Gaza and Germany’s path to authoritarianism

How the German government has embarked on a dangerous confrontation course with freedom of expression and international law

Photo: Streets of Berlin

The German government's stance on the war in Gaza and its increasingly repressive treatment of critics are causing growing national and international concern. The administration made up of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals is still pledging unconditional military and diplomatic support to the state of Israel that is currently on trial before the International Court of Justice in The Hague on charges of genocide - a case that the court itself classifies as “plausible”. Internationally renowned intellectuals and artists – including Jewish voices – who are committed to human rights are uninvited from Germany, their guest professorships are canceled, their award ceremonies canceled, including Nancy Fraser, Laurie Anderson and Masha Gessen. Their crime: naming the extensively documented war crimes and human rights violations in Gaza and demanding what the UN General Assembly is also overwhelmingly calling for: an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end the senseless killing in Gaza. In the meantime, more than 33,000 people, including 13,000 children, have fallen victim to the bombardments and a famine is under way.

But the list of outlaws is far from over, it is growing almost daily. The filmmakers Yuval Abraham from Israel and Basel Adra from Palestine, who received the Berlinale Documentary Film Award for their film “No Other Land” about expulsions in the West Bank, were accused of anti-Semitism by politicians and leading media outlets because they called for an end to German arms deliveries to Israel, which had increased tenfold during the war. And because they dared to use the word “apartheid”, which the world's two leading human rights organizations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have been using for years in relation to Israel after many years of in-depth studies on the ground. Anyone who invokes the UN, international law and recognized human rights organizations in Germany today is declared persona non grata, an Israel-hater, an anti-Semite.

And that's not all: any person criticizing Israel is now even risking a ban on entering the country and engaging in political activities, like the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and the world-renowned British-Palestinian surgeon and rector of Glasgow University, Ghassan Abu Sittah, who was detained by the German authorities at the airport for several hours and then sent back to Britain. Sittah had worked for Médecins Sans Frontières in the now destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza during the first phase of the bombardment in October and November and reported on his experiences to the International Court of Justice in January. The government in Berlin apparently didn't want the German public to hear his testimony. Both, Varoufakis and Sittah, were invited to speak at a Palestine conference in Berlin on April 12-14, which was also attended by numerous Jewish participants.

The three-day conference was, however, shut down after two hours by the police, who unceremoniously cut off the electricity. The official reason: the streaming of an online contribution by 87-year-old Palestinian researcher and author Salman Abu Sitta. Sitta had been banned from entering the country and engaging in political activities because he had noted in an article that as a young man he may have been one of those who carried out the bloody Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The legal basis on which an entire congress can be shut down because a single speaker makes questionable statements remains a secret of the authorities.

While surveys show that 69 percent of Germans consider Israel's actions in Gaza to be unjustified, the German government continues to support its ally unconditionally. In doing so, it is taking ever more draconian action against critics and is embarking on a dangerous confrontation course with freedom of opinion and international legal standards. In this way, Germany threatens to slide further and further into a repressive authoritarian order.

From an international perspective, Germany has long been in the process of gambling away its reputation. This is reflected not least in Nicaragua's lawsuit against Germany for aiding and abetting genocide before the International Court of Justice, a case that has met with broad support in the Global South. In the face of a spreading “cancel culture” towards events critical of Israel, international artists and intellectuals are also increasingly turning their backs on Germany. French Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux, for example, has joined an initiative calling for a boycott of state-run German cultural institutions because Germany is pursuing a “McCarthy-style” policy that suppresses freedom of expression.

As a justification for the German government's aberration it is often said that Germany must stand firmly on Israel's side because of its history. But can it be the right lesson from the greatest crime in human history to take a stand against international law, human rights and freedom of opinion? Is it the right ethical consequence to pledge eternal and unconditional solidarity to a particular state, regardless of who governs that state (in the case of Israel, it is currently right-wing extremists) and what they do? Shouldn't our solidarity rather be with the people affected by the war, namely the 1,200 Israeli and 33,000 Palestinian victims in equal measure? Does it not follow from the guilt of the past that German governments in particular should protect the rights of people regardless of their origin, nationality, skin color and religion from persecution, traumatization and death? But why are the people in Gaza not being afforded this protection by German politicians? Why are those who stand up for these rights and want to prevent further killing ostracized and banned from the German public sphere? Truth and justice are currently upside down in Germany and the rest of the world is looking on, shaking its head.

This article was also published in French by Mediapart.

Fabian Scheidler is a freelance author who works for the Berliner Zeitung, Monde diplomatique, Taz. Die Tageszeitung, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik and many other media. His book “The End of the Megamachine. A Brief History of a Failing Civilization” has been translated into numerous languages. In 2021, he published “The Stuff We Are Made of. Rethinking Nature and Society”. Fabian Scheidler received the Otto Brenner Media Prize for critical journalism in 2009. www.fabianscheidler.com

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