• Well, the bank is owned by the state 100%. And the money is needed to fund a conference that’s trying to give the Palestinian narrative a platform.

      The Palestinian narrative is btw far more in line with international law and with the findings of international human rights groups and historians (including Israeli human rights groups and historians) and even with common sense.

      Therefore Germany (even more than the rest of the Western world) is quite eager to shut it up. But just as the support of Israel is our raison d’état, we want to be seen as if democracy and human rights are our raisons d’état equally.

      So, like Israel plausibly committing genocide and ethnical cleansing and collective punishment, Germany is still at the stage of using pretexts and henchmen to do the dirty work of anti-democratically sabotage pro-Palestinian participation in German society’s discourse.

      The bank in question (Sparkasse) btw manages the account of the right-wing extremist party Heimat (former NPD), too. I wonder if they had to provide every member’s name, too. What do you think?

      They took away the Jewish Voice’s right of disposal of the account precisely at a time when they urgently need it. While giving quite shady reasons for doing so. So I think, at least as far as we’re not talking in legal terms here, seizing is definitely a proper word to call it. Especially when used by the victims of that treatment.

      Who are Jews in Germany lest you forget. And I would like to remind you of the fact, that it’s ‘the Jews’ that we have a moral duty (acquired by the murder of millions) to protect from injustice, not just ‘the Jews who spread rightwing extremist Israeli government propaganda’.

      People who don’t give a shit about Palestinian rights and lives defend Jewish Voice’s treatment by the Sparkasse. But obviously they‘d rather just ignore it. Which works pretty fine throughout German politics and media. So I consider you having to defend it (at least here on social media) a little success for the Palestinian cause.

      • I did not defend it, I merely corrected the headline. There isn’t a grand order to seize Jewish money in Germany like the headline suggests, this is a singular problem (yes, it is a problem) and it should be reported as one. This whole issue will realistically come out in two ways: either some Sparkasse employee fucked up (accidentally or maliciously) or the organization fucked up their paperwork and the bank did a standard procedure. Either way, it will come out and it will be resolved.

        Is that really less probable than Scholz, Faeser or any other relevant politician calling some bank to lock a single bank account of a single pro-palestine organization?

        • It will be “solved”, but the case is time sensitive because they need the money to support a pro-Palestinian conference in April.

          And they collected donations for that purpose. So them and me suspect the bank to use that purpose as pretext to freeze the money.

          And of course nobody is doing that to them out of Antisemitism. They’re being accused of being Antisemites on the cause of being pro-Palestinian.

          Our anti-Antisemitism is just pro-Israelism. An ideology which promotes and supports Antisemitism.

          And using that ideology to harass Jews looks like an extra perfidious Antisemitism to me.

      •  Eopia   ( @Eopia@feddit.de ) 
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        17 months ago

        There is an easy way to make Pro-Palestinian voices be heard in Germany’s public discourse, stop being silent about the atrocities committed by Hamas. It’s not like the German public is a big fan of Netanyahu, Settlers or starving Palestinians. But it is very hard to support a group constantly victimizing themselves, while there is video footage showing members of its side celebrating the rape and murder of a woman by parading her naked corpse through the streets.

        • I didn’t see that footage. If it’s really existing and not just a rumour generated by the Israeli propaganda machine (you know, like the beheaded babies and the mass rape and the playing ball with cut-off breasts shit), I would consider it a proof of the enormous hatred that many Palestinians bear in their hearts for Israeli people.

          Israel’s leadership is trying to make us believe that this hatred is just part of the Palestinian culture. They try to keep us from empathizing with them.

          But human beings are able to commit the most horrific crimes against others and against humanity, we all know that.

          The Hamas atrocities and the Israeli narrative of why the atrocities on the October 7 happened of the conflict in general are omnipresent in the German discourse.

          The Israeli narrative about the legitimacy of the state of Israel has even become part of our raison d’état.

          I think that the German public has a right to learn about the Palestinian narrative of that matter. In fact I am convinced that it is nearer to the historical truth (as I learned from Israeli historians like Avi Shlaim or Ilan Pappé). It’s even nearer to common sense than the Israeli one.

          So there seems to be a valid reason why German authorities and you seem so eager to shut up Palestinian voices.

          But it’s not right and it proposes and supports Antisemitism.