Germany’s unconditional support for Israel has been an easy way to avoid examining our brutal past. The colossal weight of the ongoing genocide in Gaza is crushing our facile myths and forcing us to re-examine our historical dogma.

Since October 7, the Palestinian kuffiyeh has been criminalized by German authorities and institutions out of support for Israel and Zionism. A new campaign is challenging this “hypocritical and deceitful ‘culture of remembrance.’”

Since October 7, 2023, Arabs in Germany have watched the country undergo an authoritarian restructuring touching every aspect of life. Germany claims to have overcome its genocidal past, but this lie only serves to distract from its violent present.

Germany is now taking in animals from Gaza while refusing entry to injured and sick Palestinians. The message is clear: in Germany’s hierarchy of “valuable” life, Palestinians are valued less than animals.

While Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s announcement that Germany is stopping arms deliveries to Israel made international headlines as a shocking policy reversal, the details tell a different story.

This week, I faced trial for opposing genocide, Zionism, and for challenging Germany’s unconditional support for Israel. The state prosecuting me may have legal authority, but its moral authority has collapsed as it again participates in a genocide.

The Gaza genocide is nearing its final, most brutal phase, and Israeli universities are providing intellectual, logistical, and technological support. The academic boycott of Israeli institutions is the minimum that justice demands.

It is not just pro-Palestinian students in the U.S. who are facing the threat of deportation. Anti-genocide activists in Germany and Greece are also currently under threat of deportation, an unprecedented move to quash popular support for Palestine.

For over one year, Germany has been actively participating in the killing and dehumanization of Palestinians by providing political, financial, military, and legal support to Israel. Germany’s complicity in Israel’s atrocities must stop.

The shame of Israel’s genocide in Gaza will haunt the international moral conscience and the Israeli psyche for the coming century. Though Israelis, accustomed to the perpetual shaming of Germany, are unprepared for the shame they must now confront.