edit because I am getting pushback at Germany being at fault here, here is some context.
During the past months, Palestine solidarity protesters in Berlin have been reportedly subjected to police violence, leaving some injured and requiring medical care. Dozens were reportedly arrested, some for simply chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. This slogan is widely used by the global Palestine solidarity movement yet has been treated by German authorities as expressing support for Hamas, the experts noted. While some courts upheld fines or bans deeming the slogan as “condoning violence”, other courts recognised it as protected under freedom of expression. Moreover, the experts expressed concern that, during protests marking the two-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas-led attack and the subsequent genocide in Gaza, arbitrary arrests, detentions, and police violence were reported, including officers punching non-violent activists in the face; while the police in Berlin reportedly imposed a last-minute ban on protests without evidence-based justification.
In February, Berlin police ordered that speeches and slogans at a Palestinian solidarity demonstration be conveyed in German and English only. When protesters chanted in Hebrew and Arabic at a demonstration on 8 February, the protest was immediately violently dispersed by police.
In March, at a peaceful protest in Berlin, a woman was repeatedly hit in the face and on the head by a police officer. Similar violence by police officers was documented during protests on Nakba Day as well as at the Internationalist Queer Pride event in Berlin in July.
In February, the Christian Democratic Union Party led a parliamentary inquiry into the financing of civil society organizations. The inquiry consisted of 551 questions, aimed at assessing the political neutrality of state-funded organizations, particularly those campaigning against racism and for migrant rights. It thereby put such organizations under general suspicion.
On 20 March, the Administrative Court of Berlin ruled as unlawful the use of pain-compliance holds by the police to remove peaceful climate protesters from a previously dispersed gathering.
In March, the Berlin immigration authorities notified four foreign – EU and US – nationals of the termination of their residency status due to their involvement in student protests in support of Palestinians in 2024. None were convicted of any criminal charges. Leaked correspondence indicated that the Berlin Ministry of the Interior had pressured the immigration authorities to deport the four. All the cases were successfully challenged in preliminary proceedings and the deportations temporarily halted.
In May, following a Nakba commemoration protest, the Berlin Police claimed that an officer had been seriously injured at the hands of demonstrators. This allegation was used by police spokespeople, the mayor and the federal minister of interior to demand new police powers against protesters acting in solidarity with Palestinians. However, an independent investigation later discovered that the police officer had injured himself while beating protesters.
On 26 November the Administrative Court of Berlin ruled that the dissolution of a pro-Palestine conference in 2024 had been unlawful.
A state that grounds its legitimacy in universalizable norms cannot coherently say that the burdens produced by its special responsibility to Jews may simply fall on those who happened to live in the territory where the Jewish homeland was established—a land Jews had long regarded as their ancestral home. To avoid offloading the costs of its own past to others, Germany bears not only general human-rights duties to Palestinians, but also particular duties of non-complicity, protection, and repair toward them.
At this stage, I find these broader implications of the German responsibility toward Israel insufficiently reflected in German politics, and painfully so. But generational changes seem to be in the process of changing German attitudes in this direction.
So let’s correct the headline to:
There is no right of a state to exist, only of a people to exist.
No god, no masters. States are a tool for repression.
The Israeli government is fascist and the German government is complicit in genocide. Speak up! Speak out against the Nakba, against fascism, and for liberation of all people from apartheid, reactionarism, and hatred!
It also must be emphasized that saying “Israel has no fundamental right to exist” does not mean that jews living in Israel do not have a right to exist, or live in Israel, what it means is that the theological/ethnic identity of the COUNTRY of Israel that brutally excludes the humanity of others (including christians) living in Israel who aren’t jews, has no special right to exist as a political mechanism.
Countries are political constructions, they have no right to exist and they do not represent the identity of the people who live in said countries. People, countries and religion are THREE DISCRETE CONCEPTS.
Somehow I doubt you wanna tell us that palestine has no fundamental right to exist.
As Palestine is a political entity/governing body, yes it has no special right to exist the same way human beings have a special universal right to exist, have a special right to freedom and a special right to be meaningfully represented in the power structures they are enclosed within. These rights extend to Palestinians, Jews and everybody else.
A country is not a living creature, humans are living creatures.
Ok, at least you are consistent, I’ll give you that.
No one should be supporting terrorism by Hamas against Israeli civilians (from the quote it sounds like that is the position of an individual rather than the group at large), just as no one should be supporting Israeli terrorism against Palestinian civilians.
In terms of the second point, pointing out that Israel is a settler colonial state is anti-Zionist, not antisemitic; the issue of Northern Ireland falls into the same category.
Nope, this is your bias speaking
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s usually a duck. Just because you are agreeing with these incredibly obvious, outspoken and unashamed terrorist supporters and antisemites, this doesn’t mean they are not terrorist supporters and antisemites. If anyone should examine themselves and their biases, it’s you.
I think what’s happening here is that a long time ago, you learned that being an antisemite is a bad thing - and you obviously can’t be a bad thing - but you never actually learned what makes it bad, which is why you are failing to comprehend this situation.
Where is your evidence of antisemitism?
Support of openly antisemitic terrorists.
This is all you have to go on!???
You are clearly not even trying to argue in good faith. This isn’t a triviality, it’s more than enough to ban a group and persecute its members under German law.
First I re-emphasize this.
Second does calling it a “successful resistance action” mean the person/people believed it was a moral or ethical?
Words matter here.
Maybe it’s indeed my bias from knowing such “pro-palestine” people attacking jews that aren’t supportive of Israel’s pseudo-fascism at all.
Oh, wait. That’s also just openly demonstrated antisemitism dressed as support for Palestine.
You aren’t even making a clear and coherent enough argument for me to respond to.
The argument is extremely clear. People attacking Jews because they are Jews, outside of Israel and ones that are opposing Israel’s actions, too, are in fact antisemitic. That doesn’t change because they dress their antisemitism up as being “pro Palestine”.
Or: It shouldn’t change the fact but somehow does in your brain. Which is the reason you can’t perceive arguments as clear or coherent anymore when the underlying facts don’t match you world view. Cognitive dissonance in action…