On Friday, April 12, the Palestinian legislature began in Berlin, scheduled as a three-day event. During the speeches of the first panelists, German police surrounded the area with cordon, after which they interrupted the deliberations and ordered the shut down of the broadcast on the Internet. respective participants were detained. Previously, the German Ministry of the Interior banned respective persons invited to attend the convention, including Janis Warufakis.
We print a evidence of the speech Warufakis intended to make at the convention, which he published in the form of a video on Twitter/X.
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Friends! Congratulations and thank you wholeheartedly for being here – despite threats, despite the armed police gathered in front of the building, despite the crowd of German media, against the German state and against the German political strategy that demonizes you due to the fact that you are here.
A German writer late asked me, “Mr Warufakis, why the Palestinian Congress?” Because, as Hanan Asrawi erstwhile said, “Those who have been forced to stay silent will not tell us about their suffering.”
Though depressing, these words present sound even more pronounced. People forced to stay silent, massacred and hungry will tell us about these slaughters and this famine.
However, there is another reason for the Palestinian legislature to be held in Berlin. specified is that the German nation, a arrogant nation of decent people, begins to be associated with another genocide committed in his name, with his complicity. This way leads to a heartless society.
I'm not Jewish, I'm not Palestinian either. However, I am truly arrogant to stand here, among Jews and Palestinians, joining my voice in defence of peace and universal human rights to judaic voices in defence of peace and universal human rights, to Palestinian voices in defence of peace and universal human rights. Our common presence today, in this very place, proves that our coexistence is not only possible, but is already ongoing. Here and now!
The same German journalist, most likely impressed by his own intellect, asked: “Why not the judaic Congress, Mr Warufakis?” I've been waiting for that question. For if there is simply a threat anywhere in the planet to even 1 hebrew or Jew, I immediately put the star David in the lapel and offer my solidarity at any cost.
To be clear: if Jews were attacked anywhere in the world, I would begin to agitate for the judaic legislature to express our solidarity with those attacked. So now that the Palestinians are slaughtered due to the fact that they are Palestinians, due to the fact that the dogma says that since they died, they were definitely Hamas, I presume kefija as a sign of my solidarity, regardless of the price I can pay for it.
Universal human rights must be universal. Otherwise, they're just empty words.
So I answered the question of a German journalist, asking him any of my own questions:
Are 2 million Israeli Jews who were thrown out of the home 80 years ago and sentenced to prison in the open air inactive in prison, without access to the outside world, with a minimum of food and water, no chance of average life, no anticipation of leaving? Have they been bombed periodically for 80 years? Nope.
Does individual deliberately starve Israeli Jews with the aid of the occupying army? Are their children starving on earth? Nope. Are thousands of wounded judaic children whose parents died in the ruins of their erstwhile homes? Nope. Are Israeli Jews bombarded from state-of-the-art aircraft, utilizing state-of-the-art bombs? Nope.
Are Israel’s Jews experiencing complete ecological demolition on a tiny part of the earth, which they may yet consider to be their own, where there is not a single tree left in which the shadows could take refuge, whose fruits could feed themselves? Nope.
Are the children of Israeli Jews killed present by snipers at the orders of a United Nations state? Nope.
Are armed bands driving Israeli Jews out of homes today? Nope.
Is Israel fighting for endurance today? Nope.
If the answer to 1 of my questions were yes, I would rush to the Solidarity legislature with the Jews.
Today we dream of an honest, democratic and respectful discussion on how to reconstruct peace and universal human rights for all Jews and Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. A discussion with people who have different views than ours.
Unfortunately, the full German political strategy decided not to let this. In a joint statement, the CDU-CSU and FPD parties, as well as the SPD and the Greens, and, unusually, the 2 Die Linke leaders, have joined forces to engage in any kind of civilised discussion in which we can kindly agree that there are differences between us, never in Germany.
Here's what I gotta say: you want to silence us. Delegalize. Demonize. Charge. That's why you leave us no another option: we gotta answer your accusations ourselves. It was your choice, not ours.
You're accusing us of anti-Semitic hatred. We accuse you of being the best friend of all anti-Semite, for you are a sign of equality between the right of Israel to commit war crimes and the right of Israeli Jews to self-defense.
You're accusing us of supporting terrorism. We accuse you of putting a sign of equality between legitimate opposition to the apartheid state and the atrocities against the civilian population, which I have always condemned and condemned, no substance who allows them: Palestinians, judaic settlers, my own household or anyone else.
We accuse you of not recognizing the right of the people of Gaza to demolish the walls of the prison under the open sky, in which they have been locked up for 80 years, and that you are putting a sign of equality between this act of destroying this wall of shame, which cannot be defended as it erstwhile was impossible to defend the Berlin Wall – and acts of terror.
You're accusing us of trivializing Hamas' acts of panic on October 7, last year. We accuse you of trivializing 80 years of Israeli cultural cleansing and building an iron apartheid strategy between Israel and Palestine.
We accuse you of trivializing the long-term support Benjamin Netanyahu gave Hamas to torpedo the two-state solution you claim to advocate. We accuse you of trivializing unprecedented panic unleashed by the Israeli army against the people of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
You accuse the organizers of today's legislature that, I quote, "we are not curious in discussing possible peaceful coexistence in the mediate East in the context of the Gaza War." Really? Have you lost your minds? We are accusing you of supporting the German state, which is the second largest supplier of weapons utilized by the Netanyahu government to carry out massacres on Palestinians as part of a large plan to prevent the two-state and peaceful coexistence of Jews and Palestinians.
We accuse you of not taking the problem of answering what a timely question all German must answer: how much more Palestinian blood is to be shed before this blood washes out the deserved guilt for the Holocaust?
Let us be clear: we held our Palestinian legislature here in Berlin, due to the fact that unlike the German political strategy and the German media, we condemn genocide and war crimes – no substance who they are. due to the fact that we do not agree to apartheid on the land of Israel and Palestine no substance who is the top. Just as we opposed apartheid in the American South and South Africa. We advocate universal human rights, freedom and equality among Jews, Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians in the ancient lands of Palestine.
I besides request to be clear about the legitimate and shameful question that always needs to be answered: do I condemn Hamas' crimes? I condemn all crime no substance who's the culprit or who's the victim. However, I do not condemn the armed opposition to the apartheid system, which is part of a slow but unrelenting cultural cleansing strategy. In another words, I condemn all attack on the civilian population and at the same time worship anyone who, risking his own life, tries to teardrop down this wall.
Does not Israel wage war on survival? Well, no. Israel is simply a state with atomic arsenal, possibly the most technologically advanced army in the world, with the tremendous support of the American war machine. There is no symmetry between Israel and Hamas – a group that, yes, can inflict painful blows, but it is not at all able to defeat the Israeli army, nor even to argue the Israel-led slow genocide of Palestinians in the apartheid system, created with years of support from the US and the European Union.
Do the Israelites have no reason to fear that Hamas would destruct them? Of course they do! Jews suffered during the Holocaust, which preceded the pogroms and profoundly rooted anti-Semitism, which for centuries had been steeped in Europe and both America. It is not surprising, then, that the Israelis fear fresh pogroms if the Israeli army should lay down their weapons. However, through the introduction of apartheid in their neighbours and the treatment of them as subhuman Israel fuels the flames of anti-Semitism, it cheers the Palestinians and Israelis in the pursuit of common annihilation and yet contributes to the strengthening of the cruel insecurity that plagues the Jews in Israel and the diaspora.
Apartheid towards Palestinians is Israel's worst "self-defense".
What about anti-Semitism? His spectrum is always clear and present. It must be exterminated especially in the ranks of the global Left and Palestinians fighting for civilian liberties for Palestinians worldwide.
Why do Palestinians not strive to accomplish their goals in a peaceful way? They tried. The Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the State of Israel and condemned the armed struggle. What did she get in return? Total Humiliation and systematic cultural cleansing. Hamas began to grow on this very ground, gaining designation in the eyes of many Palestinians who began to see him as the only alternate to slow genocide under Israeli apartheid conditions.
What's next? What can reconstruct peace between Israel and Palestine? Emergency ceasefire. The release of all hostages: those held by Hamas and thousands imprisoned by Israel. The UN peace process, with the support and commitment of the global community, aimed at abolishing apartheid and ensuring equal civilian liberties for all.
What will be replaced by apartheid, let the Israelis and Palestinians decide, choosing between a two-state solution and 1 secular national state.
Friends, we're gathered here due to the fact that revenge is simply a rotten form of mourning. We are not here to encourage revenge, but peace, the coexistence of Israel and Palestine.
We are here to tell the German democrats, including our erstwhile comrades at Die Linke, that they have been disgraced long adequate that evil must not be fought, that turning a blind eye to Israeli war crimes will not equal the account of German crimes against the judaic people.
And going beyond today's convention, we have 1 more responsibility: we request to change the narrative. We must convince most decent Germans that universal human rights are the most important. That "never again" means never again. For everyone: for Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Russians, Yemeni, Sudanese, Rwandans. For everyone and everywhere.
Therefore, I am pleased to announce that the European Parliament elections of June this year will include the German political organization MERA25 from the European Democracy Movement 2025 (DiEM25) with the hope of winning the votes of German humanists who would want for a Euro MP or MEP representing Germany and openly speaking about how the EU is putting its hand in genocide, its involvement, which is the best gift for anti-Semites in Europe and in the world.
I urge that we never forget that as long as 1 of us is in chains, no of us are free.
The velocity that I could not remove due to the fact that German police burst into our Berlin avenue to disband our Palestine legislature (1930s style). justice for youselves the kind of community Germany is becoming erstwhile it police bans the following words:
Friends,
Congratulations, and heartfelt... pic.twitter.com/6Rnw2bwQPL
— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) April 12, 2024
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Record of a distant occurrence by Janis Warufakis published in stock Common Dreams. From English she translated Dorota Blabolil-Obrębska.
