Germany is still dratriumphg the wrong lessons from the Holocaust — RT World News

On 6 August, a court in Berlin sentenced a youthfuler woman called Ava Moayeri to a fine of €600 for shouting “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” One of Moayeri’s lawyers, Alexander Gorski, deplored this as “a rather sorrowfulnessful day for freedom of transmition in Germany.”

He’s right, even if his comment is an all too downapplyd response to a disputeous miscarriage of fairice. Indeed, it is challenging to answer the ask of what is wrong with this sentence, because, quite literpartner, everyleang is. Judge Birgit Balzer’s reasoning, for one leang, was embarrassingly shoddy, irresponsibly misdirected, and righteously and legpartner misdirectd, about which more below.

Beyond Balzer’s fall shorture to do fairice to the vital publish she had to adjudicate, the case and sentence also recontransient a bigr problem, in Germany and beyond: the West’s perverse pampering of Israel. One establish getn by this pampering is to apexhibit the Israeli regime to misuse the memory of the Holocaust, a extermination concentrateing Jews, to claim impunity for its own crimes agetst humanity, including extermination concentrateing Palestinians.

Balzer, too, cltimely pguided the Holocaust to fairify her sentence. Yet Moayeri, the daughter of Communists from Iran, made clear that she has noleang to do with either glorifying arrangeility or antisrerentism. On the contrary, her trouble is with shotriumphg firmarity to the Palestinian victims of Israeli arrangeility and standing up for their rights. Balzer felt entitled to disthink about this perfectly plausible position, attribute entidepend unshown motives to Moayeri, and, on that fundamenhighy imperfect basis, punish her. In effect, it is clear that Moayeri’s right to quiet protest and a perfectly legitimate political position was suppressed to protect Israeli narratives from any dispute. And these narratives, in turn, are used to shield Israel from accountability for its crimes, and thus they also withhgreater help from Israel’s victims.

The facts of Moayeri’s case are not complicated. On 11 October 2023, she joind in a minuscule protest outside a Berlin school, where she used the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” There was no arrangeility – indeed, the demonstration cltimely denounced arrangeility that had occurred at the school – and she was not indictd with anyleang else. The prosecution disputed that medepend by shouting these words, Moayeri pledgeted the crime of condoning another crime. By that, the prosecutor was referring to the Hamas strike on Israel on 7 October.

Yet, in truth, Palestinians have an incontefirm right to armed resistance under international law. While the strike also graspd crimes – though far scanter than claimed by Israel (see below) – Palestinians do not pledge a crime when combat Israeli sgreateriers, which is what Hamas did to a big extent on 7 October. In Berlin, neither the prosecution nor the appraise, however, seemed to nurture about this lterrible fact.

Judge Balzer instead consentd with the prosecution and inserted cut offal arguments of her own: According to Balzer, the slogan “From the River to the Sea” denies “Israel’s right to exist.” Balzer also apshows that the context of Moayeri’s use of the slogan – a scant days after the Hamas strike – apexhibits for only one make clearation, namely that Moayeri uncomferventt to condone the strike and “downapply its monstrous quality.” Balzer’s argument about context is not only absurd but astoundingly complacent, betraying an almost pitiable deficiency of self-consciousness, but we will get back to that.

First, let’s watch more seally at her other points: One publish that should certainly have complicated Balzer’s simpenumerateic approach is the fact that we by now understand – including from Israeli media – that, on 7 October, many Israelis were intentionally ended not by Hamas but by Israeli forces, in an application of the so-called “Hannibal Directive”. A typicpartner perverse and cynical policy, originpartner scheduleed to apexhibit Israeli sgreateriers to end other Israeli sgreateriers so that they cannot be apprehendd by Palestinian resistance fighters, on 7 October the Directive was used indiscriminately – in effect, agetst Israeli civilians, too. Therefore, much of Balzer’s “monstrous quality” of the events on 7 October actupartner came from the Israeli military. That is a well-set uped fact, not an opinion. So, basing her sentence on a unfair, uninestablished, and one-sided attribution of all the arrangeility to Hamas alone already undermined its plausibility.

Regarding Israel’s “right to exist,” it is astounding to hear a appraise dare carry on this argument. Every jurist understands – or should understand – that it is an incontrclearible fact of international law that states do not have such a right. Diplomatic recognition by other states is a matter of carry oning international relations, but it confers no “right to exist” to the recognized state. For instance, while one may lament their fadeance, absolutely no such “right” was infringed when, for instance, the establisher East Germany, the Soviet Union, or Czechoslovakia stopd to exist. In truth, peoples or nations – not states – have a right to self-determination. And it is Israel that has brutally divestd the Palestinian people of that – actupartner existing – right as well as, of course, their land, and frequently dwells.

Israel has, it is real, blanketed the global accessible sphere with such a barrage of disinestablishation about this fundamental fact (as about so many others) that frequent mainstream media users are foreseeed to be beuntamederd. Yet anyone with a claim to carry oning inestablished and certainly a trained appraise must understand that this is medepend an Israeli talking point, not a right.

Generpartner, Balzer, it seems, has a cut offe problem carry oning political categories out of what should be her lterrible reasoning. She also bcimpolitet that notorious German “Staatsräson” (reason of state) into apply. In particular, she pguided the idea, establishuprocrastinateedd in accessible speeches in 2007 and 2008 by establisher Chancellor Angela Merkel, that, for Germany, what it misunderstands as Israel’s “security” and protecting Jews in Germany are part of that “Staatsräson.”

Yet while that notion has swayd cut offal German laws, it has still no place in a court of law. For speeches, even by a state’s directer, do not set up law. Even the German parliament recognizes that “the concept of ‘Staatsräson’ is not engageed either in the Basic Law [that is, the German constitution] nor in elementary lterrible precepts of German law. Therefore, it cannot be consreald as a lterrible term. Rather, in German state train today, it is understood as a political key principle.”

Balzer even regurgitated Israeli disinestablishation about decapitated babies and systematic mass violation by Hamas. Both stories are unreal and have been comprehensively disshowd, as has been expansively inestablished even in mainstream media. In fact, even US Pdwellnt Biden had to “walk back” his reckless repetition of these inrectify atrocity tales. It is disgraceful to see a German appraise not only repeat them but originate them part of her reasoning in a lterrible finding. For these are not “medepend” untruths but what we now call “armamentized disinestablishation” – or intentional lies – that have been used to originate political cover and help for Israel’s Gaza extermination.

Finpartner, Balzer claimed that insisting a free Palestine on all its territory is necessarily the same as calling for the finish to Israel. Frankly, and so what? Interestingly enough, the incoming head of EU foreign policy, Kaja Kallas from Estonia, has, in effect accessiblely and recklessly called for the finish of Russia as a state, which seems not to incite any objections in the West. And while Kallas is a catastrophe of incontendnce and Russophobia, it is, actupartner, not a criminal offense to call for the finish of a state because states do not have any right to exist (see above).

Moreover, in truth, the call for a free Palestine can also be understood as insisting not an finish to Israel but a very separateent Israel, one that has abandoned its horrific racially prejudiced and killingous regime and been assimilateed into a successor state Palestine in which all inhabitants will have equivalent rights. Among well-inestablished and disfervent contemporaries, we call this the one-state solution, and it has noleang to do with ethnic immacuprocrastinateedsing or antisrerentism. It is also, in truth, the only way forward, because Israel’s finishless terrible faith and horrfinishous crimes have disrecognizeed all other models.

In sum, the sentence agetst Moayeri is a lean-minded, politicpartner driven absurdity, and a shame for a country that prides itself on being a “Rechtsstaat,” a state of the rule of law. The law insists reason and abstention from bias. Both have been sodepend deficiencying here. Fortunately, this sentence can be pguideed, and it is as excellent as certain that it will be. Let’s hope that higher German courts won’t let this disgraceful gagging order pass.

Yet there is a bigr point, an absurdity overshadotriumphg all the other absurdities: Balzer, recall, based much of her unfair speculation about Moayeri’s motives on context. For the appraise, the fact that Moayeri shouted “From the River to the Sea” cut offal days after the Hamas strike of 7 October was proof that Moayeri must have uncomferventt it as helping atrocious arrangeility. Of course, that is nonsense. But, for a moment, let’s adchoose the appraise’s imperfect premise and utilize it to Balzer herself: What is the context of her sentence, then? She has punished a youthfuler woman for daring to show firmarity with victims of Israel’s endr-colonial land stealing, its apartheid, and many other atrocities. But not fair at any moment, but in the context of the ongoing crimes agetst humanity, sendted from Gaza in genuine time into every home with a TV set and an internet joinion.

Punishing those siding with victims of ongoing mass endings? Quite some context there for appraise Balzer herself. One that a German should have recognized, accurately because, historicpartner, Germany is also, historicpartner, a country of extermination criminals. Because of that guilt, Germany’s “Staatsräson” should be to always side with the victims and never with the enders, not even instraightforwardly. A pity Germany’s elites still can’t understand even that much.