayers go out to every single person who lost their loved ones this week.

How Germany Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AfD

Recent elections in Hesse and Bavaria have crushed the illusion that extremist politics is an Eastern German phenomenon.


16/10/2023

“Thank you and go vote tomorrow, it’s important!” This is how one of the entertainers on the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) stage, a young man with a guitar, ended his performance. Because I happened to be in Kassel in the run-up to the state election on Sunday, October 8, I had the chance to observe the Red Carnival that the SPD put up in the city’s central Opernplatz on Saturday. The SPD showing did dwarf the stands from which other parties accosted shop-goers in the area, but it did not live up to the hype. As I walked by, SPD leafleteers made up the majority of hangers-on and, on benches that could have sat around 50 people, only four or five listened to the performance.

All this stands to show how right the singer was: the elections on Sunday were important, especially for the SPD. In Hesse, the state where Kassel is the third-largest city, the Social Democrats have not been in government since 1999 (not that they haven’t had the chance: the SPD torpedoed a red-red-green coalition in 2008 because it refused to collaborate with the Left Party). In 2023, the CDU once again went up and the SPD went down.

West German politicians have long placed the blame for the rise in right-wing extremism on the supposed chauvinist-authoritarian legacy of the GDR.

But the biggest winners and losers are outside the CDU-SPD duopoly. Having first entered the Hessian parliament in 2008, the Left failed to reach the necessary 5% last Sunday and will have no members in the Landtag. While the Left lost all of its nine seats, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained as many. With more than 18% of the votes, the far-right party became the second-largest group in Hesse’s parliament.

Last Sunday was a double election day, and not to be outdone Bavaria elected the most right-wing Landtag in the country. The Christian Social Union (CSU, CDU’s Bavarian sibling) won, but with a historically low 37%, their lowest since the reunification of Germany. The AfD and the right populist Freie Wähler (FW) came out third and second, respectively, each increasing their voter share with over 4% since 2018. We might take some solace in the Free Democrats’ failure to get over 5% – but not too much, because most of their voters moved to the CSU, the FW, and the AfD. As one activist from the Munich initiative Offen Bleiben (Remain Open) declared for the taz, “These will be tough years.”

Young and Western

Perhaps the biggest surprise for the German center is that the AfD has escaped the East. And proudly so – Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, boasted that “AfD is no longer an Eastern phenomenon, but has become a major all-German party. So we have arrived.” While we on the left might know that Ossis have no inherent inclination toward extremism, West German politicians have long placed the blame for the rise in right-wing extremism on the supposed chauvinist-authoritarian legacy of the GDR.

Of course, history is much more complicated than that, and the present has proven it. The AfD has become an established parliamentary party in two Western states. Hesse is home to Germany’s financial heart, Frankfurt am Main – and, we should not forget, the home of Hanau. Bavaria is home to Gillamoos, the festival that Friedrich Merz declared the bastion of true, authentic Germany. But Merz was probably not happy to see that in Kehleim, the district where Gillamoos takes place, the CSU lost 4.7%, while the AfD and the FW won 3.6% and 5.4%, respectively.

Not only has the AfD made progress into the West, but it also broke new ground among young voters. AfD’s share of the votes expressed by Bavarians aged 18-29 was 18%, significantly higher than their overall result of 14.6%. In Hesse, the party even managed to overtake the Greens among 18-24 year olds.

Even if the mainstream parties will not join the AfD in coalitions, they do allow it to set the terms of appealing to the public. In other words, mainstream parties are meeting the AfD on its own terrain, or hoping to find the secret for its soaring rise and to steal its voter base.

Taking a page from the strategies of up-and-coming far right parties throughout Europe, the AfD has amassed a steady audience on TikTok, a platform ignored by the SDP and the CDU/CSU. But there is more to their success than memes. Young people continue to feel disenfranchised and see their perspectives becoming more and more limited. Young men especially turn toward the far right, who has easy answers and visible culprits to offer. Among voters of all ages, AfD is reaping the benefits of the federal government’s lack of social policies.

So what now?

At the end of the day, in Hesse and Bavaria, we get more of the same. More of the same government, first of all, because CDU/CSU’s position has not yet been challenged from the right and certainly not from the left. The CDU can continue their convenient partnership with the Greens in Hesse, or explore a GroKo with the SPD. The CSU seems to have no problem renewing their alliance with an FW led by the suspected anti-semite Hubert Aiwanger. A “strong and stable government” is what CSU leader Markus Söder believes this election delivered to Bavaria.

But more of the same does not mean a smooth and peaceful life. Because this last round of state elections brought new evidence (as if more was needed) that the rise in AfD support is not a fluke, but a steady trend. Week after week, new opinion polls show the far-right party cementing its second place. In some elections, they even come first, like in the Thuringian district Sonneberg, led by an AfD member, or in Raguhn-Jeßnitz, a small town in Saxony-Anhalt, which made the news by electing the first ever AfD mayor.

More of the same then, means that new taboos and checks set up against the far-right in Germany keep failing. In July, CDU leader Friedrich Merz declared (and then quickly backtracked on) his openness to collaborating with successful AfD candidates. The pragmatics of local administration, Merz insisted, will force politicians to work together with fascists. Moral considerations are not enough to maintain the famed “firewall” between AfD and mainstream parties.

The separation seems particularly vulnerable to class interests. In Thuringia, CDU only managed to pass a reduction in real estate property taxes with parliamentary support from the AfD. Little does it matter that the Thuringian AfD is under observation by German intelligence services for right-wing extremism. It is also led by none other than Björn Höcke, who, at the time of the vote in September, was just beginning his trial for using Nazi slogans during his campaign.

If the Thuringian vote was the first crack in the firewall when it comes to policy-making, the political space has been tilting more and more right. There is no firewall when it comes to discourse and debates. Even if the mainstream parties will not join the AfD in coalitions, they do allow it to set the terms of appealing to the public. In other words, mainstream parties are meeting the AfD on its own terrain, or hoping to find the secret for its soaring rise and to steal its voter base.

Anti-Migrant sentiment in the driver seat

The first thing I saw when I got off the tram in central Kassel was a ver.di demonstration, but walking through the city I quickly noticed that the parties’ campaigns filtered workers’ demands through a different topic: immigration. On one of the city’s main boulevards, an AfD billboard sporting the slogan “We set borders!” was accompanied by a smaller poster with a more sinister message: “Deporting illegals creates housing space.”

The FW also appealed to Hessians’ anti-migration sentiment, with a messaging just slightly more respectable than the AfD, but not different in nature. Orange posters with the message “Migration: Those who want to work are welcome” followed me through the city-center. It seems that their campaign slogan, “A Hesse for all,” should be taken with a pinch of salt. At any rate, Hesse is not yet the place for the FW. They obtained only 3.5% of the vote and failed to further consolidate their position of not being just a Bavarian party, after entering the Rhineland-Palatinate parliament in 2021.

Their approach worked better in Bavaria, where they came second with 15.8%, up 4.2% since the last elections. Shortly before the vote, when Friedrich Merz was criticized for imagining refugees who receive free dental treatment, Aiwanger came to his defense.

There are “many people who are in our social security funds or who have access to our social security funds and medical care who cost us a lot of money,” he declared. We need to “simply not let so many people into the country.”

CSU leader Markus Söder, in turn, announced his intention to stop cash support for rejected refugees in in Bavaria and to lower refugee financial support overall.

And Bavarians believed in all of this. According to Tagesschau polls, migration was the second most important election topic, after economic development. But the two are closely connected – immigrants are one of the causes that people find for ongoing crises and hardships. There is little truth to that, but 98% of FW voters agreed that immigration and asylum laws should be changed so that fewer people enter Germany, more than AfD’s 95% and CSU’s 89% – but what difference do these few percentage points make when 83% of all voters agree on this issue?

In Hesse, climate and energy were the second most important topic for voters. But the Greens, undercut by a tabloid campaign about the boiler law, failed to emphasize the social aspect of their policies. That’s not to say that migration didn’t matter. The average agreement on restricting immigration and asylum is lower in Hesse than in Bavaria, at only 72%. AfD, CDU, and FDP voters, however, all score 90% or more. This was the winning ticket for the Hessian CDU. Boris Rhein, their top candidate, built his campaign on proposing stronger borders and more facile deportations.

Now the SPD is trying to catch up. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was the party’s top candidate in Hesse, where the shameful 15% result led to calls for her resignation. In the past, Faeser accused Rhein of being too cozy with far-right extremists. But condemning extremism does not win elections, a lesson the SPD seems to have learned. Just a few days after the Hesse vote, Faeser announced a law project that would allow Germany to “deport and expel criminals and dangerous persons more consistently and quickly.” Meanwhile, SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Merz to discuss imposing an obligation to work on refugees, as demanded by the federal states.

Will the Left draw the same lessons from the Hessian elections as the SPD? Some of its members already have, and the rifts within the party will only be deepened. Just before the Left lost its seats in the Landtag, rumors about Sahra Wagenknecht finally leaving the party to found her own hit the news. Just afterwards, almost 60 of her colleagues demanded her expulsion.

What is certain, however, is that if the Wagenknecht party will make its entrance, its purpose will be to take a bite out of the AfD pie. And that will most likely come with taking a leaf out of the AfD’s book as well. In September, Amira Mohamed Ali, Wagenknecht’s ally and co-chair of the federal Linke fraction, came to the defense of the Thuringian CDU: “What were they supposed to do? Not introduce motions as opposition or withdraw the motion after the wrong people agreed with it?”

A sensible, procedural argument about parliamentarism, which however takes on more worrying dimensions when we account for Wagenknecht’s politics. The immiseration of the German working class, Wagenknecht holds, is caused by immigration and the influx of refugees. Less than a week before the Thuringian affair, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung published an interview with Wagenknecht in which she declared that migration must “absolutely” be curtailed.

“There are limits beyond which our country is overburdened and integration no longer works,” Wagenknecht continued, before bringing up more right-wing talking points about immigrants who teach religious hate, exhaust the social state, and disrupt education because they do not speak German.

After the elections, the main target during Wagenknecht’s fierce attacks on the federal government’s failures was Nancy Faeser. Was Wagenknecht condemning Faeser’s racist approach to policing so-called “clans,” perhaps? On the contrary, Wagenknecht took the opportunity to attack her as a weak interior minister. Faeser has supposedly “lost control” of migration and allowed the refugee crisis to become “at least as bad as in 2015.” We need stronger and stricter approaches. No better formulation than Wagenknecht’s own then; if it is founded, her party would be an alternative for AfD voters.

The great moving right show

In his 1979 article grappling with the rise of Thatcherism, Stuart Hall explains what the far right does to reshape ideological space. Even if not successful in its destructive intentions, the radical right still “takes the elements which are already constructed into place, dismantles them, reconstitutes them into a new logic, and articulates the space in a new way, polarizing it to the Right.”

Curbing immigration has also become a question of pragmatism, of protecting Germany not from foreign threats, but from homegrown right-wing extremism… We must appease fascism to stop it from becoming fascism.

Hall’s conjunctural analyses should not be taken as general lessons, applicable everywhere. But I believe that his formulation can help us make sense of the anxiety-inducing monotony with which the AfD has been appearing on the news. A few percent here, a few percent there: at some point we might be tempted to just turn away and let all of this be background noise. Or to say that it is happening just in the wrong places, just with the wrong people. But that would be a mistake.

The AfD’s rise is not a quantitative change, but a qualitative one. When the party comes second in an election, Weidel can confidently declare that the firewall is “deeply undemocratic”. In Bavaria and Hesse, “millions of voters are excluded” because millions of voters have democratically chosen a far-right party. We are living through a re-articulation and re-polarization of German politics. The AfD is dragging to the right our understandings of what is acceptable, what is necessary, what is democratically demanded.

The two elections last Sunday have been the jolt that some needed to realize this. But what the CDU/CSU and other parties seem to have realized is not the creep of fascism, but the truth of Weidel’s words. There are millions of voters who have left them. Millions they want and need. The way to beat the AfD is not to put up a firewall, but to take their place on the right.

After all, Markus Söder made it explicit. Having won his new mandate in Bavaria, he set the tone for his migration policies: “We perceive the AfD as a right-wing extremist party” whose approaches to migration are too harsh. But he also declared that tougher immigration and asylum legislation is nevertheless needed to stop AfD’s rise.

After the result in Bavaria and Hesse, the German right (and not just the far-right) has new wings – and more space. What Söder’s declaration shows is that they don’t need to only rely on law and order to justify their racism. Curbing immigration has also become a question of pragmatism, of protecting Germany not from foreign threats, but from homegrown right-wing extremism. It just so happens that doing so requires moving to the right. We must appease fascism to stop it from becoming fascism.

The AfD’s “exclusion from responsibilities of government is not sustainable,” Weidel predicted. With current developments, she is right. We might not see the AfD in governing coalitions, but we will see more and more of their policies and discourses. The AfD have not yet taken the system apart, but they are charting the system’s path.

Televised Genocide and Brutalization of the oppressed

A Palestinian woman reflects on the ongoing terror suffered by the people of Gaza


13/10/2023

My opinions are mine and mine alone; they are NOT meant to represent any other’s opinion but my own. Because I am an individual. Because I have my own background and my own upbringing and my own history. Because I have my own personal tragedies and my collective inherited tragedies. Because I made my own experiences in life, and I lived my own culture and religion and political situation. My opinions are my own, so since we live in a democratic society, allow me to voice my opinions, without being deemed to fear losing my Aufenthaltstitel and therefore my Job.. community.. the life I love and cherish … give me my freedom of speech, without fear having drastic consequences!

No one should celebrate the death of civilians. No one should support the kidnapping of innocent people.. innocent children. NO ONE! I would never cheer a group like Hamas or agree with the way it fights occupation. But why do we have to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the oppressed? Nowhere is this more apparent than in the long-standing tragedy of Palestine. 

The “civilised” world, having claimed moral superiority, rebukes the inhumanity of those whose humanity they have systematically denied for generations. It is a people whose existence they have sought to obliterate through relentless acts of murder, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing.

Have we ever walked a mile in their shoes? Or dared to imagine what it’s like to exist as a 16-year-old born into an open-air prison, where the ominous thunder of bombs punctuates our daily life, where drones and jets replace the clear blue skies, and where every step we take is scrutinised by an all-seeing, AI-powered military force? Can we fathom the despair of enduring hunger, no electricity, no clean water and no heat, all not due to natural disasters or poverty but because of a cruel, racist, man-made blockade?

Do we imagine being born into having no-rights… into a reality where some US-American nationals or British nationals have seized our lands and our homes and settled in it, living mere metres away from us, revelling in a paradise of privileges, while we are relegated to the margins of life? How does it feel when we’ve been stripped of everything we once owned, of the very essence of who we are and could have become if given the chance? What would our life look like when “normalcy” equates to death, terror, apartheid, air raids, bloodshed, and ceaseless destruction?

What would we do after the sight of baby brother’s insides exposed after he got killed when an Israeli rocket targeted our home or witnessing little sister lose her eye and limp in an explosion?

How does it feel knowing our future is non-existent, our past is being rewritten by those who control the narrative, and our present is a precarious tightrope walk between survival and the abyss of violence?

As the leaders in the “civilised” world condemn the killing of innocents, they act as if the violence of the oppressed could only target the guilty in their fortified compounds. They endorse and legitimise only their preferred brand of brutality: ethnic cleansing concealed in legal formalities, so-called “targeted” massacres facilitated by cutting-edge technology, the legal detention of children, inhumane blockades, and embargoes. Conveniently overlooking the stains on their own hands and the hands of their alt-right counterparts leading the Apartheid State of Israel, soaked in the blood of the innocent civilians from both sides. 

Have we all forgotten that the Israelis starting their own “spring” in the past two years? Have we forgotten all the reports from human rights organisations unveiling Israel’s war crimes and Apartheid?

In their skewed narrative, attacking a police station in Israel is labelled as terrorism, while bombing a hospital in Gaza is an act of self-defence. The “civilised” world, is a world where a British Foreign Secretary endorses the war crime of collective punishment through starvation, and the German Chancellor remains notably silent on international human rights violations, repeatedly asserting that the Zionist state of Israel has the right to take any measures against the Palestinian occupied civilians.

Those who denounce Hamas’s actions today are the same voices that condemned the unarmed demonstrations at the Gaza border fence in 2018, where 223 Palestinians perished without a firearm in their hands. They criminalise the peaceful BDS campaign, a non-violent means to pressure Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They deny the Palestinian Authority the right to seek redress at the International Court of Justice. They demand, instead, that the Palestinian people accept their own historical marginalisation and die silently.

Amidst this turmoil, I am confronted with these distressing images of murdered infants and the anguished cries of traumatised children. It sears my soul and leaves an indelible mark on my conscience to witness this happen again and again. Leaving me in a state of profound grief and disbelief. The images and videos we receive every day from Palestine are deeply distressing. None of us feel well as we watch from afar the ongoing genocide being perpetrated against our people, while the world watches, spreading gruesome lies about us in the media. These lies perpetuate our dehumanisation and normalise our deaths.

Palestinians in Gaza find themselves forced to photograph and take videos of their dead and of their horror and share them on social media as a grim documentation of this ongoing genocide, the harsh and painful truth that they are suffering daily. We all can witness the unfiltered massacre, the one that remains hidden from the headlines. I refuse to remain a passive observer as my people endure the relentless assault of internationally illegal chemical weapons. While I often hear Western voices and politicians advocating for their annihilation, adding to the gravity of the situation.

I am forced to witness propagandist narratives and the proliferation of fabricated information in western press outlets that are traditionally trusted and respected sources of information. Narratives diverting attention from the real crises and pressing concerns. The exhaustion that engulfs me daily is overwhelming, borne from the obligation to combat falsehoods and engage in conversations that detract from addressing the actual issues.

As a Palestinian in Berlin, I grapple with the stark reality that Palestinians are penalised en masse solely based on their identity. It’s disheartening to witness the toleration of police brutality and racism within this society, driven by a misguided assumption that we who identify as Muslims or Arabs share identical beliefs. This ingrained mindset reeks of racism and prejudice. I am told to “return to where you come from” simply because I dare to critique even the smallest aspect of politics or societal imperfections. It’s vital to recognize that my critique emerges from active engagement within this society, and in a democratic setting, shouldn’t we encourage open dialogue and civil discourse instead of stifling dissenting voices?

From the “civilised” world, the Palestinian people are offered nothing but the silencing of their voices, the tacit approval of their deaths, or at best, deafening silence.

Perhaps it’s time for the epiphany to strike, especially among the well-meaning adherents of social democracy, those whose own history is tainted with the blood of colonial and imperial violence. If you cannot stomach the violence of the oppressed, then it is high time to halt the oppressor. 

SAVE GAZA. FREE PALESTINE.

This is an updated version of an article by a member of Feminist Bloc | Palestine Speaks which we published on theleftberlin last week

Escalation in Palestine: Break out of the Open Air Prison – End the Occupation and the Blockade

Violence in Palestine is escalating again. Who is to blame and how should the Left react in this situation?


10/10/2023

After Israel’s extreme right wing government organised a wave of violence against Palestinians in recent months, Hamas struck back with an unexpected counter-attack. In a secretly planned operation, fighters from Gaza broke out of the coastal strip which has been hermetically sealed for the last 16 years, and attacked both military and civil targets on Israeli territory.

According to the Israeli government, the number of dead has risen to more than 700. At least 2,200 people were injured, and at least 100 were captured by Hamas fighters.

State of War in Israel

The Israeli government has proclaimed a state of war, and continuously bombed both military and civil targets in Gaza. The Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant announced a “total blockade”, including a ban on the import of food and fuel. He described this as part of a war against “brutish people”.

According to the army, so far 800 targets in the Gaza strip have been bombed. Palestinians report that more than 500 people have been killed, and several thousand injured. For example, Israeli forces bombed an eleven story building in the Al-Nasr district in the West of Gaza City. In Khan Younis in the Gaza strip, a mosque was hit by fire and largely destroyed. Electricity has been turned off for the whole enclave with around two million inhabitants.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called all surviving civilians in Gaza to leave the area. But because of the blockade there are virtually no possibilities to flee. At the same time, the Israeli government is sending 300,000 reservists to the Gaza strip.

Who is to blame?

Even Ofer Cassif, member of the liberal Hadash party and the Israeli senate has said that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the actions of the government led by Netanyahu are responsible for the death of Israelis and Palestinians. Speaking to Al-Jazeera, he said “It [the casualties] is unacceptable … As long as the occupation remains, this terrible crime will continue … and this is what this government wants.

According to UN figures, between 2008 and 2023 (not counting the victims of recent days), Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip have killed 6,407 Palestinians and wounded 152,560. On the Israeli side, 308 people have been killed in the same period and 6,307 wounded.

The Israeli Government Escalates

Since the formation of the extreme right wing government in Israel, settlers have become even more radicalised. Armed settlers regularly enter Palestinian villages in the West Bank and attack the inhabitants. In this sense, these people are no longer civilians, but armed colonisers and conquistadors.

According to UN reports, this violence of Jewish settlers against Palestinians has risen massively. With around 99 cases per month, there have been 39 per cent more attacks in 2023 compared to the previous year. The actions of the settlers have the backing of the Israeli government and the army leadership, who support their actions.

Only recently, Israeli soldiers also entered the Palestinian village of Ja’bad, attacked Palestinian villagers and shot tear gas into the streets. Every day, houses are destroyed by Israeli forces, olive groves are flattened, and the livelihood of the Palestinians are increasingly taken away.

Gaza: The Largest Open Air Prison in the World

Life in the Gaza strip where land, water, air and even the underground are fully sealed off by Israel is inhumane, even though this is not recognised by the media and the international public. Over 97 per cent of the water in the sealed-off coastal strip is unfit for human consumption.

Power is often only available for 2-4 hours per day. Even the average daily food consumption is limited by Israel to 2279 calories per day. Recently even former generals and Mossad agents have admitted that their actions in Palestine amount to war crimes.

The Hamas Offensive

Israel offered an open flank for the offensive from Gaza because of the deeply broken political environment in the midst of mass protests against the extreme right wing government coalition. In addition, there is the crisis of the occupation architecture in the West Bank which was established by the “Oslo negotiation process”. As the Palestinian Authority acts as the extended arm of the occupation as part of its “security cooperation” with Israel, it is increasingly losing its support from the general public.

In cities like Nablus and Jenin, formerly disbanded PLO militias are reaching once more for their weapons in newly formed military formations together with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Gaza seemed to be forgotten for months. Now Hamas is using the situation for an offensive.

Reaction of the Media and Politicians

The reaction of the media and politicians in Germany is one-sided and aimed against the Palestinian liberation movement. Although the attack by Hamas and Palestinian fighters was described as “barbarism”, “terror”, and “unacceptable”, this is exactly the everyday experience of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli occupation.

It would be a mistake for the Left to follow these politics of our rulers. The delegitimisation of the Palestinian resistance finds its expression in the attacks on Palestine solidarity in Germany: fundamental rights like the right to assembly, freedom of association or speech, and job opportunities are restricted by the repression.

In this context, Micha Brumlik, the educationalist and Senior Advisor to the Centre of Jewish Studies in Berlin-Brandenburg spoke of a “new McCarthyism” (see our FAQ “The Left and Palestine Solidarity”).

Palestine and the Hypocrisy of our Rulers

As usual, US President Joe Biden and the German Chancellor Scholz have stood on the side of the occupying force. Scholz spoke of the Israeli government’s right “to defend itself”. The hypocrisy of our rulers is clear. They deplore Putin’s annexation of Eastern Ukraine, but support the annexation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights with weapons.

They call the Palestinian resistance fighters against the colonial occupying force “terrorists” and are silent about the everyday terror of the Israeli settlers and the Israeli army in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

Right to Resist in Palestine

The Palestinians have every right to defend themselves against their oppression. But now the oppression and the resistance to it are resulting in fatalities. Each one of these fatalities is one to many. At the same time, every fatality, the suffering and the brutality is also the result of decades of racist ethnic cleansing and the Israeli State’s occupation of Palestine.

Responsibility for the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian civilian population lies with the Israeli state machinery, its organs of violence and the settler movement. Death, violence and degradation is part of the everyday life of Palestinians under Apartheid.

Mohammed Salah from the Beit Lahia district in the North of the Gaza strip told Al-Jazeera about the bombing by the Israeli army: “Last night Israeli planes indiscriminately bombed our district. The situation was very dangerous. Like other families, I have lost my house.”

He continued: “The Israeli bombs do not distinguish between civilians and resistance fighters. In every war we lose our houses because of the random bombing. We have been living in this situation for years, without anyone defending us or standing up for us. We have the right to defend ourselves against our occupiers.”

How can the Violence in Palestine be Ended?

Without the Israeli State’s brutal displacement politics against the Palestinians there would be no need to resist. In Israel, military service is compulsory from the age of 17 for all non-Arab citizens. This means that people are militarily trained as combatants or reservists in the framework of the occupation of Palestine. This practice is an elementary integral part of the settler colonial state.

The solution would be a joint democratic state with the lifting of checkpoints, the pulling down of walls and fences, the opening of the Zionist settlements and streets in the West Bank along which everyone is allowed to travel. The spiral of violence will only be permanently broken if the roots of the problem are addressed by ending the occupation and granting the same rights to Palestinians as the Jewish population.

It is therefore decisive what echo the Palestinian fight finds in surrounding countries and worldwide.

Reaction of the Left

Solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement must urgently be put on the agenda of the international Left, including the Left in Germany. The German Left is strong at building anti-racist protests, as mobilisations like #unteilbar, Seebrücke and other initiatives clearly show. But much of German civil society, including the Left, is silent when it comes to solidarity with the Palestinians. This is related to uncertainty in the fact of accusations of antisemitism.

Solidarity with Palestine

It is the role of the Left (and of the party Die LINKE) to change this now and in the coming years. Left wing organisations and parties in Germany can seek out joint work with organisations like Palästina Spricht, Samidoun, or the Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East) and plan joint meetings and protests which would help to develop a position which is not on the side of the oppressor, and to take it onto the streets.

The occupation and blockade must be ended.

Solidarity demonstration with Palestinians – Wednesday 11th October, 4pm, Richardplatz Berlin. Called by the Palestine Campaign and the Palestinian community.

This article, written by the marx21 editorial board, first appeared in German on the marx21 website. The article appeared on 9th October, so some of the figures quoted may now be even higher. Translation: Phil Butland. Reproduced with permission.

Risky Allyship: Germans in Support of Palestine

Interview with Julia Schreiber about people in Germany who are fighting for Palestinian rights


09/10/2023

Thanks for talking to us. Could you start by briefly introducing yourself?

I’m Julia. I’m originally from Germany, but I moved to the UK a year ago to do a PhD on risky allyship – why people advocate the rights of another group although it might be risky for them and they don’t gain any direct benefits from their activism – indeed, it may even harm them.

Within this project, I’m looking at different groups. And because I’m German, I’m interested in why Germans actively support Palestinians although this can be really hard in Germany and you can be accused of antisemitism as soon as you criticize Israel or say something pro-Palestinian.

In Germany, it’s really hard to find a perspective other than a really pro-Israel narrative.

Why are you specifically interested in Israel and Palestine?

When you grow up in Germany, you hear about the Holocaust a lot in school. You hear much less about the Israel-Palestine conflict apart from media reports about escalations between Israelis and Palestinians without further knowledge of the background of this conflict, and Israel defending themselves against Palestinians.

This meant that when I was a kid I didn’t think much about the conflict. If I thought about it at all, it was as a conflict between two religions. Then I got to know an American Jewish person who had recently moved to Israel. I visited him there, and I heard a lot of the Israeli narrative. I saw soldiers everywhere and how the tension and fear affected people’s daily life. I only heard about this from the Israeli side, but I now felt a personal connection.

Over the years, I became more and more interested in being active for peacebuilding efforts. I did a training to become a peace worker. And the more I learned about the conflict, the more I heard also about the “other” side, the Palestinian side. I also saw how little I knew about how the conflict actually evolved because there is not much discourse about this in German society. I realized that in conflicts such as in Israel and Palestine, it is not enough to just foster positive relations between the groups – the power inequalities and injustices also have to be addressed for sustainable peace efforts.

You’ve lived in Germany and in Britain. What differences have you noticed about how Palestine is discussed?

While I was still in Germany, I saw a lot on social media about Palestinians‘ experiences. I found these emotionally touching. But I didn’t really have people to talk to about it.

Then I moved to the UK. In my project I originally wanted to look at Israelis who support Palestinian rights – people who are part of the conflict, and then step in for the other group and try to empower them, because I imagine it to be very challenging in these contexts to support an oppressed group and as soon as the risk is higher to be an ally, not many people engage in allyship actions. But at some point, I realized how hard it is in Germany to step in for Palestinians – and that it can also be risky there.

When I moved to the UK, I realized how much easier it was to talk openly about the subject. I learned much more about topics like settler colonialism, which were new to me, as they aren’t really addressed in Germany. For me, the German context meant that you always had the fear of saying something wrong about the conflict and not having open discussions about the injustices that are happening there, because of being seen as being antisemitic.

As I’ve been working in academia, I’ve been in a bit of a bubble. In German academia, this is almost a topic that is not covered or talked about, even among more liberal people who are used to talking about inequalities. I would say most research on this conflict focusses on how to create harmony between the groups. I remember one researcher who looked into the differences between criticizing Israel and antisemitism facing a lot of accusations of being antisemitic. This is not the same in the UK, at least for the people I talk to.

Why do you think Germans should feel particularly bad about antisemitism?

From my memory, we spent at least four years at school just talking about World War II and the awful things that we did. I think this is very important to make sure that what has happened will never happen again. My friends and I grew up being taught this guilt towards Jewish people, and feeling bad about our history and what our ancestors did. Overall, I think this makes us feel that we have a higher responsibility compared to other countries to protect Jewish life.

At the same time, there are not that many Jewish people in Germany anymore. Many German people I know say that they’ve never met a Jewish person personally, or at least no-one that they knew was Jewish. So it makes it harder for people to know how to interact with Jewish people appropriately since many hold this guilt and fear to do something wrong in an interaction.

Also, in Germany, Israel is perceived as the representation of all Jewish people and the only way to provide them with a safe environment. It is perceived that we cannot say anything against Israel, because this would be antisemitic, would deny Israelis the right of existence and would be against our responsibility to protect Jewish people. The easiest way for people to show that we‘ve learned from the past and that we are not antisemitic is to openly support Israel. This is much easier than to really look at the still existing problem of antisemitism in Germany. Also, many people do not understand that standing for rights of Palestinians or criticising Israel does not automatically mean that Israelis do not have a right to exist in this area.

I believe that all these things lead Germans to not knowing how to behave or talk about Israel-Palestine because they do not want to say or do anything wrong or inappropriate considering their past, and feel responsible to provide a safe space for Jewish people. However, this is also one of the questions that I am exploring in my interviews and I am happy to hear other opinions about this!

Let’s move onto your project. You have explicitly said that, at least for now, you are not interviewing Israelis and Palestinians. What’s the reasoning behind this?

My project has several parts. The first part is about so-called third parties: people who are not directly part of a conflict. There is a lot of research on collective action: why people fight for their own rights although its risky, e.g., because they have nothing to lose. However, we only know to some extent why people become active allies, and usually research showed that as soon as allyship is risky, people do not engage in allyship actions anymore. So, I am very interested to learn more about what motivates people who become active although they might face risks or barriers, and how they might overcome these barriers. I’m less interested in finding a solution or saying how things should be. I’m more interested in seeing why people fight against human rights violations and injustices; specifically, if its not common in their surroundings.

You’re looking for people who are supporting Palestinians. What does this mean to you? What counts as support?

I tried to have a really low threshold, because I know that it can be difficult in Germany to be vocal. Supporting Palestinians can be being active on social media and posting about injustices that are happening there. It can be giving Palestinians a voice or demonstrating, It can be publicly criticizing Israel.

You’ve done two interviews so far, but do you have any expectations?

First, I want to explore whether the motivations differ between allies who are active in relatively riskless contexts compared to higher-risk contexts. That is the core aim of the project.

Second, because people who are pro-Palestinian don’t really get a voice, we don’t always hear about their motivation. I want to hear about their motivations and about the bigger picture like the difference in power. So, one of the side outcomes of this project will also be to show a more nuanced view of why people get motivated. I also want to show the barriers which prevent people getting involved.

A lot of people are not aware that pro-Palestinian activism can cost you your job, or make you a victim of police violence. Germany is often seen as this really democratic country, and as a role model, but for me it is shocking that for some topics related to human rights people get silenced. This should not happen in a democracy.

Some people will argue that academia should be neutral but what you’re doing seems more like an intervention. How would you answer people who say you’ve made up your mind before you started?

I agree that science should be neutral. At the same time, I think that as a scientist you can never be completely neutral because you’re also a human being with subjective beliefs. Even if you’re creating a questionnaire, it’s you who decides which questions you ask. So, science is never completely objective.

The main question in my research is why people would risk put themselves at risk to support another group. But in Germany, there is virtually no talk about Palestine or Palestinian rights, which creates real barriers which people must overcome before they can become active. This is an objective barrier.

How easy has it been to find people to talk to you? And how are they reacting?

I reached out to a lot of organizations and Facebook groups. But to most people, I’m just an anonymous person and they don’t really know, what the aim of the project is. This can generate scepticism. Some people also say, “Why should we engage with these people from academia?”

But some people I have talked to have said that they’re grateful because no one is looking into this, particularly in German academia. I expected more negative feedback than I’ve actually received.

Suppose I’m a Palestine activist in Germany. I don’t have a lot of time, because Palestine activism is hard work. What would be my motivation to talk to you?

I can completely understand that when you’re active for an important cause, you will spend most of your energy there. I also understand that I’m more interested in the academic question of producing knowledge. This is not necessarily the same thing as activism, but it can be useful for activists. It is important to know who is motivated by what and what are the barriers preventing this. What holds people back from activism?

I’m now at an English university. But my aim is to also somehow publish my results in German. There is not a lot of information about this conflict in the German language. This is one of the barriers which prevents a nuanced debate and any deep discourse. People just don’t have access to different viewpoints.

I don’t want to just use my results and present them as an abstract paper. I also want people to get to know the different reasons why people might be active for Palestinians.

You are trying to talk to people who are supporting Palestinians. Do you think you are personally doing anything to support Palestinians?

This has been a process for me. I wouldn’t say I’m an activist. I started to see the injustices that are happening. And for a long time, I had problem addressing this because of this inner fear of being seen as antisemitic.

Over time, after I read more about the topic, I’ve become more comfortable posting things that address the injustices on social media platforms. What I’m doing now is posting a lot more and talking about the side which isn’t being shown.

What happens next with your project? How long are you interviewing people? When can you expect to publish anything – in English and in German?

I just started with the interviews, and I hope I’ll be done by the end of this year. I need to talk to 15 to 20 more people. After that, the analysis will take some time because the interviews are really long. There’s a lot of rich data. I hope I should have all the results by the middle of next year.

Publishing is a completely different story which takes a really long time. I’m thinking of making my results public in another way outside of academic journals. I’m also involved in a few other projects looking at the motivations of the general German population. It’s different talking about the motivations of people who are active vs. the general public.

If someone does want to talk to you, what sort of person are you looking for?

You have to be over 18. I’m currently searching for third-party, so no Israelis or Palestinians, but also no one from an Israeli or Palestinian family. You should be active in some way, however, already lower levels of engagement/allyship are fine (e.g., social media posts). You must have been born in Germany or lived in Germany for five years. You must understand the German context, and the difficulties of being active in Germany.

If you are interested, you can contact me via email J.Schreiber@sussex.ac.uk or reach out to me on Twitter @schreiber_jul, where you can see more about who I am as a person. At the moment, you cannot really read that much in detail about our project but I’m always happy to talk in more detail if you contact me.

One final question. Do you know what you want to do once you finish your doctorate?

I don’t know exactly. I was never sure whether I wanted to do the PhD in the first place. I came from a place where I really wanted to be more of a peace worker. But I really liked creating knowledge.

I also want to make a difference in the world. I know that academia might not always make a difference because you create knowledge, but often this knowledge stays in academia. So, I can imagine actually going more into peace building in some form, or and building a bridge between this work and academia.

For a long time, I thought that you have to go somewhere where there’s conflict, although I see it slightly different now. There’s also so much conflict happening in Germany. Every injustice is a conflict. Germany is also the context that I’m most familiar with, because I grew up here.

I can see myself working here. But I am aware that what I’m publishing might have negative consequences for me in Germany. But possible negative consequences are not a reason for me to refrain from looking into topics that are related to the injustices in Israel/Palestine and the fight for human rights.