The centre of Berlin was a sea of Palestinian flags and keffiyehs on Saturday  21 June. Banned slogans were held aloft and chanted loud. At least 50,000 turned out to show solidarity with Gaza. The mobilisation was national, the crowd largely young. They chanted slogans that would have had them arrested only weeks ago. The police were powerless to stop them.

Unusually, the protest was called not by an organisation or coalition. Nor were organisations visibly present. It was initiated by two German-Palestinian online influencers, whose appeal spread by word of mouth. They expected 5,000. At least 50,000 came, from all across Germany.

Ferocious repression

The German authorities have stamped on Gaza protests harder than any other government in Europe. In October 2023, demonstrations for Gaza were initially banned altogether. So the right to protest at all literally had to be won on the streets. An early candlelit vigil by Jewish Voice for Peace created a protest form that the authorities hesitated to crush. By 21 October 2023, it was possible to hold a proper demonstration, with about 5,000 attending in Berlin.

Ever since, there have been regular marches across the country, but attendance has rarely exceeded a couple of thousand. Rallies often begin with the organiser reading out a long list of statements that the police have banned. No ‘From the River to the Sea’, no expression of support for Hamas or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, no comparisons with the German Holocaust. Brutal physical force has been used to arrest protesters for repeating them. Participants at a protest camp at the Reichstag were forbidden to speak Hebrew, Arabic or Irish Gaelic, for fear that they might speak or sing illegal words without the police knowing.

The authorities have tightly policed public discussion altogether. Until very recently, essentially any form of solidarity has been beyond the pale. Prominent Jewish artists have had exhibitions cancelled for speaking out. A conference in Berlin in April 2024 was closed down by the police just as it began. People have been sacked for statements of support, including at least one civil servant. There has been a lot of discussion about withdrawing residency status or requiring applicants for citizenship to declare their support for Israel.

One indication of the severity of the suppression is that the authorities even targeted Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. When she came to Berlin, the city government ensured that her meeting at the university was cancelled and alternative venues were denied. She eventually spoke in a small room provided by the left-wing Junge Welt newspaper, where she said she was utterly shocked by the level of repression here. All this has naturally has had an absolutely chilling effect.

Why the clampdown?

Germany’s political leaders had the same reaction as their Western colleagues: support Israel, come what may. And they were certainly not alone in wanting to suppress any dissent. The legacy of the Holocaust gave them an additional – and heavy – cudgel to swing. Anyone who criticises Israel is an anti-semite. But what allowed them to get away with it was the weakness of the German hard left and the complicity of the parliamentary parties. The German Social Democrats and Greens back Israel to the hilt. The Greens have been particularly vicious; apparently it’s fine to deport people for saying the wrong thing about Gaza.

The Left Party has seen debate over the issue, but its leaders at all levels have ensured that it does not get tarred with solidarity or anything like that. The few individuals and a couple of branches that put their heads above the parapet took a lot of flak and at least one prominent activist was expelled from the party. In recent weeks the party’s tone has softened a little though – mirroring the slight shift in the rhetoric of major Western leaders. The Left Party officially supported Saturday’s demonstration. This was, I believe, the first time it has done so since October 2023. They were visibly present too, though only with a dozen flags.

The trade unions have been completely absent from the solidarity movement. Given the general atmosphere that is not entirely surprising. The nearest comparison I can think of would be support for Irish Republicanism in England in the 1980s. However the immigrants’ caucus at the public service union Verdi did put its name to a demo call recently, and turned up with union flags. Apparently the national leadership was not amused.

If public discussion is verboten and no organisation or coalition has the strength to push back, it can quickly become a vicious circle. Speaking out is felt to be a real personal risk, making its hard to organise protest. And the lack of protest discourages speaking out.

That is what makes Saturday such a breakthrough. Not only was the demonstration too large for the police to crush or harass. It also broke through the speech bans. Participants chanted the banned slogans, sometimes directly towards the police, keenly aware that this was their victory.

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