Germany bans all pro-Palestinian demonstrations

Berlin

“Israel’s security is Germany’s reason of state,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock repeated twice in the Bundestag. The situation was serious on Wednesday in the temple of German democracy which, exceptionally, received the President of the Republic, Franck Walter Steinmeier, accompanied by the Israeli ambassador in Berlin, Ron Prosor.

A very long standing ovation was reserved for the diplomat and a minute of silence dedicated to the victims of the Hamas attack, of “perfidious terror and inhuman brutality”. This must “horrify and shame us all”, urged the President of the Assembly, Bärbel Bas. Like its predecessors, Olaf Scholz's coalition, more than any other Western government, stands firmly alongside the Jewish state. And the press is generally in unison.

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These strong gestures of solidarity also aim to pull the rug out from under anything that could be perceived, across the Rhine, as a demonstration of support for terrorists. “We do not accept any support for these cowardly and disgusting crimes, nor for their celebration at home, in Germany, in the streets or on the web,” warned Bärbel Bas. “It is inconceivable that in the country that caused the Holocaust, the actions of the Palestinian terrorists are justified,” CDU MP for Foreign Affairs Roderich Kiesewetter told RBB radio.

Three days earlier, in the Berlin district of Neukölln, where there is a large community of people of the Muslim faith, many of whom are Turks, Syrians and Afghans, pro-Palestinian demonstrators had celebrated the Hamas attack and offered candy to passers-by. In a middle school in the same neighborhood, a physical altercation took place between a teacher and a teenager who brandished a Palestinian flag. Since then, pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been banned in the capital. “We have seen in recent years a drastic increase in anti-Semitism in all its forms, behind which German groups claiming to be left-wing are hiding,” worries Susanna Kahlfedl, Green MP for Neukölln, responsible for integration.

Frankfurt City Hall also banned a rally entitled “Freedom for Palestine,” planned for Saturday at the call of several anti-fascist movements. In the process, politicians are calling for the dissolution of the pro-Palestinian Samidoun organization, hostile to Israel.

“The German position is understandable from a historical point of view, but it becomes problematic because it tends to neglect the inhumane situation in which two million Palestinians are plunged” in Gaza, criticizes academic Katharina Galor, member of the community. Jewish Berliner, mostly left-wing and hostile to Netanyahu. In the capital, she says, this resurgent community coexists with the largest Palestinian urban diaspora in Europe, a large part of which sympathizes with the Israeli victims. However, since Sunday, she said, the latter “is afraid.”