 Friends, hello, this is Janis Welfarekis. This speech was meant to be transmitted, broadcast, spoken live during the Palestine Congress in Berlin Friday the 12th of April. But because the German police, egged on by the whole of the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany, burst in and prevented Jews, Palestinians and the rest of us who wanted to have a Congress during which to discuss peace, reconciliation, coexistence, universal human rights from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. German police proved beyond reasonable doubt by bursting in and interrupting the live stream, grabbing the microphone, ending that magnificent Congress that fascism does not need to win government in order to be in power. So allow me to say what I was going to say if the live stream was not so rudely interrupted by German coppers. Friends, congratulations and heartfelt thanks for being here, even though we were interrupted, despite the threats, despite the police state, despite the panoply of the German press, despite the German political system that demonizes you for being here today. Why a Palestinian Congress, Mr. Vorfakis, a German journalist asked me recently? Because, as Hanana Ashraway once said, we cannot rely on the silenced to tell us about their suffering. Today, Hanana Ashraway's reason has grown depressingly stronger because we cannot rely on the silenced who are also massacred and starved to tell us about the massacres and the starvation. But there's another reason too, because a proud, a decent people, the people of Germany, are being led down a perilous road to a heartless society by being made to associate themselves with another genocide carried out again in their name with their complicity. I'm neither Jewish nor Palestinian, but I am incredibly proud to be here, amongst Jews and Palestinians, to blend my voice for peace and universal human rights, with Jewish voices for peace and universal human rights, with Palestinian voices for peace and universal human rights. Being together here today, even though we were so rudely interrupted by German police, being together here is proof that who existence is not only possible, but that it is here already. Why not a Jewish Congress, Mr. Varoufakis, the same German journalist asked me, imagining that he was being smart? I welcomed his question, for if a single Jew is threatened, anyway, just because she or he is Jewish, I shall wear the star of David on my lapel and offer my solidarity, whatever the cost, whatever it takes. So let's be clear. If Jews were under attack anywhere in the world, I would be the first to canvas for a Jewish Congress in which to register our solidarity. Similarly, when Palestinians are massacred because they are Palestinians, under the dogma that to be dead and Palestinian must mean that you are Hamas. I shall wear my kefir and offer my solidarity, whatever the cost, whatever it takes to the people of Palestine. Universal human rights, folks, are either universal or they are nothing. With this in mind, I answered the journalist's question with a few questions of my own. Where two million Israeli Jews thrown out 80 years ago from their homes into an open air prison and kept for those 80 years in that open air prison without access to the outside world with minimal food and water, no chance of a normal life, an opportunity to travel, and being bombed periodically for 80 years? No. Are Israeli Jews being starved intentionally by an army of occupation, their children riding on the floor screaming from hunger? No. Are there thousands of Jewish injured children with no surviving parents crawling through the rubble as we speak, the rubble of what used to be their homes? No. Are Israeli Jews being bombed by the world's most sophisticated aeroplanes and bombs today? No. Are Israeli Jews experiencing complete ecocide of what little land they can still call their own, not one tree left under which to seek shade or whose fruit to taste? No. Are Israeli Jewish children being killed today, no, by snipers at the orders of a member state of the United Nations? No. Are Israeli Jews driven out of their homes by armed gangs today? No. Is Israel fighting for its existence today? No. If the answer to any of these questions had been yes, I would be participating in a Jewish Solidarity Congress today. Friends, today, we would have loved to have a decent, democratic, mutually respectful debate on how to bring peace about, on how to bring universal human rights for everyone, Jews and Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And to have this debate with people who think differently to us, we would have loved that. Sadly, as the German police just proven, and the whole of the German political system has been trying to do now for weeks to ban our conference, they did not allow this. Indeed, the whole of the political spectrum, from the CDU and CSU to the FDP to the SPD, the Greens, and remarkably, two leaders of the Linke in Berlin. Shame on you comrades, shame on you. You all joined forces to ensure that our civilized debate may be with them. A debate in which we may disagree agreeably, never takes place in Berlin, never takes place in Germany. I say to them, you want to silence us, to ban us, to demonize us, to accuse us. Therefore, leave us with no choice, but to meet your ridiculous accusations with very logical, fair accusations of our own. You chose this, not us. You accuse us of anti-Semitic hatred. We accuse you of being the anti-Semite's best friend. When you equate the right of Israel to commit war crimes with the right of Israeli Jews to defend themselves, you accuse us of supporting terrorism. We accuse you of equating legitimate resistance to an apartheid state with atrocities against civilians, which I have always and will always condemn, whomever commits them, Palestinians, Jewish settlers, my own family, whomever. We accuse you of not recognizing the duty of the people of Gaza to tear down the wall of the open prison in which they've been encased, confined for 80 years and of equating this act of tearing down the wall of shame, which is no more defensible, remember, than the Berlin Wall was, with acts of terror. You accuse us of trivializing Hamas's October 7th attacks. We accuse you of trivializing the 80 years of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the erection of an unclad apartheid system across Israel-Palestine. We accuse you of trivializing Netanyahu's long-term support of Hamas, a support that Netanyahu has lent Hamas as a means of destroying the two-state solution that you claim to favor. We accuse you of trivializing the unprecedented terror unleashed by the Israeli army on the people of Gaza in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem. You accuse the organizers of today's Congress that we are, and I quote from your text, not interested in talking about possibilities for peaceful coexistence in the Middle East against the background of the war in Gaza. Are you serious? Have you lost your mind? We accuse you of supporting a German state that is, after the United States, the largest supplier of the weapons, that the Netanyahu regime uses to massacre Palestinians as part of a grand plan to make a two-state solution and peaceful coexistence between Jews and Palestinians absolutely impossible. We accuse you of never answering the pertinent question that every German must answer. How much Palestinian blood must flow before your justified guilt over the Holocaust is washed away? So let's be clear. We are here in Berlin with our Palestinian Congress, which your police state has disrupted and banned. We are here nevertheless, because unlike the German political system and the German state and the German media, we condemn genocide and war crimes regardless of who is perpetrating them. Just as we opposed apartheid in the American South or in South Africa, we oppose apartheid in the land of Israel, Palestine, no matter who has the upper hand. Because we stand for universal human rights, freedom and equality among Jews, Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians in the ancient land of Palestine. And so that we're even clearer on the questions that journalists or politicians put to us. Legitimate or malignant, let me be clear. Do I condemn Hamas' atrocities? I condemn every single atrocity. Whomever is the perpetrator or the victim? What I do not condemn and I will never condemn is armed resistance to an apartheid system designed as part of a slow burning but inexorable ethnic cleansing program. But differently, I condemn every attack on civilians while at the same time I celebrate anyone who risks their life to tear down the wall of shame. Is Israel not engaged in a war for its very existence, as some say? No, it is not. Israel is a nuclear armed state with perhaps the most technologically advanced army in the world and the panoply of the United States military machine having its back. There is no symmetry with Hamas. Hamas is a group which can cause and has caused serious damage to Israelis but which has no capacity whatsoever to defeat Israel's military. Or even to prevent Israel from continuing to implement the slow genocide, not so slow these days, of Palestinians under the system of apartheid that has been erected with longstanding American, German and European Union support. Are Israelis not justified to fear that Hamas wants to exterminate them? Of course they are. Jews have suffered a holocaust. A holocaust that was preceded with pogroms and a deep-seated antisemitism permeating the whole of Europe and the Americas for centuries. It is only natural that Israelis live in fear of a new pogrom if the Israeli army falls. I understand that. That's perfectly understandable. However, by imposing apartheid on their Palestinian neighbors, by treating them like untermention, subhumans, the Israeli state is stoking the fires of antisemitism. It is strengthening those Palestinians and Israelis who won't just one-year late each hour. And in the end, apartheid contributes to the awful security consuming Jews in Israel and the diaspora. To put it bluntly, apartheid against Palestinians is the Israelis' worst self-defense. What about antisemitism? Antisemitism is always a clear and present danger, a danger that must be eradicated, especially amongst the ranks of the global left and the Palestinians fighting for Palestinian civil liberties everywhere. Others ask, why don't Palestinians pursue their objectives by peaceful means? They did. The PLO recognized Israel, even though Israel never recognized Palestine. And the PLO famously renounced armed struggle. And what did they get for it? Absolute humiliation and systematic ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, it's going on as we speak. That is what nurtured Hamas and elevated Hamas in the eyes of many Palestinians as the only alternative to the genocide of the Palestinian people under Israel's apartheid. What should be done now? What might bring peace to Israel-Palestine? First, an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. Second, the release of all hostages, Hamas's hostages and the thousands of hostages held by Israel. That must be the first step towards a peace process under the auspices of the United Nations, supported by a commitment by the international community to end apartheid and to safeguard equal civil liberties and equal political rights for everyone, for all, what should replace Israeli apartheid. What that must be left to Israelis and Palestinians to decide, to decide between the two-state solution and the solution of a single federal, secular state. But under the condition that the international community has made it clear to everyone that there will be equal political rights and equal civil liberties from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Friends, in the final analysis, we are here because vengeance is a lazy form of grief. We're here to promote not vengeance, but peace and coexistence across Israel-Palestine. We're here to tell German Democrats, including our former comrades of the Linke, who have been a great disappointment, that they have covered themselves in shame long enough, that two wrongs do not one right make, that allowing Israel to get away with war crimes is not going to ameliorate the legacy of Germany's crimes against the Jewish people. Beyond today's Congress, we have a duty, in Germany in particular, to change the conversation. We have a duty to persuade the vast majority of decent Germans out there that universal human rights is what matters. That never again means never again for anyone, Jew, Palestinian, Ukrainian, Russian, Yemeni, Sudanese, Rwandan, for everyone, everywhere. In this context, I am pleased to announce that Diem25's German political party, Mera25, will be on the ballot paper in the European Parliament elections this coming June in Germany. Mera25 Germany will be seeking the vote of German humanists who crave at least one member of European Parliament representing Germany and calling out the European Union's complicity in genocide, a complicity that is Europe's greatest gift to the antisemites in Europe and beyond. I salute you all and I suggest that we never forget that none of us is free if one of us is in chains. Carpe Diem.