A few months ago, I was on a forum with a German colleague discussing European media. The conversation was lively and quickly moved from industry issues to broader topics such as Germany's memory culture and his 2008 financial crisis.
To my surprise, my German colleagues decided that it was inappropriate to criticize Greece's political stance at the time of the crisis, and also that I spoke about issues related to German history, such as the Holocaust. was deemed inappropriate. He explained, “You can't get into the other person's subjective experience or history, so it's best to avoid it.'' I couldn't agree more.
Without engaging in critical debate, we cannot align ourselves with what we think is morally right, and we cannot hold those in power to account, ultimately resulting in ethnic, religious, ideological, or national It ends up just affirming the alliance. To paraphrase Edward Said's famous words, we cannot show true solidarity without criticism. And we can't help but criticize a power when it blatantly attacks the very values and principles it stands for and protects.
As I read about the April 12 police raid on the Palestinian parliament in Berlin, I was reminded of this discussion with a German colleague.
The violent interruption and eventual cancellation of the pro-Palestinian conference was an alarming escalation in the repression of the Palestinian solidarity movement that has been underway in Germany and Western countries over the past six months. German police invaded the venue of a Palestinian conference organized by Jewish Voice for Peace in cooperation with DiEM25 and civil rights groups, cut off the electricity, confiscated microphones, and detained some participants. The venue was closed.
Then, in an unprecedented move, keynote speakers Yanis Varoufakis, Ghassan Abu-Sitta and Salman Abu-Sitta were given “Betätätigungsverbot” (banning orders). As a result, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, a central figure in the global progressive movement, will not be allowed to speak about Palestine in Germany, even via Zoom calls, and it is unclear whether he will be able to support him. is. German political party DiEM25 prepares for June's European elections.
This intervention has recently made it clear that in Germany any criticism of the State of Israel and its actions in Gaza is considered anti-Semitic and will be treated as such. The move in one of Europe's most powerful democracies comes alongside a new embrace of far-right figures with a documented history of anti-Semitism for defending Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. It highlights the depressing situation regarding freedom of speech.
The contrast here is striking. Pro-Israel politicians from the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), including one currently on trial for using literal Nazi slogans, have criticized Israel in the name of “fighting anti-Semitism”. Mr. Ghassan, who is free to speak out about the war against Palestine, is a Palestinian surgeon and president of the University of Glasgow, who works in a hospital in Gaza and has documented war crimes during Israel's latest attack on the Palestinian enclave. Abu Sitter cannot testify to the German people.
As Woody Raz, a Jewish activist arrested in the Palestinian parliament, said after his arrest, it seems that anti-Semitism can only be fought in Germany these days if it supports genocide.
The attack on the Palestinian parliament was just the latest in an escalating series of incidents. Under the pretext of security and vague accusations of anti-Semitism, German authorities have since October 7 suppressed the freedom of expression of those expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. . Some examples are listed below.
In November, it was revealed that poet Ranjit Hoskote had signed a letter in 2019 comparing Zionism to Hindu nationalism, and was on the selection committee for Documenta 16, one of the world's most contemporary art exhibitions. He was forced to resign from the association. Following Hoskote's resignation, the remaining members of the commission also resigned, citing the lack of freedom of speech regarding Israel and Palestine in Germany.
“In the current situation, we do not believe that there is a space in Germany for the open exchange of ideas and for the development of complex and nuanced artistic approaches that Documenta's artists and curators deserve,” they announced in announcing their resignation. stated in an open letter.
In December, in a symbolic act of revelation, Germany's Green Party-affiliated Heinrich Boll Foundation revoked the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought from Marcia Gessen, citing Gessen's New Yorker essay “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” as the reason. Quoted. In his essay, Gessen compared the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip to the plight of Jews in Nazi-occupied ghettos in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust, and criticized Germany's Israel policy and memorial politics.
And in February, the Berlin Film Festival, one of Europe's largest and most respected, hosted a film by Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra and an Israeli journalist about the destruction of Palestinian villages in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Faced backlash for awarding the award to a film by Yuval Abraham. . German Culture Minister Claudia Roth faced calls for her resignation after she was filmed clapping at the end of Adora and Abraham's speeches. Rather shockingly, she later claimed that she was only praising the Israeli filmmaker, not her Palestinian partner. After the incident, politicians threatened to cut funding to cultural institutions over anti-Israel bias, raising concerns about censorship.
Within the same month, prominent anthropologist Ghassan Hage was accused by right-wing newspapers of making “increasingly extreme statements” criticizing Israel in the wake of Hamas attacks and Israel's October attack on Gaza. , was fired from the Max Planck Institute. A few weeks later, political theorist Nancy Fraser was stripped of her professorship at the University of Cologne for supporting the Palestinian cause.
Germany, the world's second largest arms exporter, has consistently supported Israel both politically and militarily. By 2023, about 30% of Israel's military equipment purchases will come from Germany.
After South Africa sued Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for committing genocide in Gaza, Germany offered to intervene on Israel's behalf. In response, Namibia, where Germany carried out the 20th century's first genocide under its colonial rule from 1904 to 1908, publicly urged Berlin to “reconsider” its “untimely” decision. did.
Namibian President Hage Geingob at the time said Germany could not “express its moral commitment to the United Nations Convention against Genocide, including reparation for genocide in Namibia” and at the same time support Israel.
Meanwhile, Nicaragua has filed a separate lawsuit against Germany in the same court, alleging that sending munitions to Israel violated the United Nations Genocide Convention.
With these moves, these two countries in the so-called Global South demonstrate the hypocrisy of Germany's claims that it is fighting anti-Semitism and standing by Jews by politically and militarily supporting Israel's war in Gaza. exposed. Furthermore, they will demonstrate how Germany, by continuing to provide arms, funding and diplomatic support, will bankrupt the values and principles at the heart of the European project, in particular human rights, human dignity, freedom, equality and the rule of law. It was shown that the Israel commits genocide against the people living under its occupation.
This hypocritical attitude has repercussions not only domestically but internationally.
Indeed, while German authorities claim to be fighting anti-Semitism by censoring pro-Palestinian speech, civil rights groups argue that the German state's conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish bigotry It warns that it is enabling a crackdown on xenophobia at home and excluding Palestinian migrants and refugees. Muslim-majority countries are accused of bringing “imported anti-Semitism” into their countries and are unfairly targeted for deportation for supporting the Palestinian cause. Meanwhile, Germany's far right, which is gaining support ahead of June's European Parliament elections, is using the conflation of state anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel as a cover for Islamophobia, threatening and targeting Muslims and Muslims. is doubling. Arabs in this country.
This hypocritical attitude towards anti-Semitism and Israel is of course not unique to Germany. Across the Western world, Palestinians, Jews, and progressives of all backgrounds who oppose the Israeli government's crimes in Gaza are being labeled anti-Semites. Remarkably, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in the United States, Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally in France, and Germany's AfD seem to be on the same page when it comes to conflating anti-Zionist views with criticism of the state. Israel is anti-Semitic.
Students at Columbia University in New York and other US universities have been arrested and branded hateful for protesting Israeli crimes against Palestinians. Previously, Harvard University President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Liz McGill failed to shut down pro-Palestinian protests at their respective universities, using the same equation that criticism of Israel = anti-Semitism. He was attacked as an anti-Semite and forced to resign.
In one of the most telling examples of the state of affairs in the West, earlier this month Hobart College and William Smith College in Geneva, New York, terminated their tenured professorships for an article that quoted Edward Said: Jodi Dean was removed from the classroom. She insisted that “Palestine stands for everyone.”
Dean was criticized for simply stating the obvious. Decades ago, Mr. Said said that imperialist wars in the Middle East not only aim to eliminate the Palestinian state, but also to create imperialist hostilities against all oppressed peoples around the world and within society. He told me that his purpose was to justify it. The Palestinian cause therefore becomes a touchstone for human rights around the world.
Decades before this latest escalation in Gaza, Said also argued that Zionist exploitation of Jewish suffering to advance imperial interests has consequences for Jews and Palestinians alike. The important consequences that would occur were explained in that study.
In his 1979 book, The Palestine Problem, Said wrote, “To understand as deeply as possible the fear that most Jews feel that the security of Israel is the real protection against future attempts at genocide against Jews.'' “I am doing so,” he said. “But… there is no way to live a satisfying life whose main concern is to prevent a recurrence of the past. For Zionism, the Palestinians now see past experiences reincarnated in the form of present threats. As a result, the future of the Palestinian people as a people comes into conflict with that fear, which is a disaster for them and for the Jewish people.
At a time when the dark clouds of war cast a shadow over the world, we have great respect for all those who resist power in the name of humanism, peace, democracy and universal values. Just as we must never forget the Holocaust, we must do everything we can to stop today's genocide against Palestinians. Just as we supported Iranian revolutionaries who took to the streets demanding human rights in 2020, today we must support Jews and Israelis who oppose the genocide committed by the Israeli government. yeah. And we criticize and resist all efforts in Germany and the Western world to silence Palestinian speech and deflect Israeli responsibility in the name of combating anti-Semitism and protecting Jews. There must be.
As my German colleague suggested during the discussion, we cannot afford to criticize power only when its abuses and excesses are within our own history and identity.
Only by resisting power and demanding the right to dissent in all situations can we continue to open the doors to responsibility, democracy and peace, when power seeks to close these possibilities. I can. As we become increasingly interconnected and engaged in global discourse, we need to do the opposite of defending subjective positions formed through experience and trauma. As Edward Said once said, “Never unite in the face of criticism.” Speaking truth to power is the best way to show solidarity with the oppressed and the only way to build a better world for everyone.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
