A Berlin court has convicted a pro-Palestinian activist of condoning a crime for leading a chant of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at a rally in the German capital four days after the Hamas attacks on Israel, in what her defence team called a defeat for free speech.
The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered 22-year-old German-Iranian national Ava Moayeri to pay a €600 (£515) fine on Tuesday, rejecting her argument that she meant only to express support for “peace and justice” in the Middle East by calling out the phrase on a busy street.
Balzer said she “could not comprehend” the logic of previous German court rulings that determined the saying was “ambiguous”, saying to her it was clear it “denied the right of the state of Israel to exist”.
Germany being antidemocratic as usual. Nothing new here.
Good old Germany, going back to the days of the State deeming some races as superior and having special laws to punish and silence those critical of the actions, no matter how murderous, of those the German State has deemed to represent a superior race.
You can take the NAZIsm out of Germany but you can’t take the profound racism and the authoritaristic tendencies out of the heart of the German Power Elites.
People 100% do use it both ways. That the court convicted and fined them without showing which one it actually was. And rejecting their defense stating that it wasn’t intended in that way. Is very troubling.
It’s absolutely plain to see that Germany is erring too far in a different direction so it’s not seen as attacking Jewish populations in any way. But as a result they are helping push back other vulnerable populations. I don’t think it’s the good look they’re hoping it was.
It’s State racism.
Racism isn’t just picking on some ethnicities and attacking those who are members of it, it’s also deeming some ethnicities and their members as special and deserving of superior treatment versus others: back in the day they were openly NAZI the German state deemed the Arian Race as special and criticism of it AND OF THOSE WHO SELF-PROCLAIMED TO REPRESENT IT (like the NAZIs themselves the, and the Zionists now) as a crime.
Ever since Israel has started the most genocidal stage of their destruction of Palestinians, Germany has progressivelly uncovered a mindset of racism and authoritarianism with far too many parallels with their “old ways” only this time around it’s a different “superior race” and it’s a different group of ethno-Fascists that is illegal to criticise.
That the mental and moral posture of old is still alive and well even IN DEFENSE OF EXTREME GENOCIDE - even if now the beneficiaries are a different group of murderous ethno-Fascists claiming to represent a different ethnicity than last time around - is genuinely alarming for me as an European: if now Germany puts ethnicity above Humanitarianism even in the face of Genocide, accepts the same old logic as the NAZIs used from ethno-Fascists that they represent a whole ethnicity and uses the law to silence criticism of that Genocide and those ethno-Fascists, they will likely do it again, and next time around the victims of the genocidal ethno-Fascist that Germany supports might be a lot closer to home than Gaza.
Germany has progressivelly uncovered a mindset of racism and authoritarianism with far too many parallels with their “old ways”
There’s been plenty of pro-Palestinian protests in Germany. Most of the news you’re hearing regarding this are from Berlin (as in the state, not “the federal government” or something), where previously there was a great towobahou from people like you over Nakhba protests being outlawed. Very similar lines of argument already back then.
And it’s also been bullshit back then: The Berlin police outlawed them, and courts upheld that ban, because in each and every previous year the Nakhba protests turned violent. Organisers did not have the protesters under control, public safety got endangered, and organisers could not demonstrate how this time it would be differently.
So, rather unsurprisingly, Berlin also reacted harsh to the protests post 7th of October. Elsewhere everything went very differently, not the least because the Palestinian diaspora elsewhere in Germany is saner.
What I don’t get though is what you people are trying to achieve by pushing that kind of narrative.
And rejecting their defense stating that it wasn’t intended in that way.
That all happened on 11th of October, IIRC that was before the IDF went into Gaza, at a protest ostensibly about violence at schools, at which no slogans regarding violence at schools were chanted.
Maybe she really meant it in a completely harmless sense – but did those others chanting with her? She’s leading a chant, some political awareness and responsibility should be assumed. If she really did mean it as a message of peace, let those 600 Euro be a lesson in clear messaging, then.
Oh, those 600 Euro: Couldn’t find any proper reporting so working back from the average net wage she’s got sentenced to a week (Germany doesn’t do short prison stays, it’s 1 day lock-up == one day disposable income). I also can’t find what statute she’s been sentenced under – I guess general endorsement of crimes? The maximum there (three years) matches with what I read, a week is pretty much the lowest possible sentence while still being considered guilty. tl;dr: Definitely a slap on the wrist.
Using it both ways should not be a problem regardless.
There is nothing wrong with being against a less than 100 year old settler state that’s actively engaging in genocide. The land and the people do not have to be under the jurisdiction of a racist ethnostate.
What would actually help is not continuing to conflate Israel with Judaism.
Both ways? It is unambiguously a call for genocide.
No it is not unambiguously a call for genocide.
A Bavarian court ruled in June that the phrase expected to be used in an upcoming demonstration in Munich did not constitute a crime and could not be banned outright, finding that the “benefit of the doubt” around the slogan must prevail.
Yes, both way. People do see it in one way though, and that one way also openly call for genocide. Whoops 🤷
Do you have any facts to back that claim up? Because I’ve heard a number of people say it without that intention. It absolutely can be ambiguous. You would need evidence of a person’s actions outside the claims to understand whether or not it was intended that way. But that’s not what you’re advocating for.
It only means genocide to Israelis because they can only fathom Israel as a mono-ethnic state with all others genocided. Anyone supporting a free and united Palestine supports the multicultural community that has been in the area for millennia.
Correction: to many Israelis. Definitely not all. Anti-apartheid Israelis exist.
You don’t know much about the region do you?
I know the area has been populated by Jews, Christians, and Muslims for as long as there have been Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Everybody doesn’t always get along but it wasn’t until the late 40s that countries began expelling large amounts of people based on religion or ethnicity.
Someone here literally never heard of the Crusades
Free speech in Germany is dead.
That said, if I were in Germany, I would use a different phrase. Maybe “stop the genocide in Gaza, ceasefire now”.
That would just be way more effective in actually rallying support.
But I’m not in Germany, so Free Palestine, from the river to the sea.
That doesn’t fucking rhyme, dude. People like the chant because it rhymes and is fun to chant. It’s not that deep.
I am fully aware of that.
But in the German context, I am not sure if it is effective.
Perhaps someone can make a nice rhyme against genocide.
“Germany sides against genocide”, or something. Maybe something that rhymes in German.
Forget rhymes, just use “Nie wieder” (never again).
You can’t say “stop the genocide in Gaza” in Germany either. People have been fined for that before. Apparently it counts as “hate speech against jews”.
Damn, then it’s even worse than I thought.
Source please!
Nazi Germany never went away it seems.
Never did. Lmao, they literally had nazis in government after WW2. They had ex nazi ministers. All the nazi army generals stayed in the Bundeswehr. Their intelligence services were filled to the brim with Nazis and aided nazi criminals in escaping prosecution, literally tipping Adolf Eichmann to escape the Mossad. Their nazi built companies never paid for what they did. Hell, they’re still funding and naming public buildings after their nazi grandpas. There’s absolutely nothing true about this so called german “denazification” other than some superficial virtue signalling.
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Wikipedia about this sourceWhy must it be evaluated in the context of “the biggest massacre of Jews since the Shoah” and not “the biggest massacre of Palestinians since the Nakba?”
Because in this case it was said on the 11th of October, before Isreal began its genocidal attacks on Gaza but after Hamas murdered over 1000 Isrealis.
Israel began their genocidal attacks on Gaza 76 years ago.
Yes very good, but you asked why it wasnt evaluated in the context of "the biggest massacre of Palestinians since the Nakba?”, and I gave you the answer, because that hadnt happened at that point.
Before lsreal began its genocidal attacks on Gaza
Unless the case happened in 1948 than this part of your reply is inaccurate.
and I congratulated you on your pedantry, and now you have your answer as to why it wasnt considered in the context of the RECENT (note that bit) attacks on Gaza, as that would have been using something that happened in the future as the context for what was said.
Is there any historical significance behind the “River to the sea” reference?
Edit:
“Between the river and the sea” is a fragment from a slogan used since the 1960s by an array of activists with different agendas. It has a range of interpretations around the world, from the genocidal to the democratic.”
”The full saying is a reference to land between the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, encompassing Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
That’s not an entirely unreasonable decision. The slogan is not one of peaceful coexistence but of maximalist territorial claims. It was a supremacist slogan when the Zionists coined it, and remains one when appropriated by the other side.
How many other countries can you be fined for supposedly threatening?
The second part of the phrase determines what it means. “Will be Israel” is a supremacist slogan. “Will be free” is a call equality and an end to oppression.
Why fix the problem when you can persecute the symptoms.
New Germans same as the old Germans.
Tell us more about your missed historylessons
The old Germans watching the new Germans support Israel:
