Friday 12th April should have seen the “Palestine Congress” take place in
Berlin, a meeting of people generally sympathetic to the suffering of the
Palestinians and a chance to protest against the very tight restrictions placed
by the state and media in Germany on criticising the response of Israel to the
attacks of Oct 7th 2023. The organizers reported great difficulties placed in
the way of the Congress by various government agencies, including freezing the
accounts of Jüdische Stimme, the organisation financing it, but in spite of
these challenges the Congress went ahead, under huge police presence and tight
conditions. It went ahead, that is, only to be interrupted and permanently
banned by police less than two hours after it had begun, apparently because of a
speech transmitted online by a speaker not permitted political activity in
Germany, a status spontaneously decreed a few hours earlier. The Palestine
Congress had featured heavily in the media in the days before, mainly in the
form of politicians and others demanding it be forbidden, warning that it would
lead to hate mongering and antisemitism. To anyone familiar with the situation
of pro Palestinian sympathisers in Germany it was a surprise that such an event
got as far as it did, but the eventual police interruption still came with a
jolt, a reminder that with all its faith in democracy and the rule of law
Germany is willing to take inspiration from the Stasi notebook when it comes to
unlimited loyalty to the Israeli government.
To fully appreciate how much Germany is willing to sacrifice to this end it is
enough to know that the Dean of Glasgow University was stopped and refused entry
at Berlin airport rather than let him speak at the Congress. That the mayor of
Berlin had publicly stated days before that he found it “unbearable” that the
Congress be allowed to go ahead. That the Jewish organisation funding the
Congress had its assets frozen by a German bank. That a perusal of the headlines
concerning the Congress is full of words like “Israel Haters”, “Hate Tirades”,
“Islamist Terror” etc, all of which was as absent from the gathering as it was
from any street in the capital.
The challenge now for Germany is to reflect on what is being achieved by this
approach. The reason generally given for Germany's particular loyalty to Israel
is the phrase used by Angela Merkel: Israel is “Staatsraison” for Germany, i.e.
a key factor determining its perspective. The guilt of Germany's crimes against
Jews in the 1930s and 1940s means it is obliged to put all its weight behind
protecting the interests of Jews today. An understandable aim, even if it leaves
open what exactly are the interests of Jews today and how far Germany is willing
to go to achieve this. Whether protecting the interests of Jews today means
unconditionally backing a clearly authoritarian and corrupt Israeli prime
minister voted by 23% of the Israeli electorate in a campaign that has killed
tens of thousands of civilians is open to question. More importantly from a
German point of view, whether blatantly abusing government power to suppress
widespread dissent is in the interest of Germany democracy, in a time where
authoritarianism is on the rise and trust in democracy is waning - that is an
even more urgent question. How can the German government defend the challenges
from its far right AfD opposition if it can be seen to be manipulating the rule
of law itself, banning free speech, intimidating those with whom it disagrees.
This is not a problem unique to Germany by any means, but the current strict
attitude to the Gaza crisis makes it more powerful there than elsewhere.
Dominating the discourse over the Gaza crisis is the spectre of antisemitism,
especially in Germany. Attacks against Israeli policy are generally deflected in
many contexts by tarnishing them as antisemitic, and the controversies about
what exactly constitutes antisemitism are as heated in Germany as elsewhere. The
absurd consequences of politicised definitions appear regularly there as in the
UK, when some Jews are better than others, or, as was the case in Berlin, Jews
are teargassed on the streets for being antisemitic. Clearly the problem in the
eyes of the government is not antagonism to Jews, or it would accept the large
array of political views present in Jewish life. It is more antagonism to the
actions of the State of Israel, whatever they may be. It might therefore be
clearer to speak only of anti-zionism, or even anti-Israelism, but not of
antisemitism. The danger seems to be that one is confused with the other,
leading to incidents of genuine antisemitism being misidentified and possibly
trivialised as mere political disagreement. Many Jews in Germany are paying the
price of being associated with the actions of a corrupt government, an
association deepened by the general assumption that if you are against one you
must be against the other. It is inconceivable that the German government is not
consciously conspiring to abuse the threat of antisemitism against anti-zionism,
but it is possible that they are unaware how dangerous this tactic is, not just
to common sense and freedom of speech but to those threatened by antisemitism.
The only party whose interests are being protected by the current German
strategy is Likud and its prime minister, whereas the Jews of Germany are being
sacrificed on the altar of Staatsraison.
There have been issues in German public discourse over the years where dissent
has not been an option. For a long time European integration was one such an
issue. Criticism of Israel is another, and the price is being paid in many ways
– self censorship in academic or public life, loss of international standing in
the many artists or workers who stay away, fear and unease in parts of the
population directly affected by the crisis such as Arabs or Palestinians more
specifically, and a wider erosion of trust in the state. This is a high price to
pay at a time German society like many others needs to feel more involved in
government and the state, where people need to feel they and their views are
taken seriously and can make a difference. If you tell people that they must see
it your way or else face the sack this is not the message you are sending,
however much police you send to drown out the noise. And when the AfD comes
knocking what are you going to hold against them?