[Normalisation and full support in word and deed of Israeli
settlement colonialism, apartheid and military occupation of
Palestinian territories have paved the way for Germany to once again
be involved as a world political superpower.]
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“AGAINST MUSLIMS TODAY MEANS AGAINST JEWS AGAIN TOMORROW”  
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Iris Hefets and Nadija Samour
December 3, 2023
The Left Berlin
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_ Normalisation and full support in word and deed of Israeli
settlement colonialism, apartheid and military occupation of
Palestinian territories have paved the way for Germany to once again
be involved as a world political superpower. _

Iris and Nadija on stage. Photo: Phil Butland IRIS:,

 

Speech by Iris Hefets (Jüdische Stimme) and Nadija Samour (Palästina
Spricht) at the anti-war demonstration, 25th November 2023 at
Brandenburger Tor

IRIS:

21 years ago, I—literally—forced my family to emigrate from Israel
to Berlin. They weren’t happy with the decision, but I didn’t see
a future in an increasingly militarised society. Shortly after I was
on the streets with hundreds of thousands of others of all colours
protesting against the war in Iraq. Here I was, an Israeli, protesting
with so many people against the war—I thought surely I had landed in
the middle of a dream.

That was Germany in 2003, where nationalism, militarisation, and war
were still up for debate. A Germany, where many still knew the meaning
of war.

Twenty years later, those who call for a ceasefire are denounced as
“Putin-Sympathisers” and “Hamas-supporters.” This is
frightening.

NADIJA:

Yes—20 years later we live in a Germany in which unconditional
solidarity with war crimes and genocide is reason of state, and in
which Palestinians and their supporters by default no longer have
basic rights.

I want to remind us of what is happening right now on the Gaza Strip.
Since it seems as though the German media attempt to deny and distort
the immeasurable pain caused, with full support from the EU and USA,
by the Israeli war machine. As we stand here, more than 14,800 people
have been murdered, half of them children. More than 6,800 still lie
beneath the rubble of destroyed homes and schools. 1.7 million are
fleeing; that is 77% of the total population of one of the most
densely inhabited areas in the world.

That begs the question: to where should they flee? The Gaza Strip has
not only been besieged and occupied for decades, but since October 9th
has been cut off completely from fuel, power, water, and food. Without
the international community taking action to save lives. Nearly 100
journalists have been murdered on the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank
by the Israeli army, medical personnel, hospitals and ambulances,
schools, refugee camps, mosques and churches—everything is being
bombed, destroyed. On top of it all comes the claim that the victims
are at fault because they supposedly share common cause with Hamas.

But unconditional solidarity with war crimes and genocide did not
begin driving politics in Germany as of October 2023. Normalisation
and full support in word and deed of Israeli settlement colonialism,
apartheid and military occupation of Palestinian territories have
paved the way for Germany to once again be involved as a world
political superpower.

IRIS:

Germany had to rehabilitate itself after the last World War. Because
Germans could not speak with the direct victims—be it because they
were murdered or, were they able to escape, wanted nothing more to do
with Germany—a suitable proxy for reparations was found: the state
of Israel.

That was a good solution for all involved. Chancellor Adenauer could
carry on rebuilding Germany with former Nazis. Prime Minister Ben
Gurion, who was responsible for the first ethnic cleansing in
Palestine, got urgently needed money. One hand washes the other.

It was primarily civil initiatives that triggered the German
public’s confrontation of deep-seated antisemitism and the crimes
committed during the war. Noteworthy examples include
the _Stolpersteine_ and the “Places of Remembering” in the
Bavarian quarter.

German politics discovered a moral goldmine; ‘the Jews’ were
chosen as the object of reparations and Israel as their
representative. From ‘the Jews’, who were nearly obliterated
because they were stand-ins for ‘the bad guys’ became ‘the good
guys’. Very convenient.

Today, the some 200,000 Jewish people living in Germany comprise
neither a political nor an economic or electoral power. The Central
Jewish Council—who, even under Heinz Galinski and Ignaz Bubis
cooperated and showed solidarity with other minorities – is financed
by the German government and instrumentalised against Muslims.

In the 1930s, many German Jews denied the racism directed at them and
were certain that Germans ‘only’ had something against Eastern
Jews. They thought that they were safe because they fought for Germany
in the first world war.

Against Muslims today means being against Jews again tomorrow.

NADIJA:

At the same time Germany has elevated Palestinians to being the
enemies of the state, projecting onto them ‘barbaric’ traits such
as antisemitism, misogyny, queerphobia, and so on. Painting a portrait
of the enemy serves a German nationalism that wants to exist in the
world once more. Israel serves to showcase a substitute nationalism. A
purified Great Germany, that arms its deadly borders, threatens mass
deportation, creates racist exclusions through tightened residency and
naturalisation laws, and attempts to hinder every resistance with
police violence, protest bans and defamation. A purified Great Germany
that measures domestic nationalism in weapons exports, all the while
believing, despite its core imperialism, it can maintain a clean
image.

IRIS:

Today we lack civil resistance to these alarming totalitarian
tendencies found hiding behind the ‘fight for western values’ in
the Ukraine, or the ‘fight against antisemitism’.

Much alive, and also to be said, very deadly is
Adenauer-Globke-Ben-Gurion-ethnic cleansing,  which merges into
Scholz-Habeck-AfD-Netanyahu-genocide in Gaza.

in 2010 I published an article in the “_taz” _— back then I
could still write for the German press. It was called ‘Walking on
Tiptoe’. It began like this:

‘What do the two professors Ilan Pappe (Israel), Norman Finkelstein
(USA) and the publicist Hajo Meyer (Germany) have in common? All three
are Jewish, holocaust survivors or descendants thereof, and vehement
critics of Israel’s politics.

‘What do the city of Munich, the Trinity church in Berlin, and the
Heinrich Böll and Rosa Luxemburg foundations have in common? They,
after granting initial permission, disinvited Ilan Pappe and Norman
Finkelstein and denied them the event venues promised to them. Just as
the Holy Spirit Church in Frankfurt did to Hajo Meyer a few years
prior. And so, the aforementioned institutions gave in to the
pressures of pro-Israel circles who denounced Finkelstein, Pappe, and
Meyer as ‘Anti-Semites’.

Those were the beginnings of state cleansing – through not the AfD
or other brownshirt organisations – but supposed progressive actors.
All the while, children and eventually the grandchildren of Holocaust
survivors, are taught by presumed ‘Jew-friendly’ politicians what
antisemitism is.

The Bundestag will gut the constitution by replacing legislation with
‘resolutions’. The anti-BDS resolution, supported nearly without
exception from the AfD to the Linke, was an alarming sign.
Representatives knew that such content as “law” – had no chance
of passing because it transgressed upon the right to freedom of speech
embedded in the constitution. The perfidious thing is that legal
action cannot be taken against such a resolution because it is not
legally binding. A new resolution titled ‘Protect Jewish life in
Germany’ now threatens us – a resolution according to which those
who criticise Israel, incriminate themselves in so-called
‘anti-semitism in relation to Israel’. They risk deportation or
having their citizenship application rejected. The AfD no longer needs
to become the ruling party, their xenophobic agenda is already coming
to fruition. But Germans shouldn’t consider themselves out of
harm’s way, either. Cultural institutions that give criticism of
Israel a platform, for example, risk losing future financing. By
contrast, it seems almost harmless that our organisation, ‘Jewish
Voice for Peace in the Middle East’ (JVP), had its BFS bank account
closed in the name of the fight against anti-semitism a few years ago.
Jewish people who do not fit the current German portrait of a Jew are
undesirable.

I was invited to speak here because five weeks ago I did not want to
be silenced by an unconstitutional protest ban
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The JVP was not allowed to protest on Oranienplatz, so I went to
Hermannplatz in Neukölln alone with a sign that read ‘As an Israeli
and a Jew: Stop the Genocide in Gaza’. There I was taken into
custody by the Berlin police. After a police investigation the
officers apologised to me because I was right according to the
constitution and I was escorted to a spot where I stood with the sign
for about two hours. Two weeks ago, at a protest for an immediate
ceasefire I was again taken into custody with the same sign. The sign
was confiscated and the police filed a criminal complaint against me
for _Volksverhetzung _[1]. The same happened to others at this
demonstration. Such cases are counted toward statistics on
anti-semitic crimes since October 7th.

NADIJA:

As a lawyer who receives a lot of mandates from the Palestinian
community, I can report that anti-Palestinian and anti-Jewish
repression as Iris describes have been well-known to us for years.

People are losing their work and residency status; artistic venues and
cultural institutions are losing their funding; police violence
against protesters is celebrated; the media is overrun with shocking
propaganda and a general climate of intimidation prevails. Indeed,
since October, we experience all this to a degree that I could not
have seen coming. In October in Berlin alone, all Palestine protests
were blanket-banned through general decree. Pro-Israel celebrations,
organised by the state apparatus itself, naturally were not covered by
this ban. In Neukölln, a dominantly Arabic working-class
neighbourhood, the police ruled the streets with impunity.
Arabic-looking individuals were arbitrarily stopped, searched and
registered on the street. Schoolchildren have been subjected to
disciplinary action and violence at the hands of teachers because the
Berlin education senator wanted to forbid the Keffiyeh or other
Palestinian symbols. And we are now dealing with thousands of court
proceedings involving people who wanted to take advantage of their
fundamentally secured right to assembly. But—we must say, clearly
and distinctly: it was the daily, unwavering gatherings on Sonnenallee
and other parts of the city that finally succeeded in breaking through
the protest ban. It was the solidarity of tens of thousands of
Berliners and internationalists who fought for the rights of
Palestinians. Today at this protest, too, is it important to demand,
loud and clear, solidarity with the Palestinian people. Why? Edward
Said, one of the most well-known Palestinian intellectuals, tells us:
‘think of solidarity with the Palestinian people here and all over
Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, and think, too, of
the fact that there is something which engages many, despite the
difficulty and obstacles.

‘And why? Because that something is just, a noble ideal, a moral
strive toward equality and human rights.’

Long live international solidarity! Free Palestine!

Thank you very much Iris.

_Translation: Shav McKay. Reproduced with Permission_

FOOTNOTE

1 Literally ‘rabble-rousing’, incitement of the people, mass
instigation. Conceptually, this is intended in German law to prevent
viewpoints considered dangerous to social order from spreading.

_The Left Berlin is a community of international progressives in
Berlin. We run an online journalism project hosting a range of
left-wing perspectives in English, as well as collaborating on
progressive campaigns and events in the city. The site is run by a
team of volunteer editors, writers and translators.  This project
emerged from the Berlin LINKE Internationals and maintains close links
but the site has editorial autonomy and attempts to reflect a range of
debate on the left._

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