A crackdown on political dissent is well under way in Germany. Over the past two years, institutions and authorities have cancelled events, exhibitions and awards over statements about Palestine or Israel.
There are many examples: the Frankfurt book fair indefinitely postponing an award ceremony for Adania Shibli; the Heinrich Böll Foundation withdrawing the Hannah Arendt prize from Masha Gessen; the No Other Land directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham being defamed by German ministers. And, most recently, the philosopher Omri Boehm being disinvited from speaking at this month’s anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald.
In nearly all of these cases, accusations of antisemitism loom large – even though Jews are often among those being targeted. More often than not, it is liberals driving or tacitly accepting these cancellations, while conservatives and the far right lean back and cheer them on.
Germany has recently taken a chilling new step, signalling its willingness to use political views as grounds to curb migration. Authorities are now moving to deport foreign nationals for participating in pro-Palestine actions. As I reported this week in the Intercept, four people in Berlin – three EU citizens and one US citizen – are set to be deported over their involvement in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. None of the four have been convicted of a crime, and yet the authorities are seeking to simply throw them out of the country.
“In the runup to the election, parties across the spectrum, from the Greens to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), spoke about migration as a security threat, and promised deportations and tighter controls. In this climate, Palestine has turned into somewhat of a litmus test for asylum policy.”
Worth noting that the ones doing this are the Left and Center-Left parties that are IN power. As these parties are Left leaning when compared to the US Republicans and even US Democrats. To us, many Dem policies are Right of the Canadian Liberals or even our Conservarives. So much for freedom of speech.
Christian aspect aside the CDU they are closer to our Canadian Liberals in many of their policies same as the Greens. The AdF are ignored, so weird that they focus on them when they are not even the ones literally making and doing these policies.