As anarchists, anti-fascists, and people who are part of autonomous circles in Berlin, we stand in full solidarity with all liberation movements, from Palestine to Congo, from Kurdistan to Chiapas, from West Papua to Turtle Island, from Abya Yala to Sudan, from Western Sahara to Myanmar, from Haiti to Kanaky, and everywhere around the world. We firmly stand for true internationalist, intercommunalist, anti-racist, queer trans feminist solidarity.
The relentless oppression of Palestinians (in Palestine and in the diaspora) and this latest phase of the ongoing Nakba and genocide have shown the true faces and values of many liberal governments and their state apparatuses. The German state too is fully complicit in the genocide in Palestine, in its fanatical support of „Israel“ and all the „western values“ it represents: brutal occupation and exploitation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous people. Anti-colonial anti-fascism must be an integral part of all peoples‘ liberation struggles. True anti-fascism is anti-colonial.
Undoubtedly, Germany is an expert in militarism, wars, and genocides:
that of the Herero and Nama people, of the Jewish people of Europe, of the Roma/Sinti people, aiding Turkey’s genocide of the Armenian people, …. the list goes on and on.
In Germany, the narrative of Germany’s alleged repentance and atonement, the instrumentalization of German guilt towards Jewish people, Germany’s self-proclaimed „Staatsräson“ („reason of state“), and its selective and highly curated „memory culture“ are put forward as rationales to actively support genocide.
Germany’s elected state representatives are boot-licking Israel, providing diplomatic cover for zionist crimes, while most of its media repeats and amplifies Israeli state propaganda.
A large section of society in Germany, dominated by white Germans, is silent again while ethnic cleansing is taking place, as Israel commits unimaginable atrocities daily, aided by Germany and its deliveries of weapons and technology to kill all life in Gaza. Many in Germany refuse to recognize (or flat-out deny) the brutal settler-colonial violence in Palestine, the continuously murderous annexation of the West Bank, the large-scale mass murdering, and the apartheid regime. „It’s complicated,“ they claim. But in times of a text-book genocide delivered daily to our screens, silence is complicity – and it will be remembered as such.
The Free Palestine movement in Germany is being targeted from all sides: By the state, by neo-nazis, by institutions, by German civil society, by „concerned citizens“, by liberals, and by the so-called „Anti-Deutsche“ („anti-Germany Germans“).
Under the guise of „fighting antisemitism“, many who call for an end to the genocide and occupation are criminalized (especially folks from Muslim-majority regions and people read as such, BIPoC, anti-zionist Jewish people), placed on red lists, cancelled, arrested, banned, insulted, attacked, and harassed.
In Germany, we also face a rather unique and very German problem: A significant proportion of white non-Jewish self-proclaimed „antifascist“ Germans eagerly support the zionist project. These misguided and annoying pawns of the state, the so-called „Anti-Deutsche“, who are allegedly on the radical left, are intentionally ignorant when it comes to zionism and Israel. Their always predictable signature move is to attack anyone who dares to speak out for Palestine as „antisemitic“, Islamist, Hamas, fascist and/or Nazi.
Clearly, there is – to put it mildly – confusion in the „anti-fascist“ movement in Germany. We must challenge it, and must more pro-actively self-reflect on the radical left here, which we are part of.
It is up to all of us to effect change.
We need to fight all racisms, especially the dangerous and ever more toxic anti-Muslim racism and anti-Jewish hate in this country.
We reject Germany’s alleged „reason of state“ („Staatsräson“), and we refuse to recognize not only „Israel“ as a legitimate state but also the German state and all states. As anarchists, anti-fascists, and anti-authoritarians, we believe that all states and all borders must be abolished. We oppose any kind of hierarchical, authoritarian power structures and ideologies or concepts such as states or political parties that put certain people or entities in power and determine the lives of others. Hence, our fight aims at the disintegration of the fascist, zionist, racist, ethnocratic regimes of „Israel“ and of all other states worldwide.
We call for an immediate end to the apartheid in and occupation of Palestine. Palestinians should be able to return to their homeland. We advocate for the liberation of Palestine and maintain that all its people should live and thrive there in peace, from the river to the sea. We fight for freedom for all.
NEVER AGAIN means NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE.