Manufacturing what political scientist Donatella della Porta describes as a “moral panic dynamic” of antisemitism has proven itself to be a very effective way for post-October 7 Germany to shift public attention away from the reality of German complicity in yet another genocide, while simultaneously refashioning the fight against Jew-hatred “into an instrument of racialisation and repression” against Palestine solidarity.
Just a week after the United4Gaza mass protest in Berlin, at the end of which police arrested co-organiser Rjoob, the co-governing Social Democrats (SPD) passed a motion to combat antisemitism at their federal party congress.
Entitled “Never again is now! Protect Jewish life!” in a nod to last year’s much criticised Bundestag resolution of near-identical name-giving, Motion I06 is yet another red herring designed to distract the public from the real problem: "Israel’s" genocide in Gaza and the corresponding anti-Palestinian authoritarianism of the colluding German state in the service of a foreign entity.