The Nazis even introduced the idea of \u201cgroup insult,\u201d prosecuting people for insulting entire organisations such as the SA or SS. At its core, Obermann notes, the law was less about protecting dignity than about compelling the less powerful to defer to the powerful, an authoritarian legacy that still echoes in Germany\u2019s courts today.<\/p>\n
Insult and slander, when directed at Palestinians, however, remain perfectly legal. German media, politicians, and individuals have repeatedly called me a \u201cJew hater,\u201d \u201cterrorist sympathiser,\u201d \u201cantisemite.\u201d Their rights? Protected. I was advised multiple times by legal experts that I would lose if I took any of these people to court. Insult law in Germany is not meant to protect the vulnerable, but to uphold the hegemonic politics of the state and shield its actors from accountability.<\/p>\n
Weaponising antisemitism<\/p>\n
Take the case of Mahmud, a German-Palestinian activist arrested at a demonstration in Frankfurt before thousands of people. I witnessed police strip the microphone, punch a protester in their way, and drag him from the stage. His \u201ccrime\u201d was reciting a poem that drew parallels between the crimes of Nazi Germany and the genocide in Gaza. In his words:<\/p>\n
\u00a0History has clearly repeated itself
\u00a0Instead of the Jews, Palestinians are now under threat
\u00a0The same thing does not have to happen in exactly the same way
\u00a0To say what everyone can see with their own eyes
\u00a0It was Holocaust then and it is Holocaust today
\u00a0No matter who denies it, people will have known it later
\u00a0But it will be too late\u2014where was your intervention?
\u00a0Genocide is happening again and it is dividing humanity.<\/p>\n
For these lines, Mahmud was banned from the demonstration and arrested. Authorities accused him of \u201cHolocaust relativisation,\u201d while the media seized on the charge to brand the entire protest as antisemitic.<\/p>\n
The so-called crime of Holocaust relativisation falls under hate-speech law, criminalising the approval, denial, or trivialisation of the Holocaust \u201cin a manner that is capable of disturbing public peace.\u201d But what about comparisons meant to evoke empathy?<\/p>\n
German memory culture considers the Holocaust a one-of-a-kind atrocity, beyond comparison, beyond historical continuity. Because unconditional support for Israel is central to the country\u2019s Politik, drawing comparisons between the Holocaust and Gaza is treated as especially egregious.<\/p>\n
Both former Chancellor Olaf Scholz<\/a> and current Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> have publicly denied that a genocide is taking place in Gaza. By this logic, calling it one, or comparing it to the Holocaust, becomes a crime. Of course, this restriction does not extend to Germans relativising the Holocaust in other ways, by claiming \u201cFree Palestine is the new Heil Hitler\u201d <\/a>or by equating Palestinians themselves with Nazis.<\/p>\n These are not isolated cases, however.<\/p>\n Double standards<\/p>\n Court Watch Berlin has documented over 10,000 investigations in the city alone, clustered around protest arrests, chants, and social media posts. A common charge, often accompanied by police violence, is the chant: \u201cFrom the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,\u201d which German authorities falsely claim is a Hamas slogan. By contrast, openly violent Zionist or racist incitement often goes unpunished.<\/p>\n Court Watch observed in over 200 cases a consistent double standard: judges and prosecutors routinely rely on police as \u201cneutral\u201d witnesses, even when those same officers were the ones enacting violence against protesters.<\/p>\n I witnessed this first-hand. In one case, a Palestinian activist was accused of resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. When brought in to testify, the officer admitted he remembered nothing: not her face, not what she allegedly did. When the judge asked if her actions could have been self-defence, he answered, \u201cMaybe. I can\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n And still she was found guilty.<\/p>\n All of this is intentional. The German state uses its courts and its so-called \u201chate speech\u201d and \u201cinsult\u201d laws to throw the pro-Palestinian movement into a bureaucratic nightmare. Activists are forced to spend their time, resources, and money defending themselves before judges who parrot the political language of genocide-complicit politicians.<\/p>\n Germany must stop being treated as a democratic safe haven. The repression of pro-Palestinian voices is not a deviation from its legal system but its very function. Laws on insult, hate speech, and Holocaust relativisation are wielded not to protect vulnerable communities but to police dissent and enforce state ideology.<\/p>\n This is why activists are dragged through endless trials, fined thousands of euros, and branded criminals for words, while the German government ships weapons to Israel. It is why courts elevate \u201cIsrael\u2019s right to exist\u201d above the right to free expression, and more importantly valued more than the right for Palestinians to not be massacred. And it is why, in Germany today, words of solidarity with Palestinians are punished more harshly than the violence those words seek to end.<\/p>\n In Germany, words are treated as more violent than shattered limbs.<\/p>\n Hebh Jamal is a Palestinian American journalist based in Germany.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Follow Hebh on X and Instagram:\u00a0@hebh_jamal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Join](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Whatsapp-TNA-desktop.webp.webp\")
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