Palestine Conference, Berlin, 14th April 2024
On Friday, 12. April, German police shut down a conference in Berlin being held in solidarity with Palestinians facing Israeli genocide in Gaza. A force of 900 police invaded the venue, turning off speakers’ microphones and expelling people from the hall. The conference continued online in defiance of state repression and issued the following declaration. You can sign the resolution here!
We Accuse.
The Palestinians are suffering genocide.
Israel is destroying Gaza and its population. More than 40,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military by the end of March. More children have died in Gaza since October 2023 than in all global conflicts from 2019 to 2022. Almost all Gaza residents have been displaced from their homes. More than one million people are suffering from severe hunger. Access to clean drinking water and medicine has been cut off. Infrastructure, hospitals, universities, schools, administrative buildings and apartment blocks have been bombed.
The murder of tens of thousands and the displacement of hundreds of thousands constitute genocide. The Israeli warfare is aimed at destroying the Palestinian nation and completing their expulsion from Palestine, which began with the Nakba in 1948, forcing them to flee to Egypt or other countries.
The German government is aiding and abetting genocide.
Germany is the second most important supplier of weapons for the genocide. Since October 2023, the Federal Security Council, consisting of Olaf Scholz, Wolfgang Schmidt, Annalena Baerbock, Boris Pistorius, Christian Lindner, Nancy Faeser, Marco Buschmann, Robert Habeck and Svenja Schulze, as well as its co-chairs Carsten Breuer, Dörte Dinger, Steffen Hebestreit and Günter Sautter, has increased arms deliveries to Israel tenfold.
Germany denies the genocide. Following the decision of the International Court of Justice, which found evidence of genocidal intent on the part of the Israeli state, it was Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck who declared that the accusation of genocide “lacks any basis”. The majority of private and public radio and television stations, as well as German newspapers, are participating in a disinformation campaign.
Germany supports the Israeli government’s genocidal starvation policy. While the famine was already spreading in Gaza in January 2024, the Minister for Development and Cooperation Svenja Schulze declared that Germany would stop providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA. Western “emergency supplies” via an airlift and by sea ultimately act as humanitarian cover up for the war.
Freedom of assembly, freedom of organization, freedom of the press and freedom of science are being restricted in order to silence protests for a ceasefire. This is done through decrees issued by the interior ministers. It is also happening with the support of regional and local politicians, as well as the willing execution of German police officers and civil servants. The fact that many of these ordinances are “legal” shows just how much scope for repression and authoritarian practices has existed in Germany for decades. Today, laws are being debated in federal and state parliaments that will permanently and profoundly restrict fundamental democratic rights for everyone.
Never again for all.
The genocide in Gaza therefore represents a turning point for German domestic and foreign affairs, similar to the Vietnam War. The government is shamelessly supporting a genocide in front of the world public. The noise of the bombings in Palestine is only surpassed by the trivialization, indeed the often droning silence about the war crimes. German politicians are attempting a cynical reinterpretation of history and justifying their support for genocide in the name of “never again”.
Those who justify the destruction and murder of the entire Palestinian civilization in Gaza with the killing of Israeli civilians on 7 October are burying any claim to humanity and democracy. The German government is trying to justify this genocide with the right to “self-defense”. At the same time, however, it denies the Palestinians, who have been experiencing disenfranchisement and expulsion for 76 years, any right whatsoever. Instead, they are defamed in a racist manner and protest is placed under the general suspicion of “imported anti-Semitism”. Behind this incitement and defamation lies a cold geo-strategic calculation, similar to the Vietnam War, especially on the part of German and US imperialism. In such calculations, not all human lives are equally. We oppose this dehumanization and the interests behind it.
Resistance is justified.
We, the participants of the Palestine Congress, declare our opposition to this aggressive and criminal policy. We commit ourselves to do everything in our power to prevent the completion of the Palestinian genocide and thus another genocide with German complicity.
We declare that we will never forget the names of the German decision-makers responsible. Their guilt cannot be washed clean. Today we accuse them morally. But we will never rest until they have been brought to justice.
We know that a majority of the German population rejects the supply of weapons to Israel and the government’s warmongering. Despite lies, defamation and agitation, more and more people are becoming aware that the policies of the German government are leading to genocide and the displacement of millions of people. We turn to these people, our colleagues, neighbors, classmates: Let us rise up together to stop the genocide, so that the people of Gaza, the people of Palestine can live. Join us in breaking the silence and raising these demands. Join our movement against genocide and war.
Let us join forces with the Palestinians fighting for their freedom and with the international movement against genocide. Let us join millions of people who are taking to the streets around the world to put pressure on their governments. Let us join forces with the protests of workers in Catalonia, Italy, Belgium and India who have refused to load war equipment at airports and ports. Let us join forces with the activists who have organized blockades and occupations in England against the British and Israeli arms industry.
Our struggle for the living, for the liberation and self-determination of Palestine!
- Immediate ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army – complete investigation of all war crimes committed.
- Immediate lifting of all restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza and full funding of UNRWA.
- Immediate opening of all border crossings from Rafah to Allenby. Tear down the apartheid walls.
- Full reparations by Israel, Germany and other Israeli allies to the Palestinian people.
- Immediate cessation of all military, diplomatic and economic support for Israel by the German state as well as a comprehensive military embargo.
- Immediate withdrawal of the Bundeswehr, the US army and all NATO troops from the Red Sea and the Middle East! No to rearmament and special funds of the Bundeswehr for war!
- No to the use of the Zionist IHRA definition by any institution or state authority, no to the legitimization of genocide in school lessons. Stop the exmatriculation of students and dismissals of wage earners who show solidarity with Palestine!
- Stop the criminalization and repression of the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany. Immediately stop all criminalization of Palestinian organizations and individuals as well as all deportations. Open the borders and accept all refugees with full rights to housing, education and work.
- Enforcement of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and an end to over 76 years of Zionist settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing of the entire occupied Palestine.
We call for these demands to be introduced, discussed and supported in associations, party branches, trade unions, works councils, student and pupil representations, collectives and clubs.
Because the responsibility lies with us. To realize these goals, we call for a broad campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli state in Germany. We demand the disclosure of all business relations and contracts between German companies and Israel!
We call on trade unions, employees and the population to stop arms deliveries from Germany. We call on the trade unions to follow the call of their Palestinian sister organizations and to organize an internationally coordinated campaign against the killings. All justification and support for genocide in any form must be stopped through strikes, blockades, occupations or civil disobedience.
Take part in the nationwide week of action from April 15-22 on the occasion of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. Today, the Israeli state is holding well over 10,000 Palestinian people, including many minors, hostage in violation of international law and the laws of war.
Mobilize and organize together with us large central demonstrations on 15 and 18 May in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main and other cities. We call on you to support the Europe-wide Nakba demonstration on May 19 in Brussels. On the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and villages, let us send a coordinated nationwide and international signal against genocide, expulsion and division.
We, Palestinian and Jewish, German and international voices know: Peace can only prevail on the basis of equality and justice, only if the oppression of the Palestinians is fully ended. We are fighting for an end to Zionist settler colonialism and its apartheid policies from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, including the right of return for all Palestinian refugees.