21/05/24
Germany bans Palestinian group over its pro-Hamas activities
Authorities in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, have outlawed a Palestinian organization that promotes Hamas and calls for the eradication of Israel on Thursday.
Police and investigators from the state’s security service stormed four properties linked to the association Palestine Solidarity Duisburg in the early morning hours on Thursday. The pro-Hamas association is located in the west German city of Duisburg.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul said, “This ban comes at the right time and sends the right signal. In many cases, solidarity with Palestine hides nothing other than hatred of Jews - as is the case with the organization that was banned today. We will use all legal options to combat antisemitism and ideological support for terrorism. Today, the state has shown a clear stance against extremism.”
Reul’s ministry said that it dismantled Palestine Solidarity Duisburg because it “seeks the liberation of Palestine within the borders of 1947 and thus before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The group expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in all its forms, which also includes the armed struggle of the terrorist organization Hamas against Israel.”
Palestine Solidarity Duisburg is linked with the Israeli-designated terrorist organization Samidoun. Germany outlawed Samidoun in early November of last year.
The sanctioning of Palestine Solidarity Duisburg could open the floodgates for a ban of pro-Hamas and pro-Samdioun organizations across Germany (and in other EU states).
Take the example of Palestine Committee Stuttgart in the state of Baden-Württemberg, whose inner workings largely mirror the Palestine Solidarity Duisburg. Palestine Committee Stuttgart has raised funds for Samidoun and expresses similar support for Hamas.
Anti-Israel politicians and officials in Baden-Württemberg's government range from the state governor Winfried Kretschmann, who provided funds to a pro-BDS antisemitic pastor in the West Bank, to the civil servant Michael Blume who demanded Israel “tear down” its security fence against Palestinian terrorism. Blume is tasked with fighting antisemitism in the southwestern German state. Neither have shown any appetite to crackdown on the Palestine Committee Stuttgart.
After i24NEWS reported in March about Blume's anti-Israel activity on X, Brigadier General (Res.) Amir Avivi, who is the head of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told i24NEWS, "The time has come to fire Blume, who instead of siding with Israel amid the most horrific attack since the Holocaust on innocent civilians, once again confuses who the good guys are and from where pure evil emanates. Israel builds walls to defend itself against Hamas and other terror organizations. Time has come to hold Palestinian leadership accountable and Blume as well."
The German-Jewish pro-Israel activist Malca Goldstein-Wolf told i24NEWS, "By banning the anti-Israel group Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister has shown that politics can take a clear stance if there is the will to do it. At a time of dizzyingly high levels of antisemitism in Germany, it is important to breathe life into the German reason for being; words alone are no longer enough.”
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel famously declared in a 2008 speech at the Knesset that she considered Israel's security to be her administration's “raison d'être” (reason for being).
Goldstein-Wolf added, “If [Baden-Württemberg's governor] Kretschmann is serious about protecting Jewish life, he must follow Herbert Reul's example and ban the Stuttgart Palestine Committee as quickly as possible. The fact that the city of Stuttgart has not yet managed to remove the link to the Palestine Committee from its own website suggests that they simply have no interest in not providing a platform for hatred of Israel. It sends a shocking signal to us Jews in a major German city.”
The lack of civil society opposition to rising antisemitism in Baden-Württemberg has prompted German Jews, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Israeli counter-terrorism experts like Avivi, and the State of Israel to urge Stuttgart’s mayor Frank Nopper to take action against the Palestine Committee Stuttgart.
The local German-Israel Friendship Association (DIG) in Stuttgart has refused to publicly demand that Nopper and Kretschmann shut down Palestine Committee Stuttgart.
Goldstein-Wolf said “Nothing is known about the DIG Stuttgart, which is said to be pro-Israel and financed by the German Foreign Ministry, taking action on this important matter. Its chairman, Oliver Vrankovic, is apparently too busy unjustifiably labelling conservative Jews in the right-wing corner. In any case, the fight against antisemitism in Baden-Württemberg will not succeed.”
Vrankovic and other German officials from Baden-Württemberg like Blume have accused pro-Israel Jews of being right-wing extremists. Their critics argue that this is in order to denigrate their support of the Jewish state.
When approached for a statement, Vrankovic and DIG Stuttgart declined to comment. Press queries to Kretschmann and Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister, Thomas Strobl, were not immediately returned. Stuttgart’s mayor Frank Nopper refused to comment.
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