In a sweeping move, Berlin’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution outlaws BDS movement, branding it a direct threat to peaceful international order and noting that it crosses a red line into anti-constitutional extremism.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Berlin announced Tuesday that the BDS movement has been classified as “unconstitutional.”

The head of the office, Michael Fischer, explained that the movement’s status in Berlin’s antisemitic and anti-Israel landscape has significantly strengthened over the past year.

Fischer clarified that BDS’s ideology is based on “explicit denial of Israel’s right to exist.” According to him, BDS activity goes beyond boycotting cultural events or Israeli economic products. “The goal is to make the existence of Israel impossible in the international context. It is aimed at its destruction,” Fischer stated.

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    61·
    19 hours ago

    Shouting “I hate Jews” and “Jews are shit” is antisemitic by definition. The other behaviours you’re describing are also deplorable.

    Note however, what I am debating here is not their actions as such. I am attacking the rationale presented by the «Office for the protection of the constitution in Berlin» in its condemnation of the group.

    Those guys and girls might be antisemitic idiots, but they are private individuals. On the other hand, the «Office» is a public institution and the rationale it employs is such that even if those guys and girls had conducted themselves extremely carefully, correctly and politely, the «Office» could have still used the same rationale to condemn them.

    This state institution is outlining a rationale for proscribing any protest group that would share the political goals of those guys and girls, even if it might completely eschew their tactics.

    This rationale makes impossible a future, non-extremist BDS group from pursuing a BDS campaign as such.

    And, to quote Kennedy: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” In its rationale, the «Office» is revealing itself to hold a deep and rabid anti-Palestinian bias, that is profoundly unacceptable for a liberal European democracy.