Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, backed a bill to criminalize the denial of Israel’s right to exist on Friday, a motion that constitutional experts said could jeopardize freedom of expression.
According to the bill, anyone denying Israel’s right to exist or calling for its abolition would be punished with a prison sentence of up to five years under the regulation. The bill will be examined by the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, after its summer recess.
I don’t read this as defending it, just explaining the German government’s view of antisemitism.
I’ll go further and note that this broad definition adopted by the government led to multiple instances of Jews being arrested for antisemitism for peacefully protesting the apartheid. I’m not defending the law at all, just lamenting that it’s sadly not new, as far as I can tell.
So I guess I also want to know if anything changed or if they just wanted to pat themselves on the back for formally codifying it.
That was my bad if they weren’t defending the law (see my comment to their response).
And yes, I’m aware of the irony that German Jewish people were arrested for their stance against the Palestinian genocide.