A crackdown on political dissent is well under way in Germany. Over the past two years, institutions and authorities have cancelled events, exhibitions and awards over statements about Palestine or Israel.
There are many examples: the Frankfurt book fair indefinitely postponing an award ceremony for Adania Shibli; the Heinrich Böll Foundation withdrawing the Hannah Arendt prize from Masha Gessen; the No Other Land directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham being defamed by German ministers. And, most recently, the philosopher Omri Boehm being disinvited from speaking at this month’s anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald.
In nearly all of these cases, accusations of antisemitism loom large – even though Jews are often among those being targeted. More often than not, it is liberals driving or tacitly accepting these cancellations, while conservatives and the far right lean back and cheer them on.
Germany has recently taken a chilling new step, signalling its willingness to use political views as grounds to curb migration. Authorities are now moving to deport foreign nationals for participating in pro-Palestine actions. As I reported this week in the Intercept, four people in Berlin – three EU citizens and one US citizen – are set to be deported over their involvement in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. None of the four have been convicted of a crime, and yet the authorities are seeking to simply throw them out of the country.
I think it’s understandable to remove them in the desire to not allow that kind of discussion in a given place, like this instance.
As a general user, it’s just difficult to parse through afterwards, I feel like an historian trying to piece together an ancient argument with only one side of it. I feel like leaving them up a bit longer until the argument is dead is good, but only because I like to read through it as content or jump in at times. Taking the comments down immediately kills it. I usually check the modlog and piece it together but in this case something was missing for some reason.
In terms of moderation, and I’ve never been a mod, I think the current way of doing things is best though.