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.

  • Saleh@feddit.org
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    18 hours ago

    Just from the polemic style and tagesspiegel it was clear that it must have been from Sebastian Leber.

    Am Alexanderplatz forderten sie mehrfach den Boykott israelischer Waren. Klingt für viele nach „Deutsche! Wehrt euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!“

    He equates Israel with all Jews, which has antisemitic connotations.

    Sie wollten bloß die israelische Apartheid abschaffen.

    Äh, Apartheid?

    He thinks that calling Israel an Apartheid state would be antisemitic. That aged like milk.

    Zu seinen Kernforderungen gehört, dass alle palästinensischen Flüchtlinge nach Israel zurückkehren dürfen, dazu deren Kinder, Enkel und Urenkel. Ein solches Rückkehrrecht wäre weltweit einmalig. Israels Juden wären fortan in der Minderheit. Ob dieser Staat dann noch Israel heißen könne, müsse die neue Mehrheit entscheiden, sagt Deeg. Als Europäer solle man sich da nicht einmischen.

    He claims that a right of return for forcefully displaced people would be “globally unique”. In fact it is an “inalienable right” by the UN resolution 3236. Also he then says that this would put Jews into a minority in Israel. He then suggests that this would be an existential threat to Israel. However he does not bother to consider what this means about the kind of state Israel is.

    Die führenden Köpfe sagen ganz offen, dass sie keine zwei Staaten, also Israel neben Palästina, dulden werden. Dass der Judenstaat verschwinden muss und es dann nur noch einen Staat Palästina gibt.

    “The leading heads” he claims, without noting who exactly that is supposed to be. This is in stark contrast to all the people he names by full name in the article. Also calling Israel “Judenstaat” - “The state of the Jews” rings racist/antisemitic. A more neutral formulation would be “jüdischer Staat” - “Jewish state”.

    Wenn die BDS-Mitglieder Israel einen „Apartheidstaat“ nennen, meinen sie nicht etwa Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Westjordanland. Sie glauben, dass der Staat auch die 20 Prozent seiner eigenen Bürger, die arabischstämmig sind, als Menschen zweiter Klasse behandle.

    He claims that Palestinian Israelis would not be discriminated against in Israel, despite that being well reported.

    I will provide an excerpt from Amnesty International

    Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise about 19% of the population, face many forms of institutionalized discrimination. In 2018, discrimination against Palestinians was crystallized in a constitutional law which, for the first time, enshrined Israel exclusively as the “nation state of the Jewish people”. The law also promotes the building of Jewish settlements and downgrades Arabic’s status as an official language.

    The report documents how Palestinians are effectively blocked from leasing on 80% of Israel’s state land, as a result of racist land seizures and a web of discriminatory laws on land allocation, planning and zoning.

    The situation in the Negev/Naqab region of southern Israel is a prime example of how Israel’s planning and building policies intentionally exclude Palestinians. Since 1948 Israeli authorities have adopted various policies to “Judaize” the Negev/Naqab, including designating large areas as nature reserves or military firing zones, and setting targets for increasing the Jewish population. This has had devastating consequences for the tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins who live in the region.

    Thirty-five Bedouin villages, home to about 68,000 people, are currently “unrecognized” by Israel, which means they are cut off from the national electricity and water supply and targeted for repeated demolitions. As the villages have no official status, their residents also face restrictions on political participation and are excluded from the healthcare and education systems. These conditions have coerced many into leaving their homes and villages, in what amounts to forcible transfer.

    Leber wents on to equate these people with terrorists by claiming:

    In den allermeisten Gesetzen werden Religion oder Ethnie gar nicht erwähnt, sie gelten für jeden Staatsbürger gleichermaßen. Zum Beispiel die Sicherheitsgesetze, die Terroranschläge verhindern sollen. Israelgegner argumentieren nun, solche Anschläge würden statistisch gesehen häufiger von Nichtjuden als von Juden verübt - deshalb seien Maßnahmen dagegen rassistisch.

    “Most laws dont mention religion or ethnicity, they apply to everyone equally. For example security laws to prevent terror attacks. Enemies of Israel argue these would be committed more often by non Jews than Jews, which is why the measure would be racist.”

    Again he provides no information who those “enemies of Israel” are supposed to be that made these claims according to Leber.

    So assuming what Leber quotes in individuals to be true, there would be some things to legitimately criticise. However Leber is known to polemizise and violate journalistic standards, including disrespecting his source. He claimed a different Berlin newspaper had altered an interview with Roger Waters to make him look better. In the process he leaked confidential communications. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/roger-waters-so-verzerrt-der-tagesspiegel-die-wahrheit-li.2200289

    Otherwise he is busy bringing hot takes on social media to generate outrage. He is presented as an expert on the left, antisemitism and Israel. His “non fiction books” as an author are books like “33 Men report from heart-wreaking rebuffs, embarassing losses and reciprocated feelings”, “Partying for advanced learners” and “Ernie vs. Bert and 99 other duels.”

    Leber is a clown, who realized that with polemics around Israel/Palestine he can get attention while enjoying the backing of the political mainstream. His “journalism” remains lackluster and anything he writes needs to be taken not with a big grain of salt, but with a bag of salt.