Document comes days after government published dossier of 'secular Palestinian extremist' symbols, such as the watermelon and the Handala cartoon

The German government last week published a new brochure on what it believes to be antisemitic codes and symbols.

Over 80 pages, the brochure catalogues a list of concepts, terms and images ranging from Nazi-era propaganda to contemporary symbols against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Intended audiences for the brochure include teachers, “who can use the booklet as supplementary material in the classroom”, and other educational staff, who can use it as a “guideline to help recognise any anti-Semitic remarks in the working environment”.

Germany is one of the key supporters of Israel’s genocide, despite its own history of committing genocide against Jews, Slavs and Roma during the Second World War, and in Namibia in the early 20th century.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    29 minutes ago

    I’m starting to think the current posture of the German Authorities of unwavering support of Israel, to the point of officially declaring Jewish Voices For Peace an “extremist organization”, is pure unadulterated anti-semitism in the very same traditional style as inspired Hitler.

    You see, the often given reason/excuse of “making amends for the NAZI actions” is disproved by a number of behaviors of the German Authorities, most notably:

    • The above mentioned declaring of Jewish Voices For Peace as an extremist organization for its criticism of Israel, which is very much the non-Jewish German Authorities punishing some Jews for not doing what they think Jews are supposed to do when it comes to Jewish affairs.
    • That other groups which were equally targeted for extermination by the NAZIs in the Holocaust, such as the Roma People or Communists, are not in any way form or shape recipients of the level of support that Israel gets.

    You see, I think it’s all about supporting the project of an independent land far away from Germany to where all Jews are supposed to move to, not about making amends to the victims of the Holocaust, otherwise there would be no declaring a Jewish organization as “extremist” for criticizing a foreign nation or an entirely different posture towards other groups (including another ethnicity) who were explicitly targeted by the NAZIs for extermination and whose members were victims of the Holocaust in large numbers.

    This is all about Jews leaving Germany: NAZI Plan A to “get rid of the Jews” failed, this is Plan B.

    Certainly everything the German Authorities are doing seems consistent with supporting “the existence and expansion of a place which all Jews are incentivized to move to”, whilst at least some things they do (as well as not do) show clear inconsistency with the claimed motive of “making amends for the Holocaust” and even some with the motive of supporting the Jewish People.

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    2 hours ago

    I could potentially imagine a world in which the document is a good faith attempt at having an extremely nuanced discussion about the ways that antisemitic tropes might seep into otherwise legitimate pro-palestinian discourse. And that would have been a very useful document indeed. I could bring myself to imagine such a world if the BfV had a similar document that does an equally thorough job at uncovering all the ways anti-Palestinian racism, islamophobia and jewish-supremacist and genocidal language enters the pro-Zionist discourse. But instead, what this document does do, is to always put Palestinian resistance in scare quotes, to always frame pro-Palestinian advocacy as suspect and illegitimate. There is no context in which Palestinian grievances are taken seriously, at face value. Instead we get this document, a monument of BfV’s actually extremist anti-Palestinian frame-setting.

  • Verdorrterpunkt@feddit.orgEnglish
    6·
    3 hours ago

    I read this trying to see if they are better than portrayed in this post, but they directly equate zionism with israel and with jews, which is antisemitic. This is insane.

  • RunawayFixer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    4 hours ago

    Questioning the German government their continued support for the Palestinian genocide is officially antisemitic, see „NIE WIEDER… FÜR WEN?“ on page 60 of the brochure. https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/allgemein/2026-05-antisemitische-codes-und-chiffren.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9

    The writers of the brochure also try really really hard to equate criticism of Israel with anti Jewish racism. That page 60 meme is about Germany and Israel, and their explanation tries to make it about Jews. It’s jarring.

      • belastend@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        1 hour ago

        No, as someone else already mentioned, this specific case is labeled as ambiguous. It could be interpreted or used as valid criticism, but also as a front for antisemitism.

        • Verdorrterpunkt@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          31 minutes ago

          The label is pretty weak though, as they very pointedly went into a specific direction in other texts about the picture. It is labled though ofc.

    • chaitae3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      3 hours ago

      They aren’t writing any of that, they explainer box below says

      Einordnung: Im Gegensatz zu den anderen Beispielen in dieser Broschüre ist im vorliegenden Fall der Interpretationsspielraum, ob oder inwiefern hier antisemitischer Gehalt vorhanden ist, deutlich größer. Die folgende Analyse zeigt, dass dieses Fallbeispiel aufgrund seiner Bildsprache sowohl als legitime Kritik als auch als antisemitisch verstanden werden kann.

      Translation:

      Context: Unlike the other examples in this brochure, in this case there is significantly more room for interpretation regarding whether or to what extent anti-Semitic content is present. The following analysis shows that, due to its visual language, this case study can be interpreted as both legitimate criticism and as anti-Semitic.

      Also, don’t equate the German government to its intelligence service, it’s more complicated than that.

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        And some other excerpts:
        Demonization: The portrayal of Israel as a criminal collective directly connects to the antisemitic interpretation of the accusation of systematic child murder.

        The image portrays violence against “the Jews” as just “resistance” and a necessary reaction to a supposedly absolute injustice.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    341·
    10 hours ago

    “In reality, such links or even collaboration are rare,” the brochure continues, “but the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023 in particular, highlighted the impact that shared perceptions of the enemy can have: sections of the left-wing to far-left scene expressed solidarity with a supposed ‘Palestinian liberation struggle’ during protests.”

    Fucking Nazis defending Nazis.