German court convicts activist for leading ‘from the river to the sea’ chant
German court convicts activist for leading ‘from the river to the sea’ chant
Judge says phrase ‘denied right of Israel to exist’ but woman’s lawyer says ruling is a defeat for free speech
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”.
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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 (the NAZIs themselves then, same as the Zionists do now for Jewish ethnicity) 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 tohuwabohu 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.
I would simplify that further. White supremacists simply adore the idea of a country being of one "ethnicity." That's why Israel's best allies are actual Neo-Nazis.
Israel is a multicultural democracy with dozens of ethnic groups who are all guaranteed equal rights under the law.
But some are more equal than others lol
Don't they spit on Christians there and call it a tradition?
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.
calling for the destruction of a country is never ok, and is always a problem
yah it fucking is you fucking idiot. Youre saying that those caling for the destruction of nazi germany, fascist italy, and imperial japan where “wrong?” Then its no more wrong to call for the destruction of a country currently engaging in mass genocide. fuck you
Countries change all the time, it means nothing. Like the other person said, they're just imaginary lines. USSR was destroyed and nothing happened to the people in it when it happened. Ottoman Empire split up, Germany was split in two, Vietnam was split in half then recombined, Korea split in two, China, all of these things have happened within the lifetime of my parents and my grandparents.
A country is simply a line on a map ruled by a government. They are not infallible beings that we must bow before in reverence.
What sort of person would call for the continuation of say North Korea?
Countries are not just lines on a map. They are people. Calling for their destruction is calling for the death of those people and their culture.
You cannot decide after saying it that calling for the "destruction" of a country means merely changing the borders or system of government. The word implies violence.
Countries are not people. People are people. Comparing genocide and the dissolution of a state apparatus is disingenuous.
Likewise cultures cross national boundaries all the time. Colonial countries are imposed on top of existing cultural groups who rarely if ever fit neatly within a states border.
So by your logic calling for the destruction of Gaza or Palestine should be allowed as non-hate speech as well. Because it's only referring to "the dissolution of a state apparatus".
Based on your comments elsewhere, you'd automatically color those as the calls to violence they quite clearly are, yet you're willing to go to great length to argue that somehow calling for the destruction of Israel isn't.
thank you!!
Free Palestine is not a call for the destruction of Israel. It is a call for a Free Palestine.
Yes.
"From the river to the sea" on the other hand is a call for the destruction of one or the other. Neither is ok.
Free Ireland did not mean the destruction of the Protestants. End to Apartheid South Africa did not mean the destruction of the Afrikaners and the other whites. A free democratic Palestine can and should be the national home for Israelis and Palestinians with equal rights freedoms from the river to the sea.
So for the people who think like you do, it's an explicit rejection of a two state solution, and publicly declaring that the only path to peace is one state shared by everyone.
I'd like to understand why you think a one state solution is the most viable path to peace?
Honest to god, my ideal peace solution was for a long time the two state solution. But I don't think that is feasible any more. The Israelis killed that option by installing 700k settlers in the best lands of the place where a Palestinian state could have existed. These people will never vote to leave their homes, and they will never accept to be transferred to palestinian jurisdiction. The Israelis have also completely integrated the economy and the everyday life of the Palestinians in their apartheid system in a way that I just don't see realistic to untangle. So, at this point, realistically, at best, "two state solution" in practice would mean Bantustans and Reservations. At worst, it is just a stalling tactic of "warfare by negotiation" to eat up the salami while pretending the other side has no interlocutor.
Put simply, the Israelis worked very hard for 30 years to create "facts on the ground". Those are now just the facts. And Israelis have to reckon with the consequences of the facts they created.
The single democratic state solution on the other hand just cuts the Gordian knot. Human rights for all, a truth and reconciliation process, humanity has done this before. It's not guaranteed to work, but nothing is, and what's happening now isn't working either.
Thank you for explaining your rationale.
I think you are dangerously wrong. How do you suggest to prevent violence? some of the issues you are facing are historically Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem launching terror attacks against settlers living there who purchased the land their grandparents were forced from (the actual situation is even more complicated than this one sentence explanation). Now imagine needing to solve that, but on a very large scale.
If you suddenly grant Palestinians full rights and movement, there is nothing preventing them from launching a genocidal campaign against Jewish Israelis. Hamas, PIJ, and other Palestinian groups have declared they will not stop until all Jews within Israel are dead.
Your rationale for wanting a one state solution is idealistic, but ultimately naive. It fails to capture the complexity of the conflict and serves to further violent interests while screaming their slogan.
Any solution that depends on actually working towards a just peace will sound naive because it is predicated on the belief that the majority of people are basically good and want peace. So any one person or some minority who is crazy and does an evil thing looks like a proof that people are evil and want blood. You are worried for some Israelis in East Jerusalem. In a democratic "Israel and Palestine" state their safety would be as much at peril as the safety of the Gazans a few kilometers down the coast or of the people in the West Bank attacked by settler riots. Peace takes nerves of steel.
But the current situation is also simply untenable in the present and unsustainable in the long term. It just generates intergenerational cycles of violence. The ultimate naivety is believing that these cycles will stop with more of the same. That more violence and more oppression will somehow in the long run assure Jewish safety. It won't. Never has, never will. Every wall eventually falls. More oppression today means more extreme reaction tomorrow. End the cycle, break the ratchet.
The idealistic solution is practical on the other hand. You're afraid of what will happen all of a sudden? Fine. Implement it gradually but with clear milestones that the powerful side is accountable for. You have complexities on the ground? Let actually impartial courts deal with those. Make just Law and trust it. You have extremist factions (and it's definitely not just in the Palestinian side) that threaten the peace consensus? Politically out-manoeuvre them by showing to the mass of people that the moderates are more effective at securing their rights and making improvements to their lives peacefully (instead of constantly using heavy antibacterials and then acting surprised when evolution creates super-bugs).
The only thing that prevents mass violence in the long run is a just peace. It's hard but there is no other way. Israelis love blaming the Palestinians for rejecting multiple chances. They need to start realizing they in practice resolved the classic Israeli trilemma (Jewish, Large, Democratic, pick two) down to a dilemma by fixing the "Large" variable with the settlements.
Calling for the destruction of a STATE is fine. I for one am glad that the racist state of Rhodesia is no more. I am sure a lot of Czech and Slovakian people are glad to get rid of Czechoslovakia. It's not the same as calling for the destruction or removal of people.
No reasonable person would hear "destroy Mexico" and think "oh, he must really dislike the government and state of Mexico". They will automatically assume that you mean to bring about the destruction of Mexico *\including the people who live there*.
if you truly intended to advocate merely for the immediate dissolution of the state, you would have said so.
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.
It's kinda funny (not haha funny) how after all this time, Germany is still using state power to help keep a genocide going. A really weird 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' sort of deal
Both ways? It is unambiguously a call for genocide.
How is that?
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
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 🤷
No it is not unambiguously a call for genocide.
Yeah, way too many western countries have knee-jerked the opposite direction so hard that they're willing to support another Holocaust, albeit against a different minority.