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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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.
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.
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. 👏
Thank you guys. You make these communities bareable.
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Thanks for putting effort into this community. Sorry for all the hate you have to bear.
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Understandable that you don’t want any police raids and I sincerely hope that this is not representative of your personal opinion but rather a hint for us to maybe host this community somewhere else where free speech is possible without putting the server hosts in danger of being raided by some gestapo squad. It would be great if it’d be possible to migrate whole communities to another instance.
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Please read the post first before trying to twist my words into something that isn’t there.
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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.)
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Both Motorbikes and trucks are vehicles but motorbikes are not trucks.
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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.
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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.
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I’m in agreement with this decision. But I don’t share the reasoning and context behind the conclusions regarding free speech. I’m non-europe, so the slogan “from the river to the sea” doesn’t strike me as an impression that calls for Hamas. I suppose german lawmakers often make contextual decisions centered around their own experiences. That explains their legal stance, and I don’t agree with it. I do agree with the decision to avoid the wrath of law enforcement agencies. As I understand it, i think it is reasonable enough since I’ve had members of my community vanishing without a trace until this day.
Throughout history, governments (WW2 and others) do commit atrocities and human rights violations. I think moderation teams allowing ample space for genocide documentation is good. As I understand it, other social medias such as Instagram don’t allow genocide documentation at all. Granted, I think more should be done about it even in smaller communities like this. But that’s besides the point, and I’m not an internet regular. And where real or digital spaces don’t outright endorse “absolute free speech”, I think spaces that allow specifics in their discourse is a good enough space to live in. After all, It is never ideal to let governments run fascist mode without accountability.
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I dunno, a lot of the rules they established sound reasonable, and they don’t really want to risk a raid from the German authorities.
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I see you read the APPD party program.
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.
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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.
