The state and the German press are not only covering up and spreading misinformation about what is happening in Palestine while parroting outlandish claims from the IDF, but they also emphasize the events of October 7 without adequate geo-political and historical context, exaggerate the crimes of Hamas, and promote some of the Israeli government’s worst lies. In doing so, they seek to keep the shock and trauma of October 7 alive in order to justify and advance their genocidal, racist foreign and domestic policies. This strategy is explained by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine. The well-known book exposes how dominant powers use collective shock to impose less popular policies on society.
For months, this tactic has been employed in Germany. Under the pretense Israel’s right to exist as ‘reason of state’ basic freedoms are being progressively attacked and restricted. Freedom of expression, assembly, press and asylum of both people and associations in solidarity with the Palestinian people are under fire in Germany, exercising particular wrath upon its Palestinian and Arab communities.
At the domestic level, this state of permanent shock and re-traumatisation combined with a lately deficient and opportunistic cultural memory has led to what can only be understood as collective delirium. The supposed ‘fight’ against antisemitism has taken hostage the reasoning and critical thinking capacity of the nation, its institutions, the media and, unlike in most other countries, a large number of white German citizens that considers themselves left-wing. While society remains largely silent about the ongoing genocide or defends it, and Israeli flags fly on several government buildings across the country, politicians of all parties support Israel and its army at their events, including the left-wing party Die Linke, which displayed the flag of the genocidal army at its information stand for the European elections in the city of Halle.
Pro-Zionist delirium on the left is strongest in the ‘anti-Deutsche’ (anti-German) movement. Active for decades, groups and individuals who consider themselves anti-fascist fill the streets and networks with antifa flags combined with those of Israel, organise israeli-solidarity events, and a self-organised centre in Leipzig, Conne Island, has even encouraged people to join the Israeli army via a link on its website through which German citizens can enlist. The link, along with blog entries by people who cliamed to have helped the army, was hastily deleted. These individuals and groups have become increasingly radicalised since 7 October. Anti-muslim racists brand anyone who shows solidarity with Palestine a ‘dangerous Islamist’. The groups have been active in doxxing activists, getting events and concerts cancelled, and publishing some particularly terrible reporting.
But the anti-Deutsche are not alone, nor are they the worst. Supporters of Israel participate in TV talk shows, write op-eds, give speeches, and commune on networks denying the Nakba, occupation, apartheid and genocide, while advocating for ethnic cleansing under the justification of destroying Hamas, even at the cost of of the entire Palestinian territory and its population, with no repercussions. Major newspapers publish their articles; Zionist sympathisers are invited to give public speeches claiming that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, as well arguing in favour of cutting off the supply of water, food and essential goods to the Gaza Strip, claiming that it is full of terrorists (at the same time, they argue that it is not true that it is already happening).
Accused of antisemitism and advocating terrorism, a comment explaining that this didn’t start on 7 October or a ‘like’ on social media is already costing Palestinian activists jobs or their funding. Since Udi Raz, a member of Jewish Voices for Peace in the Middle East, lost their job at the Holocaust Museum in Berlin in November for explaining that there is apartheid in occupied Palestine – a statement backed by the International Court in The Hague – centres for migrant girls have been closed, careers destroyed, exhibitions cancelled, awards withdrawn, and employees fired for showing empathy for the victims of an ongoing genocide.
The demonstrations and rallies in support of Palestine are constantly assaulted by an increasingly violent police force, which makes indiscriminate arrests, including of a 7-year-old child. The disproportional force of the Berlin police has led human rights associations such as Amnesty International to and call for investigation.
The German government is also tightening laws on immigration and asylum. It wants to facilitate the deportation of asylum seekers who may be extremist (read: pro-Palestinian) and is looking to pass an amendment so that a single like on a post considered ‘terrorist’ (which could include ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will win’, the word ‘Intifada’ or ‘Free Palestine’) could justify the deportation of offenders without a German passport. This past week the government has announced checks on all land borders to control migration purportedly for the sake of national security. The Ministry of the Interior cites, as is increasingly the case, the risk of ‘Islamists’ entering the country, with the strong connotation that all muslims are dangerous and many pose a potential terrorist threat.
Germany, however, is trying to save or at least not damage, its image abroad, through more restrained statements on the conflict and its domestic policies in the international arena. This is exemplified by covers of Der Spiegel. The magazine introduced the English version of an interview with Chancellor Olaf Scholz with the quote ‘We have to deport people more often and faster’, while the German version reads ‘We must finally deport in a big way’. In the former they are forced to do it because they are overwhelmed, in the latter they do it willingly, eagerly and efficiently, which is closer to the current reality in the country.
Reversal of the Victim/Perpetrator Narrative
The imposed narrative is that Israel cannot be a perpetrator, being a nation ‘of Jews and for Jews’. By deduction, it can only be a victim – confusing the fact that the Jewish people were victims of the horrific crimes committed by the Nazis in the Second World War that culminated in the Final Solution and the Holocaust, and rather than the state of Israel. In a twist, according to German popular media, anyone who believes that Israel commits atrocities and criticises it is here considered a Nazi sympathiser, since anyone who defames a Jew is a Nazi. In other words, the Palestinian people and their Middle Eastern allies are the new Nazis. The convenient idea that antisemitism in Germany is imported, that it is brought by migrants, especially Arabs, that has been floating for years in the German political and media spectrum, is now turbo-charged. This self-absolution is being propogated by people of the whole political spectrum.
This line of thinking is being spread by the Foreign Ministry through Middle East specialist media, Qantara. The online magazine was the only German public media reporting on Palestine in an accurate and independent way until restructuring was announced a few weeks ago. Among other measures it is to be supervised by the Foreign Ministry, which led to the resignation of the entire staff. In one of the first articles after the editorial change it is stated: ‘In contrast to Germany, the Nazi past has never been dealt with in the Middle East itself. The German media must also face up to this task if they want to understand and report on the growing antisemitism in Muslim circles in this country.’ The same article states that there is no famine in Gaza and that what we see on the networks are old images mixed with pictures from Syria. The new propagandist editorial line of the German foreign ministry is crystal clear.
These developments reach hysterical levels when white Germans classify themselves as victims of antisemitism for being called pro-genocide or Zionists when they proudly defend Israel by showing its flag, while anti-Zionist Jews are arrested and charged with antisemitic crimes for denouncing the massacre in Gaza.
Another widespread editorial line is that the Palestinian solidarity movement has reversed the victim/perpetrator roles; Hamas is almost forcing the poor Israeli soldiers to commit crimes against the civilian population by not letting the hostages go and laying down their arms. Never do these articles mention TikTok videos posted by those same soldiers mocking the dead Palestinians and calling for genocide.
This fanaticism is leading to more and more proto-fascist internal policies. Associations, demonstrations and events are banned without court orders. The Interior Ministry monitors left-wing newspapers that deviate from the imposed editorial line.
In a rare move against the growing German far-right and its hate speech, a few weeks ago Interior Minister Faeser ordered the closure of a far-right magazine called Compact, which is affiliated with the Alternative for Germany party, without a court order. This in itself has set a bad precedent that will surely be used in the near future to close down left-wing publications.
The same minister wants the intelligence service to investigate some 1200 professors who signed a letter of support for the students of the Free University of Berlin when their anti-genocide camp was violently evicted by riot police. Faeser also ordered a raid and closure of a mosque she accuses of jihadist terrorism without investigation or court order.
Both the Interior Ministry and its allied media are sounding the alarm over a growing antisemitic and ‘pro-jihadist’ radical left. Normal conversations and opinions in the rest of the world, such as talking about a one-state solution, where Palestinian and Jewish citizens live with equal rights, are considered extremist and genocidal (of the Jewish people).
There are also bans, which if they were not the beginning of a dangerous authoritarian path would be comical. In its eagerness to ban everything related to Hamas the Berlin senate banned red triangles, with social-democrat senators in favour, not taking into account that it is a symbol loaded with its own history, as the Nazis marked political prisoners in concentration and extermination camps with red triangles.
This ban not only shows that Germany has failed on the subject of historical memory in regard to who is responsible for the largest massacre of Jews in history and what antisemitism actually means, but that it is once again pointing the finger at racialised groups and left-wing groups that differ from its authoritarian colonialist policy.
This proto-fascist breeding ground is not only failing to protect its Jewish population, it is whitewashing right-wing antisemitism under the guise of pro-Zionism. It is exposing migrant and post-migrant are constantly demonised by the state and the media, exposing them to increasing danger. At this rate, we are on our way to events in the UK being replicated by the growing German right and cities filling with mobs on the hunt for ‘the foreigner’.
