Polls show that up to 80 percent of people in Germany oppose weapons shipments to Israel — even while close to 100 percent of their representatives support the genocide in the name of “Israel’s right to defend itself”?
But one wonders: Where are all those people?
While hundreds of thousands march for Palestine in London, The Hague, and other cities around the world, pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Berlin attract a few hundred or at most a few thousand people. The reasons for this discrepancy are obvious: people are upset by images of children being massacred in Gaza, but also afraid of being beaten up by police or denounced as antisemites.
Now, this might be changing. On Saturday, 50,000 people took to the streets of Berlin at the #United4Gaza demonstration. Wearing red clothes and keffiyehs, they gathered on the field in front of the Reichstag, the German parliament, before marching through the city in considerable heat.
Three weeks ago, the German bourgeoisie suddenly shifted its rhetoric on Palestine, with chancellor Friedrich Merz accusing Israel of war crimes, and the foreign minister ever-so-carefully implying he might consider an end to weapons shipments. Yet this was pure theater: within a few days, the same politicians reaffirmed their support for the apartheid state. This has only intensified with Israel’s attack on Iran, with Merz thanking Israel for doing imperialism’s “dirty work.”
It was in this context that the #United4Gaza mobilization reached a critical mass: with 1 to 2 percent of Berlin’s population on the streets, each individual was less scared. As a result, public broadcasters were notably less defamatory in their reporting. The Palestinians, immigrants, radical leftists, and anti-Zionist Jews who face police violence at every action in Berlin were joined by lots of people at their first protest for Gaza.
This included a big contingent from Die Linke (The Left Party), a reformist party that has traditionally supported Germany’s “Staatsräson” (reason of state) of unconditional support for Israel. When Berlin first banned a pro-Palestinian protest in 2021, for example, Die Linke was part of that government. The mood in the party has been shifting recently, with pro-Palestinian voices like Ferat Koçak gaining influence. Not long ago, the party joined all other parties in the Bundestag, including the far-right AfD, in declaring their “Solidarity with Israel.” On Saturday, however, hundreds of members from across the country were protesting, a handful of the party’s representatives in the Bundestag were on the streets documenting police violence.
And there was indeed lots of violence, with police arresting 40 people on the basis of ridiculous accusations with no legal basis. Demonstrators were detained for chanting “From the river to the sea…”, despite the fact that ever more German courts have ruled this slogan is not in fact illegal. Others were snatched for showing a red triangle, which is supposedly a Hamas symbol — despite the fact that some cops had that exact same symbol on their uniforms.
A few days earlier, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner voiced concerns about violations of basic democratic rights in Germany. Michael O’Flaherty wrote in a letter: “I am deeply concerned by allegations of excessive force used by police against demonstrators, including minors, which in some cases led to injuries.” The German government has restricted the right to assembly, just as universities and cultural institutions have curtailed free speech. While this is supposedly about “protecting Jewish life in Germany,” about one third of artists and intellectuals facing cancellation have been Jewish.
The demonstration can only be a starting point for a powerful solidarity movement with Palestine. Imperialist politicians will never adopt humane policies — they support the “dirty work” that Israel is doing for their own geopolitical interests. But the 70 to 80 percent of the population who oppose Israel’s genocidal campaign have an enormous power: With strikes at harbors, for example, dockworkers can stop weapons shipments themselves. With working-class methods, the majority can make itself heard.
