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German court convicts activist for leading ‘from the river to the sea’ chant
(www.theguardian.com)
Why fix the problem when you can persecute the symptoms.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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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.
Being free in your homeland doesn't imply anything about Israel except the dissolution of its apartheid, occupying systems. At least when used as a Free Palestine chant. When the Zionists say it, it does imply a supremacist mindset but mostly because we've seen them use it to justify a genocidal settler colonialist colony.
It's like the difference between the US saying from coast to coast during the manifest destiny phase, and comparing it to Native Americans saying from coast to coast they'll be free after they're being put into reservations and have been getting pushed West.
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.
How many other countries can you be fined for supposedly threatening?
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. German wankers.
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.
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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.
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.
Both ways? It is unambiguously a call for genocide.
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.
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.
How is that?
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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.
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.
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
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.
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Why 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?"
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