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 @[email protected] 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)
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.
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.)
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?
I find all of your comments here deeply shameful, especially since you are representing slrpnk.net, from your own manifesto:
Yet you are using your voice here to defend state-mandated infringement of free speech, of decolonialist speech at the behest of the zionist project. I honestly think you should consider if you can still credibly administer slrpnk or alternatively if it makes sense for you to moderate a comm that is seemingly so misaligned with your professed values.
No, those are absurd statements with no logic.
Yours are, mine isn’t.
You could try actually addressing what I say instead of making absurd statements and then acting like you making absurd statements is proof that my statement is absurd.
Yea, see this is the antisemitic version of zionism. Advocating for the liberation of Palestine isn’t the same as advocating for a genocide or expulsion of Jews in Israel. It would be like saying WWII was ultimately a genocide of germans, since they were violently resisted in their conquest of Europe.
Yes, the resistance against genocide will almost certainly involve violence - that doesn’t mean that advocating for resistance isn’t justified, or even that advocating for violent resistance isn’t justified. WWII would have been really short if we had rhetorically ‘opposed’ the holocaust, but banned any speech that even implied violence against Germans (including violent liberation to stop an active genocide).
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 @[email protected] 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 @[email protected] 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.
I most certainly did NOT equate Hamas with Palestinians. Here is my position. You just did that equation, out of nowhere, changing the subject from the right of Palestinians to violently resist occupation to Hamas atrocities.