The international repercussions of the banning of the Palestine Congress to be held in Berlin from 12 to 14 April 2024, as well as the reports of the detention on arrival and subsequent expulsion from the country of the rector of the University of Glasgow, Dr. Ghasam Abu Sitta, the banning of the former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, from any political activity, present or via zoom, for their participation in the said congress, have tarnished Germany’s image as a democratic country; one that had putatively left its Nazi past behind and exemplarily contained the arrival of the extreme right with an all-party pact.
Germany, in a desperate rush forward, instead of calmly coming to its senses and backtracking on its repression of pro-Palestinian solidarity, has intensified its attacks on pro-Palestinian activists in the streets, institutions, and in the media the week after the congress was banned. This same week, public television ZDF has broadcast two reports in which it has pointed out, by name and surname, photos, videos and Instagram accounts, well-known Palestinian activists in Berlin whom it links, without evidence, to jihadist terrorism. Since the broadcast of these prime-time reports, some of these activists have received threats. Despite the worrying problem of widespread Islamophobia in society, a violent far-right which has already committed multiple murders, German public broadcasters singled out activists with their full names.
Despite polls showing that 50% of German society finds Israel’s actions disproportionate, white Germans are conspicuous by their absence from demonstrations and actions against genocide.
This can only be understood as an escalation, and a call for the externalisation to society in general, and to the armed and violent extreme right in particular, of the repression of the anti-genocide movement. With these xenophobic reports they seem to want to fuel the Islamophobic fire and encourage fear of terrorist attacks committed by German citizens with migrant origins, and thus giving carte blanche to the expulsion policies proposed by the current supposedly moderate coalition government.
Germany simply does not want its complicity in the genocide in Gaza to be discussed publicly. Neither the government nor white German civil society wants to acknowledge that Germany is once again actively involved in another genocide. Despite polls showing that 50% of German society finds Israel’s actions disproportionate, white Germans are conspicuous by their absence from demonstrations and actions against genocide.
And yet it is their country that is the second largest exporter of arms to Israel, a business that has increased tenfold since 7 October. It is their country that immediately jumped to Israel’s defence in the genocide trial brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In a twist that can only happen in Germany, they did this on the very same day that the victims of the first genocide of the 20th century, committed by Germany against the Herero and Nama peoples in its former colony of Namibia, were being commemorated. It is their country which, one day after the court ordered interim measures against Israel for the prevention of genocide, without any proof withdrew humanitarian aid to UNWRA for the Gaza Strip in its entirety. It is their country that on the 5th of April voted No to the arms embargo proposed in the UN Counsel. It is their country that has already had 3 different lawsuits filed in its own courts by Palestinian-German citizens for their complicity in genocide. It is their country that multiple politicians and journalists are facing civil lawsuits filed by Palästina Spricht for incitement to genocide. And it is their country that has had to defend itself in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against accusations of complicity in genocide in a lawsuit brought by Nicaragua for the actions described above.
The question now is, if the information leaked a few days ago, which is now being reported in the Israeli press, that the International Criminal Court in The Hague is going to issue arrest warrants for Nethanyahu and members of his cabinet for crimes against humanity and if, as is highly likely, Israel is found guilty of committing genocide by the International Court of Justice, what will Germany and the Germans say? Perhaps that they did not know? They already used that excuse with the genocides against Jews and the Roma people in World War II and this time it doesn’t hold water.
