Hi.
In the past few days, discontent regarding mod decisions in this community has been brewing, particularly when it comes to comments on Palestine, Israel, and Israeli politics and actions. There are also misunderstandings regarding mod intention and German law. We hope to clear that up with this post.
While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany. Speaking of, our server admins have also posted a write-up on the same topic.
And with that, let’s go:
In Germany, antisemitism is specifically sanctioned in German criminal law, both for speech and as a motivation for other criminal behavior. In addition, Germany seeks to protect the Jewish state of Israel (the so-called “Reason of State” introduced in 2008) and thus verges toward protecting Zionism as well. Certain criticism of Israel/Israelis is also categorized as “Israel-related antisemitism”.
Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations. After such police action, it does not really matter if it was appropriate or if cases are dropped or never charged: The damage is done. All told, it’s not that fun.
There is also no point in engaging in discussions about the veracity of statements that could get us into legal trouble. In addition, we believe that you can express most opinions without breaking rules.
If your comment contains the following, it will be removed from this community:
- Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
- Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.
- Equating Israeli actions and (historical) Nazism.
- The slogan “from the river…”
- Endorsement of or justifications for Hamas or Hezbollah, or slogans or graphics positively referring to these organizations. These are considered terrorist organizations in Germany.
- … and obviously: Any of the common antisemitic tropes or calls to violence against Jews or Israelis
Comments will not be removed for the following:
- Denouncing genocide.
- Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
- Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
- Referring to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” “expansionist,” or “far-right”.
If your comment is removed nonetheless, these are not the reason. I’d also like to stress that this community was never a free-speech-absolutist zone: It is a (usually lightly) moderated community. There may also be times when bans go too far. In such cases, please DM the @EuroMod@feddit.org account (which all mods have access to).
To help you understand why, I'll leave an assortment of sources here (translations via DeepL).
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Berlin in mid-May [2024] around 6 o’clock in the morning. A loud, continuous “banging” against the apartment door wakes student Alina T. from her sleep. […] When her husband opens the door, several LKA officers, two employees of the district office and the SEK “storm” past him into the apartment. Puzzled, he looks at the search warrant. […] The background to this was a Facebook entry in the student’s profile: "From the river […]
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In November 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs also issued a prohibition order against Hamas.[60] According to the order, “the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ (in German or other languages)” is a distinguishing mark of Hamas[61]. […] the current legal situation [regarding “Denial of Israel’s right to exist”] is - contrary to what the statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice suggest[63] - anything but clear. Whether incitements to eliminate the State of Israel are prosecuted depends on the respective legal opinion and the prosecution will of the respective public prosecutor’s office.
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Press release from the previous government:
In this context, Section 111 StGB, which covers public incitement to commit crimes, may also be relevant. Incitement to extinguish Israel’s existence by force may be punishable under this provision. The same applies to calls to publicly display the Hamas flag. If Hamas attacks are publicly cheered and celebrated, this may also be punishable. This means that people who cheer on Hamas’s actions or publicly express their sympathy with the attacks may constitute the criminal offence of “approval of criminal acts” under Section 140 of the German Criminal Code (StGB).
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In connection with the controversial Palestine Congress in Berlin, the German authorities have also imposed an entry ban on former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. “In order to prevent antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda at the event”, several entry bans have been issued, the news agency AFP learned from security sources on Sunday. One of these concerned Varoufakis. (Notably, Varoufakis would have spoken about one-state solutions …)
federal reverse (on behalf of the mods of !europe)
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Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
So can I say “screw Israel; dismantle that apartheid state and build a true democracy with equal rights for everyone (including Jews) in its place”? The way this part is worded it could go either way.
Also wow that stuff you listed sounds really dystopian.
I guess I should have let you do an adversarial review of the post before it went up. Anyhow, “dismantle Israel” sounds like you’re intending a violent revolution of some sort. The rest of it reeks of trying to evade the rules as well. I appreciate that this is what people do when you spell out rules but … that’s not really what I posted them for.
The rest of it reeks of trying to evade the rules as well.
Oh that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted clarification because calling for a one-state solution is calling for the dissolution of Israel, so I wasn’t sure (and am still not sure) what the difference between the two is intended to be. So my question is: What rhetoric is allowed (and, probably more importantly, not allowed) when talking about a one-state solution?
A one state solution can be many things, including a significantly reformed Israel. Sadly a two-state solution with the borders similar to the ones today is about as unrealistic as a one-state solution, as the Palestinian territories alone are not a viable state (and that doesn’t even touch the issue of the many Israeli settlers in those territories).
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That “how” is indeed an issue here. I don’t know what to say there.
Perhaps, in terms of a practical example, Germany did unite peacefully. Granted, technically, the West swallowed the East, and the East adopted the Western political, legal, and economic system, so one of the two states had significantly more say in how it happened than the other. Which wouldn’t be a good idea for a Israel-Palestine state, to say the least.
(Fwiw, from what I’ve seen, I would say you’re usually arguing in good faith.)
Anyhow, “dismantle Israel” sounds like you’re intending a violent revolution of some sort.
Really? Is this a language barrier thing?
Edit: reading this back it could sound rude and that wasn’t my intent.
Israeli jews are probably not going to do that voluntarily …
I mean probably none of the solutions to this conflict are going to happen but it’s theoretically possible that they could. Many people across the world have dissolved their own government under certain (usually extreme) circumstances.
I see your point. What about dismantling the current government and systems that allowed it the power it now holds?
Doesn’t look like the majority of the population is interested in that, so it’s either going to take a revolution led by a minority (definitely going to be violent) or intervention by a foreign occupying force (still probably going to be violent). TBH I don’t really see a likely solution to this that’s not going to be violent, heavy international pressure could work but the USA are not going to change their policy anytime soon, which also prevents a foreign occupying force; wouldn’t even surprise me if they invaded if there was a revolution.
If you follow that line of reasoning:
Because we can’t stop Israel without violence, any call to stop Israel is a call for violence against Israel.
And violence against Israel is banned.
So stopping Israel is banned.
So the rules enforce allowing Israel to continue a genocide.
The rules are pro-genocide.
By the same contrived logic you are pro-genocide as calling for the destruction of the Israeli state in an online forum also doesn’t stop the genocide.
And anyways, by your logic if the only response to one genocide is another genocide, then yes that is also pro-genocide.
See how pointless such arguments are?
What? But you just said it was only against the rules to talk about dismantling Israel if the person didn’t specify equal rights for Jews.
And @NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io explicitly did so.
That’s what I thought too, but then again depending on where you put the comma it could be read as it being okay to talk about a one-state solution if you explicitly state that Jews should have equal rights in that one state unless you call for the dissolution of Israel, which to be fair isn’t impossible but… yeah.
Ah. So it would be useful is @federalreverse@feddit.org could clarify. Cheers!
Though it seems unintuitive to me that a solution that explicitly guarantees equal rights for jews would be against the rules because it doesn’t include continuity of the Israeli state.
Most specifically, legal issues arise when it can be concluded that you support a violent overthrow or eradication of the Jewish state of Israel. If you make it clear specifically that you do not support violence, I think it should be fine.
In that sense, the way I laid out the rules may lead to some overblocking.
Under international law, that Germany is ostensibly fully recognizing, Palestinians have the right to armed violent resistance by virtue of being an occupied people. Is mentioning that simple factoid an offence under these rules?
Equating Hamas and Palestinians is very troublesome. While they are the group democratically elected to run Gaza, they are also a group that perversely uses Gazan civilians as human shields.
Equating Hamas and legitimate Palestinian resistance is also very troublesome. A propos nothing in particular, they performed the Oct 7 attack, largely against Israeli civilians. They can’t be much of a resistance group if they’re killing civilians and taking civilian hostages rather than actually resisting against an aggressor.
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One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws
Why should it be necessary to specify Israelis as deserving of equal rights in historic Palestine when it is Israel who denies equal rights to Palestinians and not the other way around?
Go ahead and ban me now if that kind of acknowledgment can get you in legal trouble - I have no interest in participating in a community that is comfortable suppressing criticisms against an ethno-religious apartheid state committing genocide. Fuck Israel and fuck the German collaborators.
Free Palestine.
I have no interest in participating in a community
This is your first comment here anyway, isn’t it?
On this account, sure.
Israel is a religious ethno supremacist state, not calling to fix that IS UNJUST.
DEFENDERS OF fascism are fascists.
Which is why criticism of Israel is explicitly allowed as per the (legally forced!) guidelines above. Which incidentally includes your comment as well.
But apparently you cannot be a critic of Israel unless you call for it’s eradication.
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According to the rules above we can still compare Israeli actions to Nazism. We are just not allowed to say they are equal (a Israeli action could be said to be worse or better than a Nazi’s)
Unfortunately, in this case “comparing” (in the sense of saying they are similar) and “equating” are typically seen as the same, at least by people who support the israeli genocide like the German police.
No one of the moderation team or the feddit.org admins are defending the actions of the Israeli government in any shape or form.
No, they’re just removing any criticism of it, nothing to see here
Criticism of it is explicitly allowed as by the above mentioned rules 🙄
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Sad to see this. This effectively muzzles Israeli and Jewish anti-Zionist voices to make Germans feel good about themselves. This is antisemitic.
How does this muzzle any anti-zionist voices that are not calling for yet another genocide? If you think that are the only anti-zionist voices worth listening to then yes that is antisemitic.
Because you’re proscribing calling for an end to Zionism, proscribing comparisons to the Shoah, proscribing views held by anti-zionist jews, which have been deplatformed and politically persecuted in Germany. People like Nancy Fraser, Masha Gessen, Yuval Abraham, Eyal Abraham.
Because by doing so, you’re picking and choosing good zionist jews and bad antizionist jews. WHICH IS ANTISEMITISM.
Here is a nice excerpt for you:
There is, as the Israeli-born architect and academic Eyal Weizman has acidly put it, a certain irony in “being lectured [on how to be properly Jewish] by the children and grandchildren of the perpetrators who murdered our families and who now dare to tell us that we are antisemitic”.
As for this:
If you think that are the only anti-zionist voices worth listening to then yes that is antisemitic.
I never said that. I never called for the banning of pro-zionist views. You’re the one enforcing a policy that silences “bad” jewish voices.
No, the rules here do not suppress such differing opinions as long as they don’t advocate for genocide (or could be easily misinterpreted as such by the german police).
I personally agree that the German government has gone far beyond what would be reasonable in that regard, but feddit.org is not the German government. They simply try to find a minimal set of rules that do not directly endanger them of police raids in Germany and otherwise these are basic rules of respecting human rights.
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Literally who on lemmy is calling for another genocide???
Great, so why the big ruckus if you think so?
Nothing stops people from participating on feddit.org communities if they don’t use thinly veiled dogwistles for such or endorse organisations that call for ethnic clensing like Hamas and use slogans popularized by them.
Not relativising or denying the holocaust is hopefully a given, but it seems some people from other instances are also not so clear on that.
But if i say “from the river to the sea there will only be Jewish sovereignty” I am dandy, right? It’s only the proscribed polarity that matters. Right?
If you openly endorse such bordering on genocidal positions then no, that would be very likely also a bannable offense.
Well that’s refreshing to read.
What ruckus? Mate what the fuck are you on about? My only engagement in this thread was to ask you to provide an example of a problem you seem to believe is prevalent on here, which you promptly neglected to do.
Nothing stops people from participating on feddit.org communities if they don’t use thinly veiled dogwistles for such or endorse organisations that call for ethnic clensing like Hamas and use slogans popularized by them.
Ok cool, so is it also server policy to ban anybody endorsing the state of Israel, given its current campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank? Why/why not?
If you endorse or deny the current ethnic clensing done by the Israelis you will very likely also get banned for that, yes.
Okay, good.
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This still seems like a one sided approach to moderating the issue.
While law demands the censorship of certain criticisms of Israel and Zionism, there are none in regards to Palestinians.
That doesn’t mean equal rules shouldn’t be applied to the other side.
If you cannot argue for the end of Israel, you should neither be allowed to argue for the end of Palestine. If you cannot defend the actions or existence of Hamas or Hezbollah, neither should you be allowed to defend the actions or existence of the IDF. If you call for a one state solution it should include equal rights not only for Israelis but also Palestinians.
I have yet to see a comment or post Lemmy that actually argues for the ‘end of Palestine’. That would already violate rule 4 if someone did it.
neither should you be allowed to defend the actions or existence of the IDF
Isn’t the IDF Israel’s regular army? Hamas and Hezbollah aren’t exactly Palestine’s regular armies, they’re political organizations that also have military. There’s a reason why Hamas isn’t really active in the West Bank.
I haven’t seen much defending of the IDF’s actions, but fair point, that should probably be prohibited.
Palestine doesn’t have a regular army because they’re not allowed to be a regular state.
Why should that matter? At the end of the day an army is an army, whether it is commanded by an official state, the leadership of a political organisation, a terrorist organisation or by itself. And in the case of Israel-Palestine both commit planned out terrorist acts and atrocities.
Isn’t the IDF Israel’s regular army?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
Without going into the Gaza - West Bank schism, Hamas has governed the Gaza strip for nearly 2 decades now and its military is de facto that territory’s military forces.
The argument of ‘political militia’ only holds water if there is a significant opposition party with a relatively equally large military force. I have yet to see evidence of that.
It doesn’t help that there isn’t a currently valid “constitution of Palestina” which could regulate military force and who controls them.
Please read the text again. All of that is included.
Can you quote the specific part of the text that bans defending the IDF?
The IDF is not a recognized terrorist organization in Germany. As long as what people write about the IDF is factually correct and not blatant propaganda or misinformation (which is generally against the rules of this community) that is not banned obviously. Nor is it banned to write factually correct information about Hamas and Hezbollah obviously.
Hamas is the Defacto government in Gaza overwelimgly supported by the people of Gaza, and Hezbollah is a political party, that Isreal not to long ago decided to massicure in one of the biggest terror attacks of my life time.
So without pointing to a law, using your own brain, please explain to me how Isreal is not a State Sponcer of terror, and the IDF is not a terrorist organisation, yet the defacto government of Gaza, and a Party in Lebanon, who had to fight off an illegal invasion of lebinon by the IDF are
I am not making the German classifications of such organisations.
As for the rest of your comment, lots of half-truths that don’t change the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah are organisations with a terrible human rights track-record.
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Okay well you didn’t have to lie and say it’s included when it isn’t included.
Ah yes, “just following orders”.
calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
Sad that equal rights for every human, and imo all living beings, isn’t just given as natural and needs to be specified explicitly.
What’s the law’s perspective of a global no-state solution?
You’re not wrong but it’s an explicit defense against any accusations of supporting violence against humans.
Because some individuals think violence is good, I know.
Are you also going to enforce the rest of the German criminal code for other kinds of speech? Beleidigung (§ 185 StGB) for example is even more vague and dangerous than the other parts of StGB you’re worried about. The US president would have a great case against the majority of commenters here.
Don’t get me wrong, you should do however you want – I’m not the one paying for your community’s servers… but it’s just depressing to see people falling for these kinds of chilling effects.
To some degree we are going after insults against other participants of the community, obviously. Not primarily because it may be criminal but also because it changes the discourse of the community. The lucky legal bit when it comes to Trump/Vance though is that as far as I am aware, insulting foreign leadership figures is no longer criminalized.
Calling Trump a “fascist” is simply an accurate descriptor though. Calling him “poo poo orange diaper man” is juvenile bullshit but if it’s not 50% of the comment section, it’ll probably remain.
When the rules demand silence in the face of atrocity, the mods become archivists of obedience, not arbiters of discourse.
You should transfer ownership of the server to someone with a set if you’re that worried.
Did you even read the post?
Yes.
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Am I allowed to say Germany is a police state?
If that is your opinion 🤷
Based on the news articles I’m seeing I’m forced to conclude it is.
Regarding anything pro Palestine its sadly Kinda true. There have been various cases of people loosing their jobs because of simply expressing their support for Palestine and theres quite a crackdown on pro Palestine demonstrations and other events. However, I wouldn’t go as far as calling Germany generally a police state.
The police state apparatus, once built, will not be constrained to the specific boogie-men of today. It must be deconstructed or it will find a new enemy that justifies its authority. Until it is destroyed it threatens the safety of everyone.
Didn’t they literally name their state-sponsored police trojan “SS” two years ago?
They did not, but smart move by you to throw in some totally unrelated misinformation.
Insulting Israel isn’t discrimination or hate speech if motivated by facts, like them doing a genocide. It is when you do because of antisemitism.
It is also not wrong to think that the population of Israel should end up in a less benefiting situation like one state where they don’t get the superiority, because they were illegitimate to the lands and because they lived in this country.
German people were condemned with sanctions to the country after world wars. Didn’t make it racism or anything like that, just sanctions to what the country had done.
Fuck censorship
Pov: you assist in helping genocide
You should be ashamed
- Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
All people are equal, but some are more equal than others
More specified, not more equal in this case, really.
Why do they need to be specified? If it’s equal rights for all people, then that includes Jews. There is no need to specify if you are promoting equality for all.
Why is it useful to specifically name the rights of jewish poeple in germany and austria?
Not all Nazis left or died after 45. We simply do not act like they did.
e: typo
And a lot were born after 45.
Thats the same argument as black life matters versus all life matters -> Just in Austria and Germany we have a special responsibility against Antis-Semitism
Not really, BLM was started to highlight issues of racism, discrimination, inequality etc. faced by black people.
I would not have had an issue if the mod had said equal rights for all people, including Jewish people. It’s the fact that they say equal rights for all, but “in particular” one specific group that I take issue with, doesn’t matter if that group is Jews, Christians, white people, black people, etc.
The issue is that both Zionist lobby groups/political activists and authoritarian politicians and law enforcement (or well police, bc. often things later get thrown out in court) like to misinterpret it, if it is not said specifically. Do you remember how shortly after October 7 2023 Pierce Morgan and similiar did the whole “Do you condemn Hamas?” thing over and over again, no matter how displaced it was to the matter at hand? Well imagine that but with the police enforcing it and you get the state of public discourse in Germany for the past two years.
When it comes to speech about Palestine and Israel the executive in Germany will go on the basis of guilty until proven innocent. This leads to arbitrary and often violent arrests, searches of peoples homes, confiscations of devices… Even if all of that is later thrown out in court or the prosecutors don’t even bother to make a charge it has tremendous negative effects for the people targeted.
For instance in Berlin almost no demonstration for the rights of Palestinians go without police violence. Francesca Albanese the UN special rapporteur had multiple events in Germany cancelled or spaces denied last minute because of pressure from the government and reported that she was threatened with arrest. Finally take this example of the radically Zionist Axel-Springer Media specifically targeting activists in Berlin with Names and Pictures. Note how two out of the 6 people they attack are anti-zionist Jews.
There is no rational reasoning with German authorities or Zionist groups in Germany.
Yeah, German policing of the situation has been pretty insane
The meaning is the same. You are splitting hairs over a text written by a non-native speaker.
It’s not though, if you’re working in a restaurant/bar/shop and your boss tells you to give good service to everyone, especially (or in particular) Americans, then you’re being told that it’s more important that Americans get good service than other groups, even if you’re supposed to provide good service to everyone.
The fact they may be a non-native speaker might mean that they intended “including” rather than “particularly”, but it doesn’t change the actual meaning of the words that they wrote.
No, if your boss has to tell you that it is a reminder that you should treat everyone equal and despite knowing that you dislike Americans you still need to treat them the same.
No, since with “black lives matter” (which I think could have used a better name anyway, like Black Lives Also Matter, which has the nice acronym of BLAM), it isn’t the oppressing group.
In the case with Israel and Palestine, Israel is very very much the oppressive group, currently conducting a genocide, a claim backed by multiple researchers and experts in the field.
Germany (as in the law but also many of the german people) is a bit weird about that, because, you know, it’s predescessor tried – sadly with very much success – to fucking murder every single European jew. That is a reason why in Germany, we are so specific.
This is also why Germany will stand by Israel, even if their right-wing regime is now murdering people in Gaza. It is fucked up, but the way it is at the moment.
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So while you can compare the suffering of the jewish diaspora and the Romani under the Nazi regime, there is no noteworthy Romani national movement as far as I know. So your comment adds nothing of worth to the debate, to be honest.
This is a specification so people know what the law in Germany is. Simple as that.
Rather, they wish to prevent the thought that all people indeed are equal, whilst the Jews aren’t considered to be humans/humane i.e. people at all to some.
It’s really not helpful for everyone to go around and post misunderstood snippets of books that were released before Israel was even founded. Can you elaborate more what you want to say here?
What I said here: https://feddit.uk/post/29329161/17366266
If we want equal rights for all (as we should) then that includes Jewish people, we don’t then specify that one group “in particular” gets equal rights. I wouldn’t have taken issue with the sentence if it simply said Jewish people included, because “all people” does indeed include Jewish people, but “in particular” is picking them out as special.
While calling Israeli fascist isnt allowed, am I allowed to call specific Israeli politicians Kahanist?
Fascism isn’t exclusive to the historical Nazis. The rule is about relativism in regards to the crimes of the historical Nazis, and especially the holocaust.
Parts of the current Israeli government are obviously fascist, but calling all Israelis fascists would be against the general rules of this community.
Am I allowed to point out that the Kahanist ideology is rapidly gaining popularity among the Israeli populous? Or the fact that Israeli was founded by a literal national Bolshevik? Or how the Israeli left is a mix of national Socialists and national Bolsheviks while the right is a mix of kahanists and religious fundamentalists?
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It would be great if you could also support that with some credible sources instead of just saying so to fish for responses, aka trolling.
The founder of Israel David Ben Gurion was a self described Bolshevik (source) and said “I am a Bolshevik.”. He was also an extreme Jewish nationalist, therefore he was a Jewish national Bolshevik. He was the founder of the Israeli left and they would follow his example.
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Essentially yes, he was a national socialist in its truest form. He was a socialist in the sense that hrhe supported communal farms and strong government protection, but only for Jewish people. He called this policy Jewish labor on Jewish land. He supported kicking out all Palestinians and was overall extremely racist.
Would it be appropriate for people to share alternative communities which aren’t subject to as strict censorship on this issue?
I mean … feel free. (Unless you’re linking to really unsavory communities.)
The thing is, we’re not a Mid-East community anyway (thankfully, I would personally say–as I would be really out-of-depth there!). While this is an issue that may flare up occasionally, I don’t see it as a permanent hindrance to contribution.
So does this mean Eurovision discussion isn’t allowed either, since Israel and Australia aren’t in Europe?
What about the EU? Does everything in the EU count? If so, does that mean South American and Caribbean discussion is allowed because of UK and France for example? Or do you mean only Europe the continent? In that case, are we talking about the 7 continent English model, the 6 continent Greek model, the 6 continent Eastern Europe (/Russian) model, or the geological model? Because some models would include Israel while others would exclude say Azerbaijan.
If you’re going to start restricting discussion on what is and isn’t, you’ll need to start clarifying what is and isn’t too.
You should re-read my comment. There is no mention of words such as “allow” or “forbid” in it.
(Edit: Ok, maybe I shouldn’t wonder about downvotes in this thread anymore. But what the shit, folks. What Lumiluz wrote is a complete misinterpretation of what I wrote, and I guess in bad-faith too. I never wrote that any particular topic is forbidden—and I certainly did nothing to suggest that ESC must not be discussed just because non-European nations participate in it. I wrote that this community is centered on Europe, in a fairly broad sense.)
