Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, backed a bill to criminalize the denial of Israel’s right to exist on Friday, a motion that constitutional experts said could jeopardize freedom of expression.
According to the bill, anyone denying Israel’s right to exist or calling for its abolition would be punished with a prison sentence of up to five years under the regulation. The bill will be examined by the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, after its summer recess.
Israel has no right to exist. Germany also has no right to exist. No state has an inherent right to exist.
Any right is ultimately a product of consensus. Challenging a right is an expression of dissent, which is itself a human right.
It makes sense for a tolerant society seeking to protect itself to enshrine the rights of humans to exist, so as to avoid the paradox of tolerance. This is the compromise of free speech that must be made to defend it: to treat this consensus as a contract, whereby anyone who rejects it also loses the rights it confers. Likewise, anyone who denies other humans the right to exist must forfeit their own.
What’s more, states are not people, but organisations. Their right to exist is the product of a consensus that this organisation has a sovereign monopoly on the use of force within its territory. But that right is strictly subordinate to the human right to exist and express opinions. It must be open to dissent.
And a state that denies people their right to live (Israel) or to express their dissent (Germany) is in breach of that contract.
Fuck our government. Fuck Merz, fuck the representatives and fuck the voters that enabled this travesty against human rights in general and our constitution in particular.
Lmao there is a huge difference between “existing” and “actively deliberately genociding a people and culture they believe are inferior”
Directed at the German parliament
And what about Palestine’s right to exist? Lebanon? Syria?
That’s some Zionist bullshit. I guarantee that any criticism of Israel would end up being lumped in.
Already is in Germany. It’s even illegal to protest in Germany in a different language, and that rule was specifically made to target the anti-genocide protests using Palestinian freedom slogans that have been around for decades
Can we first know what “right to exist” means for the context of a nation state? Surely, Nazi Germany didn’t have a “right to exist”. So, surely it’s not a universal right like a person’s right to exist? This means there are things a state can do that revoke it’s “right to exist”? So, what does it actually mean?
-
All states (even Nazi Germany) have a “right to exist” and it cannot be revoked.
-
No states have a “right to exist”.
-
All states have a right to exist until some defined violation that revokes that right.
-
It’s a meaningless phrase that is only used in the context of defending a genocidal apartheid state.
I’m leaning towards thinking they are using the last definition.
-
Anarchism made a thought crime in Germany.
The Germans really love genocide.
Our government sure does. Their enablers probably don’t actively love it, they just can’t be arsed to actually think about the implications of just voting CxU. The reasons range from “I’ve always voted for them” (that just makes it worse) and “they’re Christians” (the fuck they are) over various forms of “I like the status quo” (which they’re making worse for everyone not already rich) to “the evil bad green / left parties are gonna take away my house, my car, make me eat tofu and whatever other propaganda bullshit my favourite sensationalist rag has told me that I believe uncritically”.
They don’t love genocide, they just love not having to care about politics and the cunts they elect abuse that merrily. Of course, there are also genuine genocide fans, but for the most part, it’s more a habitual complacency with a chunk of domestic fearmongering.
As a democratic body, we’ve been slacking off for decades. Now the bill is coming due and the youth get to foot it. We get thrown in with the misguided, the lazy and the assholes. And the worst part is how many of us fall into the “domestic misery -> xenophobia” trap and prove you right.
I can’t even argue with your conclusion. The difference between actively supporting and passively permitting is academic when the results are these pieces of shit in our government.
What does genocide have to do with this bill?
The modern state of Israel is a settler-colonial state, inherently built on genocide. Saying that it should be dismantled and replaced with something better shouldn’t be a crime, and making it one is ignoring nearly a century of context. Nearly a century of context inextricably linked to Germany, no less.
Saying that it should be dismantled and replaced with something better shouldn’t be a crime
Challenging a state’s right to exist should be covered by freedom of expression. It’s not the same as saying the people shouldn’t exist, which I could see a human rights argument against, but the state is an organisation and as such should always be open to challenge, regardless of context. They’re spitting on basic human rights.
Most of us aren’t responsible for most of that century of context, but we are responsible for what happens today. To ignore it is to ignore genocide. To ban criticism is to protect it. Merz and his accomplices should be charged with aiding genocide and this law should be entered as evidence.
This whole shit about “Right to exist” is extremely absurd.
Never before, anywhere else on the planet, no other country was ever questioned to have the right to exist.
Fuck these genocidal colonialists, trying to smooth ambiguous sentences with acceptance for their genocide.
exactly. does Genovia have a right to exist? that’s the fictional European kingdom from The Princess Diaries. it’s doesn’t exist. but does it have a right to?
I do not recognize terrorist states. Free Palestine. And fuck you Germany. You never changed.
So you also don’t recognize Palestine because of the atrocities of October 7th? I think there should be protection for both states and for all human beings living there.
It’s so interesting that Palestine as a whole is responsible for a terrorist attack, but the Israeli government spending decades stealing Palestinian land and currently enacting a genocide is blameless. I’m sure that has nothing to do with racism.
It’s both. Hamas enjoys broad support by Palestinians. We have to recognize the reality. Before you jump on me with your narrative about the noble liberator hold that thought for a second. Right now they both are guilty of comitting attrocities. The difference is the US gives endless money to Irael so they have the upper hand. But dont be naive in thinking the Palestinians are eager for a two state solution. There wont be peace in this region for a very long time until either side is willing to come to the table in good faith.
But dont be naive in thinking the Palestinians are eager for a two state solution
Why should they be or even need to be eager to legitimize the settler colonial state that has been killing their families and stealing their homes for nearly a century? A two state solution isn’t the only peaceful solution. One state where Palestinians actually have rights and control over their own governance doesn’t break the laws of physics, people have just decided (based on religious beliefs) that European Jewish people have more right to control the land there than people whose ancestors have lived there for thousands of years.
But people love their Abrahamic religious ethnostates and are propagandized as hell, so I don’t expect people to accept any of that any time soon.
Get lost
I think there should be protection for both states and for all human beings living there.
Cool. How do you proposing twisting the arm of the fucking apartheid regime that is currently engaging in genocide to get it to comply with that aspiration? Really open to suggestions.
You mean Israel gunning down their own people because of the Sampson Doctrine or whatever the fuck it’s called? People who are being violently oppressed are going to violently resist oppression. That’s how this shit works.
The “Hannibal Directive”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
“Shoot the hostage” - Israel edition.
As used on October 7th:
Yep. Literally their own fucking papers have reported on the fact that they shot their own people.
Same vibe as those shouting “all lives matter” at BLM protests.
What about Palestine’s right to exist? They going to pass a similar law about that?..no?.. Didn’t think so.
Some countries hove more rights that some people.
People OK, government bad.
Israel should exist as a pluralistic society.
Apartheid Israel needs to undergo some very painful changes, starting with ending their genocide against Palestinians.
Israel is a settler colonial project, it fundamentally cannot exist as a pluralistic society.
Palestine used to be a pluralistic society.
Settler colonial projects absolutely can become pluralistic societies.
<gestures wildly at South Africa>
Israel should exist as a pluralistic society.
Pissrael is colonial apartheid white supremacist project. It needs to be completely dismantled and destroyed.
Many many people should be tortured and executed, all the rest can be imprisoned and forced to reconstruct every building destroyed. The sentence ends when Palestine is fully rebuilt.
Palestine should be the only state and we should mind our own business on how they should govern their land.
Okay but where do you put the jews afterwards? Shall we build camps in Europe again?
Ahhh and there it is the zionist conflating religion and nationality. Good job you are a cunt.
I’m saying those people need a place to live too.
I’m not really much of a zionist, I actually believe both the Palestinians and the Jews can have their own countries and Israel shouldn’t be expanding obviously.
I live in a country that was literally declared judenfrei in the brief amount of time the nazis occupied us. I can see why they need their own nation state to feel safe. It just shouldn’t be what it is right now.
I don’t know what “Israel’s right to exist” means. Like, I believe that Israel should exist as a secular, democratic country with fully equal rights for all people regardless of their ethnicity or religion, with the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return, with reparations for the victims of genocide and apartheid, with full accountability for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, and with a national project overseen by the international community that will effect the deep institutional and educational deradicalization of the population, including a complete political and institutional repudiation of all kind of jewish-supremacist forms of zionism, as well as a German-style Erinnerungskultur, and by having as its Staatsräson a commitment to the defence and security of Palestine. Is it jail for me in the Bundesrepublik or not?
Yes, jail for you. German law is about Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state (and everything that comes with that which they don’t speak about and ignore).
And may the Israeli themselves receive the same right to exist as they give the Palestinians.
