“Nakba” demonstration in Berlin: When Hamas is talked about, a gaggle of younger males cheer | EUROtoday

Dhe sq. on the outdated West Berlin procuring avenue fills up with Palestinian flags and flags emblazoned with “Revolution” or “Communist Organization” earlier than 6 p.m. A younger blonde man asks: “Are you interested in a class struggle newspaper?” A equally younger, black-haired lady adjusts her Palestinian scarf, which has been rolled up right into a turban, for a selfie.

After bans final yr, one other demonstration is going down ostensibly to commemorate the “expulsion” of Arabs from Israeli-Palestinian territory across the yr the Israeli state was based in 1948. Towards the top of the occasion, a speaker spoke of “800,000 displaced people”, though in actuality there have been most likely not more than 650,000. The roughly equal variety of Jews who fled to Israel from Arab international locations stay unmentioned; and likewise that almost all of Arab “expelled people” had turn out to be refugees attributable to an Arab conflict of aggression in opposition to Israel.

But information don't matter right here. “Palestinians,” says a lady with fringed bangs from the anti-Israel group “Jewish Voice for Just Peace” via the demonstration loudspeakers, “took in Jewish people after the genocide.” She means the Holocaust and ignores Arab homicide campaigns in opposition to Jews in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine – and of all folks, these “Palestinians” have been now affected by the “barbaric bombing” in Gaza that was “subsidized” by Germany.

According to this logic, Germany has discovered nothing from its historical past as a result of it’s masking up a “genocide” in Gaza. That's what this demonstration is definitely about: The contributors are continually chanting: “Stop the Gaza genocide”, “Children are being killed” or “Israel is killing children”.

The contributors are nicely knowledgeable concerning the alleged variety of victims in Gaza; Israel has “killed” 40,000 folks thus far, says one speaker; It is rarely talked about what number of of them – specialists estimate it might be a 3rd or half – have been Hamas terrorists. John Spencer, a US skilled on city warfare, lately even expressed the opinion in varied speeches that the estimated ratio of civilian casualties to combatants on this conflict is traditionally low.

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Police officers, state safety staff and translators are watching the demonstration. At the start, a form of moderator learn out the authorities' necessities. As he reads out the names of the left-wing extremist terrorist group PFLP and the Islamist Hamas militia – promoting for these is prohibited on the demonstration – a gaggle of younger males, apparently of Arab origin, cheer with Palestinian flags. They sit on the wall across the “Wilmersdorfer Straße” subway entrance.

With the exception of a lady who was briefly detained due to a banned image, the demonstration remained peaceable on the skin; Prohibited slogans calling for the annihilation of Israel are prohibited.

But the message comes via repeatedly in code: the massacres and rapes by Hamas on October seventh have been reliable resistance. The slogans: “The war didn’t start on October 7th, but 76 years ago”; What is supposed once more is the founding of the Israeli state in addition to the flight and expulsion of Arabs, which within the current migrant, anti-Israeli and left-wing extremist milieu goes by the time period “Nakba”: disaster.

A younger man with a shawl, exhibiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, shouts at one level: “Freedom is taken away!” The crowd cheers. Another participant, additionally apparently with an Arab background, additionally beforehand shouted that freedom is taken away, not given. And that “the Palestinians” “learned 76 years ago” to “fight against their occupiers”.

He additionally says: “The return to Palestine is the only constant of our identity.” He means the descendants of the refugees and displaced individuals from the time the Israeli state was based. The members of this group are the one ones on the earth who’ve hereditary refugee standing via the UN Palestinian Authority UNRWA.

In distinction to the Jewish and Arab refugees naturalized in Israel in 1948, the Arab refugees and their descendants who fled to Arab states typically remained stateless – as a result of the Arab states didn’t need them. Instead, these refugees, supported by UNRWA, persevered in mentioned “return”.

At the demonstration, a younger lady from a “pro-Palestinian group” shouts via the microphone: “We are not here” – she means Germany – “because we love Germany so much.” They would fairly “go back”. Would Israel need to disappear of their eyes for this? She had beforehand known as the one democracy within the Middle East a “terrorist state”: “76 years of illegal settler colonialism, 76 years of murder, 76 years of expulsion, 76 years of rape.” are his crimes.

There are additionally folks within the crowd who don't discuss like that. 13-year-old Camel says she and her mom Dima occurred to stroll previous the protest. Diima, 49, who doesn’t need to give her final title and, in contrast to her daughter, speaks damaged German, solely says: “When I see my flag, I feel homesick.” She comes from Ramallah within the West Bank. From there she shortly goes on to record the difficulties confronted by the Israeli partial occupation when she goes there to go to: “There are checkpoints there, no airport of their own.”

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Dima says she “loves the freedom here”, she says: In Germany on the demonstration the place you’ll be able to “say anything”: in “Arab countries” freedom of expression in Germany is all the time portrayed as being restricted. But she additionally says: In Gaza the world sees: “We are the victims.” Of whom? “From Israel,” solutions Dima; Hamas doesn’t point out them.

Dima isn’t veiled, different ladies are. One with a decent black scarf and one other with a decent inexperienced scarf stroll for some time on the finish of the protest to the left and proper of a white-haired lady with inexperienced glasses and a crimson Palestinian scarf with an indication in English: “Human rights are not white privilege.”

An older man who introduces himself as Reinhard Jung-Hecker, 73, a former physician and now a pensioner, says: He is working primarily “because of the situation in Gaza”. He is satisfied: “It is no longer a war of defense, but a war of elimination”; He speaks of 35,000 deaths, with out distinguishing that there are terrorists amongst them or that Hamas is utilizing the Palestinian civilian inhabitants as a protecting defend.

One group carries a shawl with the slogan “Alliance of Internationalist Feminists” written in English. No peace on stolen land.” Behind her are a person with pink boots and a lanky man in an undershirt with “Sluts against the machine” printed on it: Sluts in opposition to the system. Near this group: a hooded blonde with a Club-Mate bottle and a “FCK IDF” sticker on his smartphone, a slogan directed in opposition to the Israeli armed forces.

Another lady pulls a Palestinian scarf into place, this time in entrance of her face as an alternative of on her head, and takes a selfie. They shout in Arabic to these round them within the again block of the parade: “Palestine is Arabic.”

An election advice for the Varoufakis celebration

Shortly beforehand, the moderator from the loudspeaker truck introduced a number of speeches throughout a break within the demo procession, together with the anti-Srael “Jewish Voice” and, amongst others, “Johannes” from the “pan-European” celebration Mera 25, behind whom was the previous Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis stands. The moderator says: “All other parties are genocide parties.”

He then requires folks to vote for Mera within the European elections. Johannes, a lanky man with holey inexperienced Nikes, then “confesses” in his speech that he didn’t be taught something concerning the “Nakba” in his German historical past class.

Finally, throughout the break, a “comrade” of the demo organizers spoke concerning the left-wing extremist “Revolutionary Left”. She wears giant sun shades and gold earrings. All events within the Bundestag, even the Left, “are behind the genocide in Gaza,” she shouts. And: “To hell with your reasons of state!” But she is aware of: she and the demonstrators “have the masses” behind them.

According to the police, there are 600 demonstrators at this level, however there will likely be no extra till the top of the occasion at an S-Bahn station shortly earlier than 8 p.m. According to the police, 1,000 contributors have been introduced. The final sentence of the final speaker invitations you to the following “Nakba” rally subsequent weekend: “See you on Saturday, inshallah!”