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On 6th of March a small event took place in Berlin. Craig Redmond (a member of the Baladi - Rooted Resistance collective) and I, with the help of our friends, organised a fundraising screening for some animal rescue shelters in Palestine and South Lebanon. The aim was to put a spotlight on a series of questions: on the one hand, we wanted to recognise and support the work of the animal rescue centres affected by the ongoing Israeli aggression, and to show the reality of the people who are working under such extreme and dangerous conditions. And on the other hand, we wanted to create a connection between animal rescue work, agro-resistance and food sovereignty as active tools for fighting the occupation.

We screened 6 micro documentaries from Sulala Animal Rescue (Gaza), Baladi Animal Rescue (West Bank), Daily Hugz (West Bank), Mashala Animal Shelter (Nabatieh, South Lebanon) and two of the stories from the Baladi - Rooted Resistance collective about food and land sovereignty, also in different areas of the West Bank. After the screenings we prepared some vegan lentil soup (a traditional dish from the Levantine area) and had a very nice conversation together the audience, in which we discussed breaking the barriers between animal/human dichotomy within the fight for Palestinian liberation and understanding Palestinian land as a whole ecosystem to defend (animals, humans, nature, and so on).

I would like to state that my main purpose was to amplify the voices and the work of the people on the ground working on animal rights, veganism and agro-resistance in Palestine, from an anticolonial perspective. I’ve always been an advocate for Palestine and anti-racism since my early years in university, where I was a member of the BDS group among other collectives within the student movement, but I realised that after being vegan for one year (vegetarian for the previous ten), I had never been vocal about it until I met this network of Palestinian and Lebanese activists virtually (among other non-western animal rights advocates) that shared their views on collective liberation, intersectional politics and national liberation struggles as interconnected fights.

The reason why I was never that open about veganism/anti-speciesism was because, firstly, I was never involved with any group/organisation regarding animal rights (although many of us who were in the student movement were actually vegan/vegetarian). Secondly, the vegan movement has a wide ideological spectrum (as any other social justice movement that has been at some point commodified by liberalism) in which I somehow found myself distant from. The most obvious example of this is how most of the big international animal rights organisations (and the vegan community) have been silent about the current genocide (and past 75 years of occupation, human and animal rights violations, war crimes, and so on) despite having so many reasons to agree on why veganism and national liberation struggles share a common ground.

One might argue that being vegan is a significant privilege that most people don’t have. I agree that this is a very delicate and complex topic regarding experiences of war, famine and siege, and that’s why I want to radically state that my idea of veganism is also analysing and understanding the material conditions that enable it. We’ve seen people in Gaza eat horses, donkeys, and other animals to survive. There is absolutely no question here that this matter is up for debate. Veganism is not discussing what food consumption is under conditions of starvation, occupation, land theft and colonisation. It is radically the opposite: it is wanting to build a world in which no-one has to experience these war crimes and social injustices ever again.

This is what Ahlam Tarayra, founding member of Baladi Animal Rescue and Vegans in Palestine talks about in her interview with Bündnis Marxismus & Tierbefreiung. She discusses how the occupation systematically tries to crush any attempt for progressive liberation struggles to rise, and cites the following example:

“Some time ago, a friend sent me an excerpt from a book that documented a Palestinian organization that was founded in Jaffa already back in the 1920s, which is remarkably early. The organization campaigned for the animal cause – something that would seem impossible under the current circumstances. If you contrast this with today’s situation, you see what the tragedy of the colonization of Palestine has changed here: it has massively set back this and other progressive issues and makes it difficult to campaign for them to this day – this applies to the animal cause just as much as to other progressive concerns.”

However, she also argues that just because the occupation is present, it doesn’t mean there is no action that can be taken regarding other liberation struggles. There are animals in need of care, there are queer folks in need of community, there are workers in need of labour rights, and so on. These are, together with the armed struggle, also forms of resistance, and there’s an imperative need to support each and every one of them, as any form of Palestinian existence is a step closer to its own liberation.

There’s another argument that opposes veganism which claims that Palestinian communities from refugee camps have never heard the word “veganism” before (and therefore there is no way one can be vocal about it). This comes with quite a misunderstood classist view of people living in such contexts as living in a refugee camp doesn’t imply in any way that people are uneducated or so on. I always bring up the example of Saeed Al Err, an incredible and loving man who was born in Gaza and created the Sualala Animal Rescue organisation. Saeed himself comes from a very working class background and has been an animal lover since his birth. He has been creating an animal-loving community in Palestine for over 20 years, rescuing and taking care of thousands of dogs, cats, donkeys, birds and so on.

Before 7th of October Saeed had been organising workshops for children, educational programs, inviting families to the shelter, working with a team of people who volunteered, creating healing tools through animal care, making people get involved in the project, and having an incredibly positive impact in his community. After the 7th, he was forced to evacuate and continue his rescue work in the most horrific conditions one could ever imagine. Since then he’s been helping, not only the animals (rescuing a number of severely abused donkeys, dogs, cats and even a horse) but the humans, by sharing the organisation's donated funds to buy food and clothes for the displaced families in the area where he’s staying. There are no words to describe the level of empathy, love and care Saeed has for every living creature in Gaza, human and non-human. Saeed has the love and recognition from his people because his level of compassion knows no limits. And I ask the question regarding veganism as a political praxis: why do we need to put a limit on our compassion? Like Maad Abu-Ghaza, the founder of Daily Hugz explains, why not consider empathy in a wider spectrum that transcends human species? Who decided that our love and solidarity was limited to people? Why not include all, like Saeed does, even in a Genocide context?

We’ve witnessed so many cases in which Palestinian families from Gaza were painfully forced to leave their animal friends behind, and also many people and especially kids, taking care of them in displaced tents, resisting Israel’s bombings side by side and serving a therapeutic role for humans who have lost so much. These animals are part of their families, and also part of Gaza’s ecosystem and native to their land. Israel, with the complicity of every animal rights organisation that has stayed silent during the past 5 months, has literally crushed to death any form of life existing in the Gaza strip, with the aim of annihilating any element that constitutes the Palestinian cultural identity. The link between animal rights and reclaiming vegan/vegetarian traditional dishes collides with Palestinians owning their own agricultural resources and examining the histories of levantine cuisine. This scenario sets a base for future conversations that will emerge after the imminent end of the illegitimate settler-colonial imperialist power that is Israel. We will keep fighting for liberation through armed resistance (including all organisations and political factions currently working for that aim), antispecism and any other emancipatory struggles.

And for the rest of us, as vegans, we trust in the power of boycotting the meat and dairy industry, not only as an ethical action but also as a strategic defunding tool. The BDS movement calls for an international solidarity anti-apartheid and anti-genocide boycott strategy to pressure and delegitimise the terrorist imperialist military USA-backed state that is Israel. While the IOF constantly promotes "veganism" to cover up their human and non-human systematic murders and destruction against the Palestinian population and ecosystem, we refuse to let their filthy supremacist Zionist mouths use our struggle's name to wash out their crimes against international law and human rights violations. There is no animal liberation without Palestine liberation. From the river to the sea.

7 October 2023 marked a turning point for many of us. My name is Itziar and I have lived in Berlin for two years. Since I arrived in Germany as a Catalan immigrant, of Jewish descent and committed to the Palestinian cause, I have witnessed the brutality, repression and censorship by the German state against its migrant population, at police, institutional and cultural levels.

To contextualize and explain why Germany (and its population) has a totally unconditional position of support towards the state of Israel, I will highlight a conversation I had the first week of arriving, with a new roommate. She was a sociology student and all afternoon we talked about feminism, antiracism, gentrification, queer movement, etc. Until I mentioned that I had been a member of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in Israel) group of my university a few years ago. Her reaction was a pale face followed by a “Why?”. She wondered why I was a member of a group like the BDS after having been two hours talking about anti-colonialism. With some perplexity I explained to her that I, as a Jew, felt that I had the responsibility to contribute to the fight for the Palestinian cause. She replied “I know that my grandparents fought for the Nazis, and for this reason I cannot speak about this issue.” I thought “just you – more than anyone – should talk about it”.

This situation has been repeated time after time at work, and in social and political situations. The reflection I have is that Germany has not understood or overcome the Holocaust. The deeply racist structures of German society remain as valid as before. What has changed now is the political subject: if yesterday it was the Jews, today it is the Arabs. The identity policies of a so-called ‘left’ (more like progressive liberalism, than a true anti-fascist left) abandons a minority that does speak of Palestine and opposes the existence of the state of Israel.

In the first weeks after 7 October, the German state armed a massive institutional and media campaign to suppress the movement that emerged mainly from the Palestinian community. Germany is the European state with the most members of the Palestinian diaspora in Europe. During the first demonstrations responding to the bombings in Gaza, the Berlin police, illegally carried out a massive campaign of violent indiscriminate arrests. Targeting those wearing the Palestinian Kufiya, flew Palestinian flags or simply called out ‘Free Palestine’. Once the police even violently arrested a nine-month pregnant woman and pulled the hijab off another. Just a few of many cases of police violence. Another chant still banned today is “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” where any individual shouting this slogan in public is automatically arrested. The pretext is they deny Israel’s existence which is therefore an antisemitic chant. Arrests were concentrated, during demonstrations, but also in the Neukolln neighbourhood in the Arab neighbourhood. The police presence continues to grow and patrol there to now.

In the initial demonstrations, the state also banned the existence of the Samidoun collective – categorized as a “terrorist organization”. The police carried out a coordinated attack, with the media present, of three of the social premises where various feminist and anti-racist groups meet. This included the much-loved Cafe Karanfil, a social coffee house especially by the Palestinian and migrant community, organize cultural and political activities. The attack took place during the early hours of the morning. These images circulated throughout Germany, reinforcing the Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian discourse.

The other sector in which the Arab community has suffered (and continues to suffer) systematic discrimination is the education sector. In schools there was a very strong wave of racism, perpetuated by both teachers and students. The state forbade students from carrying the Palestinian flag and the Kufiya in class, as symbols that ‘instil antisemitism’. Teachers were threatened with being firing if they did not adhere to the regulations or if they showed support for Palestine to pupils. This culminated in a teacher’s assault of a high school student with a Palestinian flag on their back, at a school in Neukolln. A few weeks later a girl was assaulted in the toilets of another high school outside Berlin, for carrying a chain around her neck under the name of Allah. The girl was taken to hospital in serious condition. In Wedding, a Muslim student was expelled from class for praying in silence in a corner of the classroom. Yet legislation dictates to have rooms to pray for students who want it. This school had previously been awarded as an educational institution committed to the anti-racist struggle.

Obviously, there was a strong response to this wave of discrimination, which strengthened the movement among students. However, on February 2, the police began another campaign of racism in schools. They presented themselves at the gates of schools to distribute flyers urging teachers and educators to call the police if hearing children and students state aloud that “Israel is committing a genocide”. This state-made steering of Zionist propaganda, includes how media lies when covering demonstrations or actions in solidarity in Palestine. It accuses protesters of antisemitism (although most of these calls are organized by Jewish groups among others). It empowers part of the German population to assault people in public space with complete impunity, simply for bringing a Kufiya or an adhesive of a watermelon.

With others, I was flyposting on the occupation in Palestine on the doors and walls of the street, when we were suddenly attacked by a man who came at us from behind running with the sheet in his hand. We had to hide in the subway, behind a column, to avoid aggression, while the man searched for us along the train platform. A friend was verbally and physically assaulted in a supermarket, by a couple claiming to be from Israel, shouting that the Kufiya he was carrying was a “threat to his existence” after pushing him through the corridor. And another colleague (also with a kufiya) was also assaulted by three people who took him by the jacket, broke the buttons and drove him out of the wagon pushing him while they called “auslander raus” (immigrants outside). These are just cases that I have witnessed or experienced first-hand. The story is repeated by every person involved in the movement for Palestine here in Berlin.

On 22 February, the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmaier of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) met with the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, to ensure more military and economic support for the Palestinian genocide. To prevent demonstrations to reject Herzog’s presence, the police fenced off the entire Tiergarten area. Tiergarten is a park converted into a memorial area for the victims of the Second World War. It is no coincidence that Germany invited the person responsible for a current genocide to broadcast live on TV, to meet in a space full of sculptures and memorials to honour the victims of Nazism. In this same concentration, which finally took place next to the park, one of the protesters leading the chants was arrested for shouting “Zionism is Fascism”.

Before this meeting, on 3 February, the state promoted a public day against the rise of the extreme right led by the AFD (Alternative für Deutschland) party, which took place in front of the Bundestag with hundreds of thousands of attendees. Some of the groups in solidarity with Palestine convened a block to have a presence and denounce the hypocrisy of parliamentary parties and self-called “left” sectors, in supporting Israel and silence the Palestinian voices within the anti-fascist movement. From the outset, the police banned Palestinian flags under the pretext of ‘you cannot show national flags’ (while Israeli flags with rainbows were flying unpunished). The Palestinian flag is not a national flag, but a symbol of indigenous and anti-racist resistance. One of the organizers of the block and recognized activist, Rachel Shapiro, of Jewish origin – suffered an assault by a German man. He spat in her face while accusing her of antisemitism. Is there anything more antisemitic than a German spitting at a Jewish person in the middle of 2023? At the end of the act I heard one protester talking to another saying, ‘I don’t understand why these people should come with Palestinian flags to the demonstration against the AFD’. This phrase seemed to me to be very conclusive of the problem with the German left.

This is an absolute tokenization of antisemitism, so obsessive as an excuse to expand their discourses of anti-Arab hatred and Islamophobic racism. I would like to highlight the slogan “Nie wieder ist jezts” (or ‘never again is now’) refering to the Holocaust. It is on the lips of the entire German population which is currently legitimizing the genocide against the Palestinian people. It has the aim of evading the historical responsibility that Germany has both for the crimes of Nazism, and for the participation in the foundation of the state of Israel. Germany is an imperial power interested in the geo-resources of Palestine, just as the United States, Great Britain and all the Western powers that continue to legitimize an illegal, genocidal, supremacist and fascist state.

Despite this, solidarity with Palestine has grown substantially since October 7. Street protests have gained ground, thanks also to international pressure and solidarity throughout Europe and other countries. Especially in the cultural context, where groups of artists and activists have coordinated a movement to publicly denounce all institutions giving voice to the Zionist narrative. These actions on occasion, resulted in institutional crisis, or being forced to rethink their pro-Israeli policies. For example, the Berlinale film festival, which at the request of the mayor of Berlin of the CDU (Union Christian Democrats of Germany) Kai Wegner, included representatives of the extreme right AFD in the program. These were disinvited because of protests. Later, Wegner criticized the speech of an Israeli filmmaker who called for equality with the Palestinians, which Wagner called antisemitism.

Another action was a performative activity at the Hamburger Bahnhof gallery which exposed the artist Tania Bruguera. The organisers of the action, Thawra and Palästina Spricht accused Bruguera of expressing “unconditional support for Israel” and of supporting a demand by the government in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt that applications for German citizenship must sign a loyalty oath to Israel (this demand has since been withdrawn).

As a final reflection I would like to emphasize two points: the first is to consider the Zionist ideology as something inherently antisemitic. This given the current context and witnessing how the German extreme right (and all other parties) silences, delegitimizes and attacks any Jewish voice critical of Israel. A radical opposition between Judaism and Zionism is needed. Zionism has stripped the Jewish identity and used it to carry out ethnic cleansing in the service of the West. Germany remains in the same historical role as it did 80 years ago. And the second is the relevance of organizing, being present at the demonstrations, talking about Palestine in our environments and always questioning racist discourses. The situation in Germany is critical but thanks to international solidarity our movement has been able to consolidate, grow and confront the state, the police and the dominant narrative. For this reason I encourage each and every reader of this article to participate in your local calls and continue with BDS, and thus strengthen the struggle for the liberation of Palestine and all the oppressed peoples of the world.