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.

  • gcheliotis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    7 hours ago

    I agree in principle, and personally challenge antisemitic thinking where I recognize it, but I don’t think it’s possible to completely inoculate a protest movement (let alone an armed struggle on site) against the criminal actions of what is a de jure Jewish state from negative sentiment towards Jews. It is asking the impossible. Oppressed people and their allies will hate their oppressors and that hate will spill over to cover an entire ethnic or religious group. Until some form of justice and peace can be restored. In every case we should be against the targeting of civilians.