With a headline quoting from a famous remark by Rosa Luxemburg, “Freedom for the One Who Thinks Differently,” an Open Letter signed by 100 German Jewish artists, writers, and scholars denounces the pattern of banning rallies critical of Israel. It describes the banning as “a disturbing crackdown on civic life in the wake of this month’s horrifying violence in Israel and Palestine.” The bans not only affect Palestinians, but also increasingly Jews that do not want to go along with the officially-ordered narratives, the Open Letter charges—even if the bans are supposedly justified by claims of an “imminent risk” of “seditious, anti-Semitic exclamations.” It says: “These claims, we believe, serve to suppress legitimate nonviolent political expression that may include criticisms of Israel.”
The Open Letter explicitly also defends the right of Arabs and Palestinians to freedom of expression, which, apart from other restrictions, is violated by special patrols of heavily-armed riot police in the Berlin district of Neukölln, where there is a large Muslim neighborhood. However, even by the police accounts, “the ‘vast majority’ of anti-Semitic crimes—around 84%—are committed by the German far right.” The letter then states ironically: “If this is an attempt to atone for German history, its effect is to risk repeating it.”
The writers continue: “Dissent is a requirement of any free and democratic society. Freedom, wrote Rosa Luxemburg, ‘is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.’ As our Arab and Muslim neighbors are beaten and silenced, we fear the atmosphere in Germany has become more dangerous—for Jews and Muslims alike—than at any time in the nation’s recent history. We condemn these acts committed in our names.
