Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Editorial: While Eyes Are on Gaza, Settlers Expel Palestinians From the West Bank

 Without law enforcement, Palestinians’ lives, homes and property are left vulnerable, and they soon realize the only way they can protect themselves and their possessions is to leave

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Villagers leaving Mughayyir al-Deir, Friday.

Villagers leaving Mughayyir al-Deir, Friday.Credit: Naama Grynbaum

Haaretz Editorial

May 25, 2025

The war in Gaza, the public attention that is focused on the hostages and their abandonment, the stormy debates for and against population transfer and deliberate starvation as well as the question of how many tens of thousands – including children – must die for Israel to be shocked out of its actions: All these, plus the roiling domestic politics, create ideal conditions for settlers’ quiet and systematic expulsion of Palestinians from Area C of the West Bank, which is under exclusive Israeli control.

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After the war began, the settlers developed a new method for displacing Palestinian communities: They establish settlement outposts adjacent to them and immediately begin to assault their residents, steal their livestock and restrict their movements.

In the absence of law enforcement, the Palestinians’ lives, homes and property are left vulnerable. They quickly realize that the only way they can protect themselves and their possessions is to leave.

According to the data of Kerem Navot, an Israeli nonprofit that monitors land-use policy in the West Bank, since the war began around 60 Palestinian communities have been expelled from Area C (Hagar Shezaf, Hebrew Haaretz, Friday).

The latest victim of this method is the Ramallah-area Bedouin village al-Mughayyir. Its residents have lived there for some 40 years, but it took settlers less than a week to expel them.

They have been subjected to harassment for two years, but the outpost established last week set off a dramatic escalation that led to its displacement.

In this case, there was no need for a violent attack: A threat sufficed, since residents knew well what had happened to other villages that failed to heed the threats.

The new outpost is less than 100 meters (yards) from one of the village homes. The IDF and Civil Administration did not act to remove it or to protect the Palestinian residents, who fled from their homes in fear. This is quiet expulsion, under the watchful but silent eyes of the state and the military.

The “hilltop youth” do not act alone. The settlement enterprise is a terrifying apparatus with the power not only to build outposts and expel communities but also to elect representatives to the Knesset and place them in the cabinet.

Far-right MK Tzvi Succot breaking into Sde Teiman military base last July.

MK Tzvi Succot has already been spotted in the new outpost. A petition submitted to the High Court of Justice demanded temporary relief: moving the outpost 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles) from the village and conducting regular patrols.

The state was asked to explain its failure to take action against the expulsion attempt. Justice Yosef Elron ruled against the requested temporary measures and gave the state until May 29 to respond. The court, then, is a party to the Palestinians’ abandonment.

The occupying power is responsible for protecting the people living under occupation. The army and the Civil Administration must act immediately to remove the settlers, protect the Palestinians and prevent the next expulsion.

In the absence of such action, it is clear that the Israeli establishment is a party to the expulsion. Israel cannot continue to ignore its obligations under international law and agreements to which it is a signatory.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

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Monday, May 26, 2025

Israeli military unveils plan to internally displace entire remaining population of Gaza

 Andre Damon

@Andre__Damon, WSWS., May 26, 2025

Palestinians inspect a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. [AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana]

On Sunday, the Israeli military announced a plan to occupy three-quarters of the Gaza Strip. The entire remaining Palestinian population, estimated at around 2 million people, would be forced into an area of just 35 square miles.

The plan is the practical implementation of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described as the “concluding moves” of the onslaught in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that it currently controls 44 percent of the Gaza Strip and plans to expand that control to 75 percent within two months.

The IDF announced plans to establish three “humanitarian zones”—i.e., concentration camps—located along the southern coast, in Gaza City in the north and near Nuseirat in central Gaza.

The IDF stated that its operational focus will shift from targeting individual Hamas fighters to seizing territory and forcibly displacing the Palestinian population.

In a statement on the mass displacement plan, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor wrote:

Israeli forces have issued at least 35 evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip since January of this year, affecting over one million people. These orders compound the harm caused by those issued prior to January, which had already resulted in much of the population being displaced. Israel is now intensifying efforts to confine residents to a narrow area along the southern coast—an apparent prelude to expulsion from the Strip, in line with the “Trump Plan” recently adopted by Netanyahu as a condition for ending military operations in the enclave.

This weekend’s announcement by the IDF coincides with the launch of the US-Israeli “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” which is set to begin distributing food and humanitarian supplies on Monday.

International humanitarian aid agencies have condemned the organization, which the US and Israel aim to use to replace the existing humanitarian network by distributing starvation rations to pre-vetted individuals using facial recognition technology.

The total occupation of Gaza, the transfer of the population to concentration camps and the monopolization of food distribution by the US and Israeli militaries is the essential prelude to their plan for the forcible displacement of the remaining Palestinian population.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly said for the first time that the displacement of the Palestinian population from Gaza is an official objective of Israel’s war effort.

Israel, Netanyahu declared in a press conference, “is ready to end the war, under clear conditions that … we carry out the Trump plan. A plan that is so correct and so revolutionary.”

In February, US President Trump declared, “The US will take over the Gaza Strip. … We’ll own it.” He said the US will “level it out” and that other countries will “build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”

Last week, NBC News reported that the United States is in negotiations with Syria and Libya, whose governments it helped to overthrow in Islamist insurgencies, to accept the Palestinian people who are being displaced from Gaza.

Earlier this month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spelled out the government’s plan: Within a year, Gaza will be completely destroyed, civilians will be pushed into a “humanitarian zone” in the south, and from there, they will begin leaving en masse for third countries.

In a report published Saturday, the Washington Post explained that the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” was created by a “group of former US intelligence and defense officials and business executives, working in close consultation with Israel.”

According to the Post, it will

hire armed private contractors to provide logistics and security for a handful of aid distribution hubs to be built in southern Gaza. Under the arrangement, which would replace existing aid distribution networks coordinated by the United Nations, Palestinian civilians would have to travel to the hubs and submit to identity checks to receive rations from nongovernmental organizations.

The Post reported on internal planning documents by the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” that anticipated its operations being compared to “concentration camps with biometrics” or being similar to “Blackwater, a former US mercenary firm implicated in violence against civilians in Iraq.”

Gaza’s entire remaining population is on the brink of famine, after Israel blocked nearly all food, fuel and electricity from entering the enclave since March.

Israel is also continuing its daily massacres of civilians, including journalists, doctors and humanitarian workers. On Friday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least seven children of Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 30 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. Among the dead was journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda, bringing the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 220.

Also Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that two of its staff members, Ibrahim Eid and Ahmad Abu Hilal, had been killed in an Israeli attack in Khan Younis.

Israeli attacks also killed Ashraf Abu Nar, the operations director of Gaza’s civil defense, and his wife, in a strike on their home in Nuseirat.

To date, 53,900 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023, with hundreds of thousands wounded.

In a statement Sunday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that 950 children have been killed by Israeli attacks over the past two months. “Children in Gaza are enduring unimaginable suffering,” UNRWA said in a post on X. “They are starving, displaced, and exposed to indiscriminate attacks.”

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Israeli Officer Says ‘Nearly Every’ IDF Platoon Has Used Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza

 Israeli strike in Jabalia

People watch as smoke billows following an Israeli strike in Jabalia, Gaza on May 25, 2025.

(Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

“These are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse,” said the executive director of Breaking the Silence.

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, May 25, 2025

Israeli soldiers have “systematically” used Palestinians as human shields during the 19-month assault on the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported Saturday, citing Palestinian civilians and members of the Israel Defense Forces who described engaging in the practice that is banned under international humanitarian law.

“Orders often came from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used a Palestinian to clear locations,” APreported, citing the account of an unnamed Israeli officer.

One Palestinian man, Ayman Abu Hamadan, said Israeli soldiers dressed him in army fatigues, attached a camera to his forehead, and forced him to enter homes to ensure they were clear of bombs and militants. Abu Hamadan said he was passed from unit to unit for over two weeks.

“Soldiers stood behind him and, once it was clear, entered the buildings to damage or destroy them, he said,” AP reported. “He spent each night bound in a dark room, only to wake up and do it again.”

Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence—an anti-occupation group founded by former Israeli soldiers—told AP that “these are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse.”

Israeli officials frequently justify attacks on homes, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure by alleging that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. But Israeli forces have long been accused of using detained Palestinians as human shields, both during and prior to the current assault on Gaza.

According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, “Over the years, the military practiced an official policy of using Palestinians as human shields, ordering them to carry out military activities that put their lives in jeopardy: Palestinians were forced to remove suspicious objects from roads, tell other Palestinians to come out and surrender themselves, physically shield soldiers while they fired, and more.”

“In most cases, no one was held accountable,” the group said.

Earlier this year, an anonymous Israeli officer wrote in a column for Haaretz that “in Gaza, human shields are used by Israeli soldiers at least six times a day.”

“Today, almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish,’ and no infantry force enters a house before a ‘shawish’ clears it,” the officer wrote. “This means there are four ‘shawishes’ in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least 36 in a brigade. We operate a sub-army of slaves.”

In response to AP‘s reporting, the IDF told the Jerusalem Post that it would only investigate the claims in the story “if further details are provided.”

The reporting came as Israel continued with its large-scale ground offensive and aerial assault in Gaza, where the entire population is facing a dire hunger crisis due to Israel’s monthslong siege.

On Sunday, according toReuters, “Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip… including a local journalist and a senior rescue service official.”

Hours earlier, an Israeli strike on a home in Khan Younis killed nine children of a Nasser Hospital pediatrician and badly injured her husband while she was at work.

“Targeting families in the still-standing buildings: distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide,” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote in response to the deadly strike.

Thursday, May 15, 2025

India’s ‘new normal’ of perpetual war will damage its democracy

 The BJP whipped up war fervour in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack. Now it cannot ‘disappoint’ with peace.

  • Apoorvanand
  • Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi. He writes literary and cultural criticism.

Al-Jazeera, Published On 13 May 2025

People wave Indian flags in support of the Indian Armed Forces, following the ceasefire announcement between India and Pakistan, in Delhi, India, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Priyanshu Singh
People wave Indian flags in support of the Indian Armed Forces, following the ceasefire announcement between India and Pakistan, in Delhi on May 13, 2025 [Priyanshu Singh/Reuters]

On May 12, two days after the announcement of a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally addressed the nation. He stated that the Indian army had only “paused” military action and Operation Sindoor, launched in the aftermath of the April 22 massacre in Pahalgam to target “terrorist hideouts”, had not ended.

“Now, Operation Sindoor is India’s policy against terrorism. Operation Sindoor has carved out a new benchmark in our fight against terrorism and has set up a new parameter and new normal,” he said.

Modi’s speech was clearly not meant to reassure the Indian people that the government can guarantee their safety or security and is seeking peace and stability. Instead, it was meant to warn that the country is now in a permanent warlike situation.

This new state of affairs has been called not to secure the national interest but to satisfy Modi’s nationalist support base, which was bewildered and disappointed with the announcement of the ceasefire by United States President Donald Trump. The detrimental impact that this new militarised normal will have on Indian democracy is clearly a price worth paying, according to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The truth is, the political establishment unwittingly put itself in a difficult position when it decided to capitalise politically on the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack in India-administered Kashmir and whip up war fervour.

While victims of the attack like Himanshi Narwal, who survived but lost her husband, navy officer Vinay Narwal, called for peace and warned against the targeting of Muslims and Kashmiris, the BJP called for revenge and embraced anti-Muslim rhetoric.

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As a ruling party, it did not feel the need to take responsibility for failing to prevent the attack or explain the carelessness in securing tourist destinations. It immediately converted this act of killing into an act of war against India.

Actions followed the hate rhetoric swiftly. Muslims and Kashmiris were attacked in several parts of India, and arrests were made of those criticising the Indian government. In Kashmir, nine houses were blasted immediately as punishment of those who had any link with “terrorists”, and thousands were detained or arrested. People with Pakistani passports were deported, and families were broken.

Then, Operation Sindoor was announced. The Indian army’s targeting of Pakistani sites was accompanied by frenzied calls from the mainstream media for the complete obliteration of Pakistan. Major TV platforms – entirely falsely – declared the Karachi port had been destroyed and the Indian army had breached the border.

The war cries and fake news emerging from the TV studios and the frantic messaging from the IT cells of the BJP led its supporters to believe that a decisive battle against Pakistan had been launched and its fall was imminent.

In parallel, critical voices were swiftly silenced. The Indian government requested the blocking of 8,000 accounts from the social media platform X, including those of BBC Urdu, Outlook India, Maktoob Media, veteran journalist Anuradha Bhasin and political content creator Arpit Sharma.

Just when war fever had gripped the BJP’s support base, the sudden announcement of a ceasefire by the US caught them by surprise. The truce was seen as a retreat and an admission of weakness.

Some of the BJP’s online supporters turned on the foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, who had declared the ceasefire as the representative of the government of India. He was viciously attacked, and his timeline was flooded with abusive and violent messages, calling him a traitor and coward. His daughter also faced abuse.

The trolling was so severe that Misri had to lock his social media accounts. Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, we did not hear about the blocking of any social media accounts trolling him or any action by the police against them. There was no action to protect Narwal either after she faced abuse and humiliation by the same crowd for daring to call for peace.

Meanwhile, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights, which focuses on rights violations in marginalised communities, has released a report saying 184 hate crimes against Muslims – including murder, assault, vandalism, hate speech, threats, intimidation and harassment – have been reported from different parts of India since April 22.

On Saturday, Misri claimed that India was a democracy that allowed criticism of the government. But the experience of critics raising questions about the objective and efficacy of Operation Sindoor has been bitter.

Criticism of government requires parliamentary deliberation. But the government has been ignoring calls by opposition parties to convene the parliament, which means stalling democratic dialogue.

Now that the prime minister has announced the operation has not ended, total loyalty from the Indian people will be demanded. Opposition parties would feel compelled to suspend all questions to the government. Muslims would feel a burden to prove their allegiance to the nation. The government will happily blame a dire economic situation that is of its doing on the war. There will be freedom of speech, but only for those who speak in favour of the BJP.

Democracy in India thus remains in suspended animation as the country now faces a permanent enemy and a permanent war.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.


  • ApoorvanandApoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi. He writes literary and cultural criticism.Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi. He writes literary and cultural criticism.

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Israeli PM Netanyahu Says the Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Is ‘Inevitable’

The Israeli leader said the ‘main problem’ preventing ’emigration’ was the lack of countries willing to take in Palestinian refugees

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, May 12, 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza was “inevitable.”

“We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Israeli officials have made clear that the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza is their ultimate goal, but it remains unclear where the Palestinians would go. Netanyahu told the committee that the “main problem” preventing “emigration” is the lack of countries willing to take in the Palestinians.

Israel has maintained a total blockade on Gaza since March 2 and has developed plans to start bringing in aid using private US security contractors to use food to lure starving Palestinians into a tiny part of southern Gaza. Netanyahu said that the aid would be conditional on the Palestinians not returning to where they came from.

Netanyahu also said Israel was currently not planning to establish Jewish settlements in Gaza at the moment because President Trump is interested in having the US take over the territory.

Limor Son Har-Melech, an Israeli MK and member of the Jewish Power Party, suggested American Jews could move to Gaza. “Bring the Jews from the United States, this way we’ll hit two birds with one stone,” he said.

Monday, May 12, 2025

Caitlin Johnstone: Society Averts Its Gaze From Gaza

 The task shouldn’t be falling to university activists and obscure antiwar bloggers. Every news outlet in the world should be making this their entire focus.

By Caitlin Johnstone, Consortium News, May 10, 2025

It can make you feel like you’re going mad. How phony and superficial it all is. How we’re a year and a half into history’s first live-streamed genocide and our whole society is acting like everything’s peachy.

We’re murdering kids. We’re starving them. We’re dropping high tech military explosives on them. Blowing their limbs off. Ripping their guts out. Shooting them in the head. This isn’t just being done by “Israel”. It’s being done by the entire western empire which backs these atrocities.

And yet if you turn on a TV you’ll see famous people laughing and joking about nonsense, expressing political opinions of no more depth and significance than whether or not there should have been a female Ghostbusters movie. Go read the news and it’s dominated by empty fluff about celebrities and politicians and the latest brain fart to come out of Donald Trump’s mouth. Go to a party and everyone’s nattering about vapid gibberish, yelling “No politics!” if you try to say anything about the holocaust-shaped elephant in the room.

I used to have a lot more fun on my platform. Lots of humor. But ever since the Gaza holocaust began, that kind of writing has often felt like it would be irreverent and frivolous. Almost sacrilegious. I would feel like I’m joining in with the madness of mainstream culture by turning my back on all those emaciated bodies and mutilated children.

So for the last year and a half I’ve mostly just been doing what I feel everyone on earth ought to be doing: pointing to the genocide and saying it needs to stop.

I used to be more creative in my ways of pointing to the criminality of the empire, because its depravity was often difficult for people to really grasp, so I was always seeking out new ways to help people see its monstrosity with fresh eyes. Now that they’re just butchering children right in front of us, that’s not really what’s called for anymore. What’s called for is to keep drawing everyone’s attention to the terrible thing that’s staring us all right in the face.

This task shouldn’t be falling to university activists and obscure antiwar bloggers. Every news outlet in the world should be making this their entire focus.

If we had a sane and ethical news media, this is what they would be doing. All the leading stories every single day would be about the latest evil thing Israel and its western backers have done in Gaza, clearly stating in every headline our own government’s role in making this possible. Every press conference would be completely dominated with questions asking every western official why we are participating in an active genocide and demanding answers about when it is going to stop.

Instead we get “Palestinians perish in explosion” passive-language headlines, usually coupled with “…says Hamas-run health ministry” in order to let readers disbelieve the entire story. And that’s on those rare occasions that Israel’s atrocities get reported on at all; normally Gaza is seen as a third or fourth-tier issue of far less importance than some infinitely less egregious grievance in our own country.

Palestinian lives are given vastly less weight than western lives, with our own feelings and comforts emphasized far more heavily than the issue of the Palestinian people living or dying.

And it can just make you feel like you’re going crazy. It’s like if we were all going around physically drenched in human blood, with blood flooding our living rooms and severed limbs strewn about our bedrooms and kitchens?—?but nobody was talking about it. You try to say “What’s up with all this blood and gore?” and they shush you and tell you it’s impolite to talk about politics. A dark red deluge pours out of your minivan door when you open it to pick up your kid from soccer practice, and everyone looks away.

This is happening. We know it’s happening. It’s happening right in front of us and we’re acting like it’s not. It’s so maddening and frustrating, and it can make you feel so powerless.

But we keep pointing at Gaza, because what the hell else are we going to do? The alternative is to join the lunatics acting like it isn’t happening.

At the very least, it’s a way of preserving our sanity. Preserving our humanity. Even if they do succeed in purging Gaza of all Palestinian life, at the very least we will have prevented the bastards from warping and twisting us into psychopathic freaks like them. Even if we can’t stop them from destroying Gaza, we can at least stop them from destroying our hearts.

Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on FacebookTwitterSoundcloudYouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes.  For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.

This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

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Welcome to Berlin, the capital of Zionist repression

Jurgen Mackert, MEE, 6 May 2025

As Israel’s global isolation grows, Berlin deepens its alliance with Tel Aviv – criminalising dissent, rewarding lobby groups, and eroding rights in the name of fighting antisemitism

A pro-Palestine activist is led away by police officers during a demonstration against Israel's war on Gaza at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, on 7 May 2024 (Tobias Schwarz/AFP)

A pro-Palestine activist is led away by police officers during a demonstration against Israel’s war on Gaza at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, on 7 May 2024 (Tobias Schwarz/AFP)

On 28 March, the Zionist German Jewish weekly Judische Allgemeine Zeitung happily announced that Tel Aviv would become Berlin’s newest twin city, with all factions of the Berlin House of Representatives agreeing to the decision.

A few days later, Der Tagesspiegel, one of Berlin’s so-called “quality newspapers,” declared that “the two metropolises have a lot in common”.

What an abysmal disgrace: the representatives of the self-proclaimed parties of the “democratic centre” in the Berlin House of Representatives – Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and Greens – have decided, together with the “Left” and the fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), to move even closer to the genocidal butchers in Tel Aviv.

They do so even as large parts of the world are gradually distancing themselves from this regime.

Choosing a twin city is far more than a symbolic act, especially when that city is the capital of a state ruled by war criminals responsible for an ongoing genocide.

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Such a decision reflects common interests and values that supposedly bind the cities and their populations together.

And the ones on display in this partnership are telling: while one side commits genocide, the other supports, promotes, and finances it; while one carries out ethnic cleansing, the other feigns ignorance; while one deliberately targets children, journalists, and medical personnel, the other looks away and prattles on about human rights; while one starves a people to death, the other merely shrugs.

Together, they share a disregard for international law and the authority of the International Criminal Court.

This list is far from complete, but it is already one of the most repulsive imaginable. Berlin and Tel Aviv, as the German press rightly points out, do indeed have a lot in common.

Historical amnesia

The decision by Berlin’s representatives sends a clear message to the world about what the German capital now stands for – and marks an unprecedented act of historical amnesia.

The government of a city that was under siege decades ago, and continues to invoke that experience as central to its collective memory, has now switched sides.

A city that remembers its own siege should have named Gaza City as its twin – not the capital of those enforcing one

Berlin is aligning itself with the capital of a country that has not only besieged the Gaza Strip for 17 years and created the largest prison on earth and put Palestinians “on a diet” – but has also been committing genocide for more than 18 months – a campaign fully supported by the people of Tel Aviv.

If the experience of siege were truly as significant and defining for Berlin as its politicians so often claim, with great solemnity, then there would have been only one natural and fitting twin city: Gaza City.

Unlike Gaza, however, Berlin found help when it was besieged after the Second World War. Western countries sent “raisin bombers” and supplied the trapped enclave with food, and they were not prevented from doing so by the Soviet Union – in stark contrast to the criminal starvation of Gaza’s civilian population by the settler-colonial regime in Tel Aviv.

In order to live up to their historical experience and responsibility, Berlin’s representatives should have sent “raisin bombers” to Gaza on 8 October 2023, instead of making themselves accomplices to genocide. They should not have wasted a single thought on becoming partners with the perpetrator capital.

Zionist influence

Berlin’s choice of Israel’s capital city underscores how deeply German politicians have, in recent years, allowed the Zionist lobby to shape the city’s political agenda.

In a manner incompatible with the rule of law, it now takes only the suspicion that an event or statement might be deemed antisemitic, according to the Zionist-driven IHRA definition, for the machinery of state repression to lurch into action.

From smear campaigns and police raids to the prosecution of activists and the criminalisation of humanitarian solidarity, every demonstration in support of Palestinian rights is met with brutal suppression by Berlin’s militarised riot police.

The Zionist lobby, as in other countries, does not seek to address the root causes of antisemitism. Instead, it weaponises the charge in order to pressure the German state into punishing anti-Zionist speech.

Following its electoral victory, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), submitted a “minor interpellation” to the federal government titled “Political Neutrality of State-funded Organisations”.

It consisted of over 500 questions targeting civil society organisations critical of Israel’s genocide, with the aim of stripping them of funding and charitable status if they do not conform to what the Christian Democrats define as “political neutrality.”

Unsurprisingly, the Christian parties did not include a single Zionist lobby organisation in their interpellation, even though these groups are anything but “politically neutral”.


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On the contrary, they operate as propaganda arms for the Zionist cause and Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in ways that are openly hostile to democratic principles and the defence of universalist ideals.

But perhaps more revealing is the fact that, two years ago, taxpayer funding for one of the Zionist lobby groups was almost doubled, reaching an annual total of 23 million euros ($25m).

Another openly Zionist organisation is also financially supported by the Ministry of the Interior – even though, once again, an organisation that openly represents and defends a racist ideology can hardly be considered “politically neutral.”

So what, exactly, is its public benefit?

State repression

On 19 February 2025, Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) deliberately pressured the president of Freie Universität (FU), Gunter M Ziegler, on behalf of the Zionist lobby to cancel an event with Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

As Forschung & Lehre reported, it was not only the mayor who exerted pressure on university’s president.

Two Zionist groups – that are anything but “politically neutral” – were also involved. Ziegler ultimately bowed to this illegitimate encroachment on the university’s autonomy and cancelled the event.

On 4 April, the right-wing Die Welt newspaper launched another smear campaign against Albanese, echoing official Israeli propaganda in advance of a UN vote on her reappointment.

The paper quoted German politicians, including Jurgen Hardt of the CDU – a staunch Zionist advocate – who parroted Israeli military lies with shameless disregard for truth or decency.

As if that were not enough, Berlin crossed a new threshold on 1 April with a Trump-like move: announcing the deportation of three EU citizens and one US citizen simply for participating in pro-Gaza demonstrations.

These individuals had committed no crime. But in Berlin, freedom of expression is already too much to tolerate, especially when exercised to defend Palestinian rights.

This sends an unambiguous warning: anyone who demands justice for Palestinians is now a target of state repression.

If the courts fail to halt this descent into authoritarianism, German citizens could soon face prison for criticising Israeli war crimes, while non-citizens will simply be deported. All will be punished not for violence or incitement, but for defending the wrong people in the eyes of the political establishment.

Institutional assault

After German parliamentarians unanimously adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in 2017, the real consequences of this move for German democracy became clear in light of the ongoing Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people.

Two decisive resolutions passed in November 2024 and January 2025 dramatically changed German society and paved the way for even greater Zionist influence.

Germany’s support for Israel’s far-right alliance shatters its ‘denazified’ facade

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The first Zionist-led attack on German democracy came in November with the adoption of the resolution “Never again is now: Protecting, preserving and strengthening Jewish life in Germany”.

Its passage enables the German government to intervene in social life as a matter of principle – to defame anyone, Jew or non-Jew, as an antisemite and to punish those who raise their voices against the Zionist settler-colonial-apartheid regime and its war crimes.

The second attack followed on 28 January with the resolution “Antisemitism and hostility towards Israel in schools and universities”. It was passed hastily, largely unnoticed by the public, after the end of the government and during the election campaign.

The resolution amounts to a brazen assault on the autonomy of universities and the freedom of research and teaching. Under the guise of concern over a purported rise in antisemitism at schools and universities, the charge is being weaponised to silence critical academics and students.

At a federal press conference following its adoption, German professors expressed outrage that the resolution had been drafted without the usual consultation of antisemitism experts or academic bodies.

They also criticised the fact that the drafters had ignored the objections of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), which had already rejected a similar proposal in autumn 2024 over legal concerns. According to one professor, it was not even clear who had authored the resolution.

The resolution is a brazen assault on academic freedom, weaponising antisemitism to silence critical voices in schools and universities

Presumably, however, the driving force is not difficult to identify. Given the resolution’s explicitly Zionist agenda – threatening students and academics who take a stand against the regime and its genocide – one need only look to current and former parliamentarians who are behind the resolution.

Volker Beck, a former Green MP, is president of the German-Israeli Society. Mathias Stein, a former MP from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and a member of the parliamentary group behind the resolution, is one of its vice presidents.

Other current and former Bundestag members, including Marcus Faber (FDP), Lisa Badum (Greens) and Jurgen Hardt (CDU/CSU), also serve as vice presidents of the German-Israeli Society.

It is hardly surprising that academic expertise and historical accuracy were of no interest when this resolution was drafted. German parliamentarians have proven either unable or unwilling to recognise its true intent.

Rather than defending democratic rights or resisting Zionist encroachment, they have become willing accomplices to its sweeping “land grab” – one that dismantles Germany’s institutions and democracy itself.

New fascism

Once hailed as “poor but sexy,” Berlin attracted young people from around the world, along with the global cultural elite and influential scientists. That era is over.

For Germany’s political class, supporting Israel’s genocide is naked self-interest

Jurgen Mackert

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Today, Berlin has turned to the democracy-destroying weaponisation of antisemitism, laying an axe to freedom of opinion, thought, research and teaching.

The right to criticise Israel for what it is – a genocidal, white supremacist settler colony carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, threatening Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and endangering civilian populations across the region – is under active assault.

Through its partnership with Tel Aviv, Berlin is becoming a safe haven for Zionist supremacists and racists, for Israeli soldiers who have committed war crimes in Gaza, and for wanted officials from the Israeli government – all under the pretext of protecting Jewish life.

Instead of upholding international law or defending civil liberties, Berlin’s so-called “democratic centre” is paving the way for an emerging new fascism.

Welcome to Berlin, the capital of Zionist repression.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Jurgen Mackert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He was a temporary Professor for the Structure of modern societies at the University of Erfurt, Germany and a visiting professor for Political Sociology at Humboldt University Berlin. His latest books include On Social Closure. Theorizing Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination (Oxford University Press 2024). Siedlerkolonialismus. Grundlagentexte und aktuelle Analysen (edited with Ilan Pappe; Nomos 2024).