Editor’s Note: The following open letter was initiated by Irish Bloc Berlin, alongside a large coalition of Irish-Palestinian solidarity groups, to call for Ireland and the EU to denounce Germany’s repeated contraventions of international law and active role in genocide. The following open letter will be delivered to the Dáil and German Embassy, Dublin on November 14, and will be followed by a protest titled “Never Again for Anyone: Condemn German Repression and Complicity in Genocide” on November 16 at the German Embassy.
Open letter to the Government of Ireland condemning the failure of the Irish government and EU to publicly denounce Germany’s repeated contraventions of international law and active role in genocide
Our demands:
Ireland: Publicly denounce Germany’s role in the criminalisation of pro-Palestinian voices, and Germany’s active participation in genocide in Palestine. Ireland must lead by example in Europe, immediately enacting the Occupied Territories Bill and standing firmly against German and Israeli genocidal words and acts on both European and global stages.
EU: Impose long overdue sanctions on Israel until it complies with international law and halts its genocidal campaign.
Germany: Immediately halt all military aid to Israel, and launch a parliamentary inquiry into the frightening levels of criminalisation and censorship of pro-Palestinian voices on German soil.
The Irish Bloc Berlin, in collaboration with a coalition of Irish-Palestinian solidarity groups, is organising a mass demonstration in Dublin to condemn the German government’s repression of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices, and its active role in the ongoing genocide in Palestine and violence across Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Germany provided 47% of Israel’s weapons imports in 2023, and doubled exports in the second half of 2024, having just announced another €100 million in military support in late October.
Over the past year, Germany has displayed an alarming escalation of authoritarianism and the repression of basic constitutional rights in service of its blind, uncritical support for Israel’s crimes against humanity. Earlier this year, an Irish-language pro-Palestinian event was brutally shut down by Berlin police, and since then, Irish pro-Palestinian activists have increasingly experienced surveillance and intimidation, as well as violent targeting at protests and Palestine solidarity events.
Berlin is home to the largest Palestinian community in Europe, and Palestinians, people of colour, and those without EU passports are disproportionately targeted in an escalating crackdown, as the Berlin police take their lead from the violent rhetoric of their political leaders. Freedom of speech is being crushed, and people are beaten, harassed, intimidated, and threatened with deportation for as little as attending a protest or “liking” a social media post. Amnesty International recently issued a demand for an independent investigation into police brutality in Berlin. Globally, leaders and thinkers such as UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, climate activist Greta Thunberg and award-winning writer Arundhati Roy have joined the chorus of voices condemning Germany’s unwavering support for Israeli genocide and its shocking tactics to repress freedom of speech.
Germany’s swerve towards authoritarianism is especially shocking given the country’s historical responsibility to stand against genocide and crimes against humanity. And yet today, Germany is trampling on its own constitution in support of Israel’s genocidal campaign, silencing and punishing any who speak out, with the Berlin police chief going so far as to publicly attack the judiciary in the press for failing to convict enough people following arrests at demos, a grave overreach, and with the Bundestag having just passed a shocking new resolution giving the secret services power to determine eligibility for arts funding, research funding, and residency depending on “a mindset of solidarity with Israel”. The irony that a nation that once declared “Never Again” in the aftermath of the Holocaust is now supporting the violent subjugation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians cannot be overstated.
The German state’s recent insistence that it will continue to supply further military aid to Israel, doubling down on IDF-led genocidal rhetoric, further deepens its complicity in these crimes. With this event, we aim to send a clear message to Ireland, Germany, and the EU that we will not tolerate this, and we intend to pressure the Irish government to publicly denounce Germany’s role in this genocide.
This protest comes just days before the anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1920, when the Black and Tans opened fire on civilians at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, Dublin, killing indiscriminately, in retaliation for an IRA assassination of British intelligence officers earlier that day. The timing underscores the stark parallels between Ireland’s long history of colonial oppression and the horrific collective punishment, violence and dehumanisation Palestinians are experiencing today. The very same soldiers responsible for the massacre in Ireland were later deployed to crush resistance in Palestine, particularly during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939.
The demonstration, titled “Never Again for Anyone: Condemn German Repression and Complicity in Genocide”, will begin at 12:30 PM outside the German Embassy in Dublin, with speeches from local and international activists and politicians, and will proceed to the Irish Parliament in Dublin City Centre for a closing event at 5pm.
Initiated by:
Irish Bloc Berlin
Co-signatories:
1916 Societies
Anti Deportation Ireland Apartheid-Free Arts
Apartheid-Free Dance
Artists Against Genocide
Athlone Palestine Solidarity group
BDS Clare
Cairde Palestine Belfast
Cairdeas Falasteen Conamara
Communist Party of Ireland – Women’s Committee
East Clare for Palestine
East Clare Palestinian Support group
Ecojustice Ireland
Fermoy Solidarity Campaign
Folmens Climate Change Network
Gaels Against Genocide / Na Gaeil ar son Gaza
Galway Alliance Against War
Hosta Projects
IPSC Cavan
IPSC Galway
Ireland-Palestinian Solidarity Campaign
Irish Bloc Vienna
Irish Farmers for Palestine
Irish OTs for Palestine
Irish Psychologists for Palestine
Jews for Palestine Ireland
Jüdische Stimme
Killarney for Palestine
Killorglin 4 Palestine
Kinvara Palestine Solidarity Group
Maynooth BDS
Mothers Against Genocide
Mulholland Law
NCADSU
Nenagh Friends of Palestine
North Clare for Palestine
North Tipperary IPSC
Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality
Palästina Kampagne
Palestine Aid
Praxis: The Artists’ Union of Ireland
People Before Profit
Queerde Palestine Belfast
Queers for Palestine
Shannon Vigil group
Socialist Lawyers Association of Ireland
South Kerry Friends of Palestine
TCDSU/AMLCT
Teachers for Palestine
The Ditch
The People of Clare Against Genocide
UCD BDS
Waterford for Palestine
Tadhg Hickey, Comedian
Naoise Dolan, Writer
Michael Magee, Writer
Una Mullally, Journalist
Róisín El Cherif, Singer
Caoimhe Butterly, Activist
Prof. Bill Rolston, Author and Activist
Wieland Hoban, Composer, Chair of Jüdische Stimme
Paul Murphy, TD
Bríd Smith, TD
Richard Boyd Barrett, TD
…and counting
To learn more and sign on see the letter here.
RE: “Over the past year, Germany has displayed an alarming escalation of authoritarianism and the repression of basic constitutional rights in service of its blind, uncritical support for Israel’s crimes against humanity.”
SEE:
■ Silencing the Lambs — How Propaganda Works | By John Pilger | Consortium News | Sept. 7, 2022
Leni Riefenstahl said her epic films glorifying the Nazis depended on a “submissive void” in the German public. This is how propaganda is done.
[EXCERPTS] In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Fuhrer.
She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public.
Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked. “Yes, especially them,” she said.
I think of this as I look around at the propaganda now consuming Western societies. . .
. . . In accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, [Harold] Pinter said this:
“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
Pinter was a friend of mine and possibly the last great political sage – that is, before dissenting politics were gentrified. I asked him if the “hypnosis” he referred to was the “submissive void” described by Leni Riefenstahl.
“It’s the same,” he replied. “It means the brainwashing is so thorough we are programmed to swallow a pack of lies. If we don’t recognise propaganda, we may accept it as normal and believe it. That’s the submissive void.” . . .
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/07/john-pilger-silencing-the-lambs-how-propaganda-works/
P.S. “The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed,” Hanna Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Germany added new questions to its naturalization test. answering a question about the israeli maccabi football club is one of them.
https://www.germany-visa.org/news/germany-will-include-12-new-questions-related-to-judaism-israel-on-its-citizenship-test/