In a sweeping move, Berlin’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution outlaws BDS movement, branding it a direct threat to peaceful international order and noting that it crosses a red line into anti-constitutional extremism.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Berlin announced Tuesday that the BDS movement has been classified as “unconstitutional.”

The head of the office, Michael Fischer, explained that the movement’s status in Berlin’s antisemitic and anti-Israel landscape has significantly strengthened over the past year.

Fischer clarified that BDS’s ideology is based on “explicit denial of Israel’s right to exist.” According to him, BDS activity goes beyond boycotting cultural events or Israeli economic products. “The goal is to make the existence of Israel impossible in the international context. It is aimed at its destruction,” Fischer stated.

  • brot@feddit.orgEnglish
    15·
    18 days ago

    As melchior has posted below: BDS Berlin is actually arguing that shouting “I hate Jews” and “Jews are shit” is not antisemitic. BDS Berlin supporters attacked politicians. Stolpersteine (monuments for holocaust victims) were graffitied with “BDS”. They’ve attacked critics violently. So whatever you are writing or whatever you think about BDS worldwide, those guys and girls from BDS Berlin are violent antisemitic idiots. People like them are fueling the hate in the middle east and not aiming for peace

    • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
      31·
      18 days ago

      Shouting “I hate Jews” and “Jews are shit” is antisemitic by definition. The other behaviours you’re describing are also deplorable.

      Note however, what I am debating here is not their actions as such. I am attacking the rationale presented by the «Office for the protection of the constitution in Berlin» in its condemnation of the group.

      Those guys and girls might be antisemitic idiots, but they are private individuals. On the other hand, the «Office» is a public institution and the rationale it employs is such that even if those guys and girls had conducted themselves extremely carefully, correctly and politely, the «Office» could have still used the same rationale to condemn them.

      This state institution is outlining a rationale for proscribing any protest group that would share the political goals of those guys and girls, even if it might completely eschew their tactics.

      This rationale makes impossible a future, non-extremist BDS group from pursuing a BDS campaign as such.

      And, to quote Kennedy: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” In its rationale, the «Office» is revealing itself to hold a deep and rabid anti-Palestinian bias, that is profoundly unacceptable for a liberal European democracy.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      18 days ago

      With the only one quoting this from personal interviews being Sebastian Leber who is known to polemizise and violate journalistic standards. Also in the same article he brushes away any critic on Israel, including the critic of Apartheid. He does not make any remarks as to which role the quoted person would play in the organization.

      https://feddit.org/post/12828383/6778065

      • brot@feddit.orgEnglish
        01·
        18 days ago

        Hey Saleh,

        if multiple organizations and newspapers are saying that some organization is problematic, it might simply be true. It doesn’t help to attack the credibility of journalists if they are writing things you do not want to accept.

        So let’s take this 148 page report about BDS antisemitism with lots of examples for violence on BDS protests and let’s see how you want to discredit the authors:

        https://report-antisemitism.de/documents/2024-03-14_Antisemitismus-bei-BDS.pdf

        (and my whole point is: Palestine has too many false friends. With antisemitic fuckwits on their side, they won’t win. There won’t be peace. Hamas sympathizers on the streets will kill public support. All those brainrot antisemitic accounts coming here on every Israel post will not lead to a peaceful middle east, it will lead to the opposite. Even murdering every Jew in Israel and founding a Palestine from river to the sea will not lead to a peaceful middle east. The solution is not supporting groups like those here)

        • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          18 days ago

          Sebastian Leber is not a credible source as pointed out. Pointing out the credibility of a source is relevant and providing better sources is necessary. For journalists and historians critique of sources is one of the key aspects of their work. In that sense your argument of rebuking false friends should equally be applied to Leber as he is discrediting the fight against antisemitism.

          Employing that source critique should also apply to RIAS, who published your source. RIAS says on their website that they work closely with the “Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland”, which morphed over the past decades to become radically pro Israel. Among other things it published an “opinion peace” in its “Jüdische Allgemeine” paper which claimed “The civillians in Gaza aren’t innocent” and justified the murder of civilians. It backtracked and published a reaction by a Jewish German journalist who asked how they could come to “elevate this inhumane (menschenverachtend) polemic into the paper”.

          RIAS uses the IHRA Definition and considers calling Israel an Apartheid state as antisemitic, as it would delegitimize Israel. The ICJ is therefore antisemitic as it concluded that Israel is violating the prohibition of Apartheid or Racial seggregation.

          https://report-antisemitism.de/documents/25-06-24_RIAS_Bund_Jahresbericht_2023.pdf

          P 17:

          Beispielsweise fand Anfang April in Flensburg eine Versammlung anlässlich des sogenannten Tag des Bodens10 statt. Dort sprach ein Redner von 75 Jahren Apartheid in Israel – einer Israel delegitimierenden und damit antisemitischen Aussage.

          P 18:

          Im Vergleich zum Vorjahr gab es auch deutlich mehr Vorfälle an öffentlichen Gebäuden. Dies erklärt sich zum Teil durch Israelflaggen, die nach dem 7. Oktober an vielen Rathäusern gehisst wurden und anschließend gestohlen oder beschädigt wurden.

          While Israel is mass murdering civilians damaging Israeli flags that are presented at German public buildings is considered “antisemitic” by the RIAS.

          Just a few paragraphs earlier:

          Eine Gruppe von 23 Personen, durch ihre Kippot als jüdisch erkennbar, lief durch einen Park, als zwei Männer ihnen von einer Parkbank aus mehrmals „Free Falastin [Palästina]“ hinterherriefen. Dadurch setzten sie die jüdischen Betroffenen mit dem Staat Israel gleich und machten sie für dessen Handlungen verantwortlich

          So RIAS acknowledges that conflating Judaism and Israel is antisemitic, but at the same time does not employ this standards to themselves.

          P31

          Unter den antisemitischen Vorfällen, die eindeutig einem politischen Hintergrund zugeordnet werden konnten, war der antiisraelische Aktivismus 2023 erstmals die häufigste Kategorie. Dazu rechnet RIAS Vorfälle, bei denen die israelfeindliche Motivation eindeutig gegenüber einem anderen politischen Hintergrund über- wiegt – etwa einem links-antiimperialistischen oder einem islamisch-islamistischen. Dazu zählen beispielsweise säkulare palästinensische Gruppen sowie Unter- stützer_innen antisemitischer Boykottkampagnen gegen den jüdischen Staat Israel. 2023 ordnete RIAS insgesamt 595 antisemitische Vorfälle oder 12 % aller Vorfälle dem politischen Hintergrund des antiisraelischen Aktivismus zu. 2022 waren es nur 6 % aller Vorfälle.

          Here the circle closes. By considering boycott calls towards Israel as antisemitic a large swath of people and demonstrations can be deligitmized as antisemitic. Again this logic includes the ICJ who made it clear that any economic activity that helps facilitate the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel must be stopped.

          Auf der Bühne war auf einem Transparent unter anderem zu lesen „75 Jahre Israel = 75 Jahre Apartheid, Kolonialismus und Vertrei- bung der Palästinenser“. Ein_e Redner_in sprach davon, dass Israel kein Existenz- recht habe und dass es auf einem Genozid, der Nakba, aufgebaut sei.

          Again, calling out the Nakba as ethnic cleansing or genocidal and the seizure of territory by force as colonialism is apparently antisemitic to RIAS.

          P 38

          Den 7. Oktober als Gelegenheitsstruktur19 kennzeichnet, dass die Terrorangriffe und Massaker an sich ein Ereignis extremer Gewalt mit genozidalem Charakter sind und sich dies in der Folge qualitativ und quantitativ auf antisemitische Vorfälle in Deutschland auswirkte.

          The 07. October 2023 is considered an “even of extreme violence with genocidal Character” by RIAS. In the same report that is saying that calling Israel an Apartheid state or genocidal is antisemitic.

          P 42

          Mitunter beförderte die mediale Berichterstattung über das Kriegs- geschehen die Mobilisierung. Das geschah auch durch die Verbreitung von Falsch- informationen: So konnte RIAS einen sprunghaften Anstieg von antisemitischen Versammlungen feststellen, nachdem am 17. Oktober auch öffentlich-rechtliche Medien ungeprüft eine Darstellung der Hamas verbreitet hatten. Sie behauptete, dass eine israelische Rakete das Al-Ahli-Krankenhaus in Gaza-Stadt getroffen und 500 Menschen getötet habe.

          RIAS accuses German public broadcasters as “distributing fake-information”. It further claims Hamas would have spread fake-information.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion

          Journalist David Zweig reported that widely reported claims in Western media that a Ministry of Health spokesperson claimed 500 had been killed appear to have originated from a mistranslation of an Al-Jazeera Arabic tweet, which correctly translated claimed over 500 total victims or casualties, not 500 or anywhere near 500 killed.[8][9]

          As for the discussion about the origin of the attack, for which after a lot of back and forth an Israeli fragmentation bomb is identified as the likely source, RIAS just cuts this short, assuming the attribution to Israel to be “fake-information”.

          P 44

          Mit Beginn der militärischen Reaktion Israels wurde vermehrt der Vorwurf verbreitet, Israel begehe einen Genozid an den Palästinenser_innen. RIAS erfasst diesen Vorwurf nicht per se als antisemitischen Vorfall, sondern nur, wenn er in einem bestimmten Kontext erfolgt. Dieser ergibt sich beispielsweise durch eine Relativierung der Schoa oder eine Gleichsetzung des israelischen Vorgehens mit dem Nationalsozialismus, etwa in der Parole „One genocide does not justify another one“.

          So RIAS claims to not consider calling out genocide as antisemitic per se, despite giving examples where they do not explain why it would be antisemitic in this context. In the particular example given now "One genocide does not justify another one“ is considered as equating the it with the Holocaust. This is frankly absurd. Especially since the attacks of October 7, but also before Israel is constantly referring to the Holocaust as a key justification for its attacks and oppression against Palestinians and many more people in neighboring countries.

          Auch die Parole „Kindermörder Israel“, die an die antijudaistische Ritualmord- legende anschließt und den Staat Israel delegitimiert,

          Calling Israel a murderer of children is considered antisemitic by RIAS. The UN just reported that in the next days 14,000 Babies in Gaza will be killed by starvation unless the blockade is lifted. Even the Israeli opposition is now crying out the “murder of babies as a hobby.”

          Now to get to the BDS report of RIAS:

          P 4 preamble

          Ein Akt genozidaler Gewalt. Die von den Hamas-Terroristen mit GoPro-Kameras aufgezeichneten und mitunter über die Mobiltelefone ihrer Opfer verbreiteten Gräueltaten zielten darauf ab, Jüdinnen_Juden weltweit in Angst und Schrecken zu versetzen.

          “An act of genocidal violence … the distributed videos of heinous acts aim at instilling fear in Jews worldwide”

          This decontextualizes the attacks and motivations of Hamas, who employ acts of terror but whose actions are targeted at achieving their political goals in regards to Israel/Palestine. Hamas is often likened to Al-Quaida or ISIS, i.e. by Netanyahu, to create an idea of it being a threat to western countries.

          Während die Hamas-Terroristen in den Kibbuzim im Süden Israels morden, veröffentlicht der Twitter-Kanal der weltweiten BDS-Kampagne: „Escalate all BDS campaigns now!“ Schon am 8. Oktober werden die Massaker der Hamas von der deutschen BDS-Kampagne als „schlagkräftiger bewaffneter Aufstand“ bezeichnet und es werden konkrete Boykott-Maßnahmen empfohlen, So soll sich für die Schaffung „Apartheid-freie[r] Zone[n]“ und für die Beendigung aller „Beziehungen mit Apartheid Israel und den Unternehmen, die an seinem Unterdrückungssystem beteiligt sind“ eingesetzt werden.1

          P 49 that is linkes as source:

          Noch am Tag des 7. Oktober 2023, als die Kämpfe mit den Terroristen der Hamas im Süden Israels noch andauerten, veröffentlichte das BNC ein Statement zu den Massakern.120 Am selben Tag lieferte die zentrale Kampagnenwebseite in Deutsch- land eine eigene Übersetzung dieses Statements.

          From the source linked in the report:

          Die BDS-Bewegung verurteilt die Regierungen des kolonialen Westens aufs Schärfste dafür, dass sie sich wieder einmal heuchlerisch auf die Seite von Apartheid Israel stellen und dessen irreführende Chronologie der aktuellen Gewalt“ übernehmen, als ob alles heute Morgen mit dem schlagkräftigen bewaffneten Aufstand der unterdrückten Palästinenser*innen in Gaza begonnen hätte. Diese verzerrte Chronologie soll den Beginn und die Eskalation der jahrzehntelangen kolonialen Gewalt des Unterdrückers verschleiern.

          RIAS ignores the context that in the morning of the 07. October it was only known that the border wall and army stations have been overrun, which is covered by the right of people to resist their occupation and needs to be differentiated from terrorist attacks on civilians, for which evidence emerged during the day. Also note RIAS mixing 07. and 08. October. This can happen as a tipo but should not, as the chronology is crucial here to see what is legitimate and what is terror sympathy.