In a sweeping move, Berlin’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution outlaws BDS movement, branding it a direct threat to peaceful international order and noting that it crosses a red line into anti-constitutional extremism.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Berlin announced Tuesday that the BDS movement has been classified as “unconstitutional.”

The head of the office, Michael Fischer, explained that the movement’s status in Berlin’s antisemitic and anti-Israel landscape has significantly strengthened over the past year.

Fischer clarified that BDS’s ideology is based on “explicit denial of Israel’s right to exist.” According to him, BDS activity goes beyond boycotting cultural events or Israeli economic products. “The goal is to make the existence of Israel impossible in the international context. It is aimed at its destruction,” Fischer stated.

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    125·
    1 day ago

    According to the Jerusalem Post:

    The intelligence document cited examples of BDS that were widely condemned as antisemitic by German politicians and experts in the field of antisemitism. One of the outbreaks of BDS-animated antisemitism outlined was the storming of an Israel event at Humboldt University. At least three highly aggressive pro-BDS activists lashed out at Israeli survivor of the Holocaust Deborah Weinstein and MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) who participated at the event titled: Life in Israel – Terror, Bias and the Chances for Peace.

    Context:

    Among the audience were at least three BDS activists: Stavit Sinai (an Israeli Jewish university lecturer), Ronnie Barkan (an Israeli Jewish math teacher) and Majed Abusalama (a Gaza Palestinian born in the Jabalia refugee camp, shot in a leg by an Israeli soldier during a nonviolent protest[8]). According to Michael Spaney from DIG, “several minutes” or “about 10 minutes” into Aliza Lavie’s lecture, one of the activists started shouting at her before being removed from the hall, and then two others started speaking and/or shouting against Lavie and against Israel before being removed too. The activists were accusing Israel of apartheid and accusing Israel, and Aliza Lavie specifically, of war crimes in Gaza. Lavie said the activists told her “the blood of the Gaza Strip is on your hands” and called the politician a “child murderer” (a reference to the 2014 bombardment and airstrikes in Gaza). Lavie and her group reportedly left the hall through a back exit to avoid a group of about 20 protesters at the main entrance.[4][5][9] Describing the way the activists were removed from the hall by DIG members, Michael Spaney from DIG said they were “nicely maneuvered out” of the hall (though they were “lashing out”), while the BDS activists said Stavit Sinai was punched in the face.[1][2] Ronnie Barkan said that a video shown to the judge during the trial showed the moment Sinai was punched.[3]

    So basically, actions by 2 ISRAELI JEWS (and an actual victimized Palestinian) are used as evidence of antisemitism.

    Yet another case of German bureaucrats lecturing Jewish people about what is and what isn’t antisemitism. Picking good and bad Jews, which is of course …antisemitism.

    Reminds me of this quote:

    There is, as the Israeli-born architect and academic Eyal Weizman has acidly put it, a certain irony in “being lectured [on how to be properly Jewish] by the children and grandchildren of the perpetrators who murdered our families and who now dare to tell us that we are antisemitic”.

    Shame on German institutions for their betrayal of both anti-zionist Jews and of course of Palestinians, victims of countless crimes against humanity that Germany turns a blind eye to. Shame, shame, shame.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      18 hours ago

      The head of the German Israeli Society DIG - Volker Beck demanded in an interview in January 2024 as the head of the DIG that aid to Gaza should be weaponized to press free hostages.

      https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/video249532622/Gaza-Streifen-Muessen-die-Lieferung-von-Hilfsguetern-staerker-mit-der-Befreiung-von-Geiseln-verbinden.html

      “Müssen die Lieferung von Hilfsgütern stärker mit der Befreiung von Geiseln verbinden”

      The DIG recently sparked controversy as a restaurant catering at one of their events serving a drink “Watermelon meets Zion” with watermelon “shredded, pureéd and hacked”. The poster shows a lion with an Israeli flag and watermelons with faces in the background.

      The DIG said it felt sorry and can see why people felt offended although the poster would be “obvious satire”.

        • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
          2·
          12 hours ago

          Describing the way the activists were removed from the hall by DIG members, Michael Spaney from DIG said they were “nicely maneuvered out” of the hall (though they were “lashing out”), while the BDS activists said Stavit Sinai was punched in the face.[1][2] Ronnie Barkan said that a video shown to the judge during the trial showed the moment Sinai was punched.[3]

          DIG is accused by the Jewish antizionist protestors to have assaulted them. I provided context that over the last year and a half they have been advocating or being apologetic towards violence and calls of violence. So them punching antizionist Jews seems plausible to me, for which i added the context.

          • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            12 hours ago

            I see, thanks. Do Kahanists have such free reign in Germany? That’s troubling to read.

            • TanteRegenbogen@feddit.orgEnglish
              2·
              5 hours ago

              There are barely any Kahanists in Germany. And I was targeted by the few there are like ten years ago because naive me used to hang around some but started avoiding them when the genocidal views came out of them.

            • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
              2·
              12 hours ago

              I dont think that there is ideological ties to these. What we have in Germany is a very problematic amalgamation of a few ideologies.

              First of all it is important to understand that Antisemitism has been alive and well in Germany past World War II. The proclaimed “Memory Culture” only started to gain traction in the West in the 80s. In the former GDR there was much more “Memory Culture” but it revolved around overemphasizing the struggle of communists and other political antifascists, who were one of the many groups mass murdered in the concentration camps. for the first 30 or so years after the war, the tactic was to largely just be silent about the past.

              When Germany reunited it was met with a lot of fear by surrounding countries that Germany could become not only powerful but also hostile and imperialist against its neighbors again. To improve the image of a peaceful nation Germany embraced the narrative of the “memory culture”. A country that has worked through its past and learned from it. This narrative was especially important as the economic consequences of the reunification served as a breeding ground for militant Neonazis who committed Pogroms against migrants and other attacks and were quite visible inside Germany. Meanwhile there was one big issue. There was hardly any Jewish people left in Germany. Still today there is approx. 200.000 Jewish people, less than 0.3 % of the total population and among them many people with Israel-German dual nationality. So German politics looked towards the state of Israel to grant them the rubber-stamp of having adorned for the past.

              From there on the Israeli influence on the Jewish society in Germany grew and politics increasingly looked to embrace Israel as evidence of having adorned for the past.

              Over the past 15 years or so a new aspect came in. By ramping up racism against Arabs in Israel, but also in all of the western world it became attractive in Germany to create the narrative of “imported Antisemitism”. This is especially embraced by the right and far-right, who are looking to free themselves of the “inherited guilt”. By making “the Arab” the source of Antisemitism in the public discourse Germans could legitimize their racism and free themselves of their guilt. “See it is them who are the Antisemites, not us!”. For Israel this served a similar purpose. By making the Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general “Antisemites” questions about the legitimacy of opposition to Israel could be silenced. There would be no need to look into the veracity of statements like accusing Israel of apartheid. That statement is simply antisemitic and expression of evil, no need to look further…

              Finally this morphes into Fascists like the AfD embracing Israel as it servers to justify ethno-nationalism. It also serves to attack progressive political movements from the left as “antisemitic” for not being in blind support of Israel. This helps to circumvent questions of the imperial history of Germany, Germanies other genocides and of course the question of colonial dimensions to Israels expansionism, the interest of weapons manufacturers in perpetual war and the broader context of Western geopolitics in the Middle East.

              Here you can see a banner that is showing it quite well imo. The subtext reads “against left, right and islamist antisemitism”. They put “left” first as this seems to be more important than the “right”. Meanwhile Antisemitic crime, especially violent crime in Germany is largely perpetuated by the far right, such as a terror attack on a Synagogue in 2019.

              If you put these pieces together, you can see why German politics are so hellbent on doubling down for Israel. They would have to leave their Lalaland in which Germany is the good guys. They would need to face the rising Fascism in Germany and relate it to their own policies and acknowledged how they enable it themselves. They would have to acknowledge how they attacked Jewish people who oppose Israel and they would need to acknowledge that they never made Germany a safe and welcoming place for Jewish people.