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).
-
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 […]
-
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.
-
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).
-
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)
You must log in or register to comment.
This is just sad. The community about Europe makes steps that are against Europe’s own Charter of Fundamental Rights.
As a result, Germany has cracked down on legitimate criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, including on Jews and Israelis, academics, civil society and artists, who face restrictions on their rights to expression and protest, alongside funding cuts and bans on organizations.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/11/germanys-muddle-antisemitism
The only recourse here should really be to move the community.
Removed by mod
These kind of posts will, sometime in the future, be referenced in a memorial of some sort as complacency in the face of crimes against humanity.
History will not look kindly at you.
Thank you guys. You make these communities bareable.
Removed by mod
Thanks for putting effort into this community. Sorry for all the hate you have to bear.
You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.
Zionism is a fascist ideology. Gtfo with this fucking nonsense. This post muddies the water and conflates Judaism with Zionism which is fucking dangerous. This type of conflation breeds antisemitism. Israel does not speak for all jewish people. Zionism does not speak for all jewish people. “Well if Jewish people say that Zionism and Judaism are one in the same, I must hate both!”
You are now a breeding ground for antisemitism. Congratulations. 👏
Removed by mod
Please read the post first before trying to twist my words into something that isn’t there.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
There is a German law against the trivialization of Holocaust and other NS crime. These comparisons tend to run a high risk of such trivialization.
People comparing garden-variety police brutality with Gestapo are likely running afoul of the same law, fwiw.
StGB, § 130 (3) A custodial sentence not exceeding five years or a monetary penalty shall be imposed on anyone who publicly or in an assembly condones, denies or plays down an act of the kind described in Section 6 (1) of the International Criminal Code committed under the rule of National Socialism in a manner that is likely to disturb the public peace.
with
VStGB, §6 (1) Whoever, with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial, religious or ethnic group as such [kills, abducts, etc.] shall be punished with life imprisonment.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
(Translation via DeepL.)
Removed by mod
Both Motorbikes and trucks are vehicles but motorbikes are not trucks.
Removed by mod
Of course it’s ok, that’s a proper comparison, you’re actually going into details. You can say that they’re both meant for transport, but one for goods, the other for single passengers. There’s plenty of differences such as weight, speed, also, amount of road tax they have to pay: Trucks are much heavier, they chew up roads much much faster, so they pay more.
Comparing them, we see that they share some things in common, but are far from the same thing. If we were to pretend that they are the same, if we were equating them, we couldn’t apply lower road taxes to motorbikes than to trucks, we would, indeed, be trivialising the damage trucks do to roads. We would be willingly blinding ourselves to the damage trucks inflict far in excess of motorbikes, we would be sticking our heads in the sand.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Of course it’s genocide. And yes the Nazis did all those things. And the Nazis did a whole fucking lot more than that. That’s the issue, here: By Nazi standards Israelis are amateurs. What they’re doing is more in line with what Turks did to Armenians.
Pov: you assist in helping genocide
You should be ashamed
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.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
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 🙄
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
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
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.
Removed by mod
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.
Removed by mod
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.
Removed by mod
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.
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.
Removed by mod
Ah yes, “just following orders”.
