 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome. I'm Meron Khalili. We are DM25, a radical political movement for Europe. And this is another live discussion with our coordinating team featuring subversive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. Tonight, tonight we are, excuse me, just have to shut something off, start again. Tonight, we'll be looking once again at what can happen over here in Europe when you speak out against Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, which to date has killed over 30,000 people, most of them women and children. And specifically, we'll be examining the disturbing events of last Friday in Berlin at the Palestine Congress. Now, this was a vital three-day conference organized by multiple groups, including us, DM25, as well as Jewish voice for peace. Its goal was to unite activists around a ceasefire for Gaza and to examine Germany's complicity in Israel's murderous campaign. But shortly after the conference started, German police stormed the building. They blocked access to anyone trying to get in. They shut off the power, disabled the live stream and ordered everyone to leave. They detained dozens of activists who were attending, including many Jewish ones. They deported one of the speakers, a surgeon who had treated people in Gaza. And then we learned that our own Yanis Faroufakis, who was also due to speak at the event, had been banned too, not only from making political speeches in Germany, but also from doing so over Zoom. Now, Berlin's mayor said of the crackdown that we do not tolerate anti-Semitism, hatred and incitement against Jews, as images of his police enforcers arresting Jews for protesting genocide filled screens around the world. The German Interior Minister suggested that the conference was spreading Islamist propaganda and hatred against Jews. She praised the Berlin police and said, we need immediate tough action when such crimes are committed, when the actual crime of the conference was just to talk about the mass slaughter of women and children that continues to this day with German bombs and German support. The lengths to which Germany will go to silence criticism of Israel, to atone for orchestrating a genocide in the past and to obscure its role in a genocide in the present are truly astounding and revealing about our political landscape today. As activists advocating for Palestine, we should examine it and learn from it. So tonight, we'll be putting this act of repression under the microscope. Yanis Varoufakis is here as well as colleagues who attended the Palestine Congress, as well as a special guest, Georg Ismail, who helped to organize the event. They'll be weighing in on what really happened, what was the reaction, what lessons could we draw and what could it all mean for free speech and for Palestine. And of course, you, you out there, if you've got thoughts, comments, rants, anything you want to say, anything you want to add, things to get off your chest, watching this live on YouTube, just put your comments and questions in the YouTube chat and we'll put them to our panel. Let's kick it off with Yanis. Thank you, Ma'am. I can't wait to hear from Georg as an organizer of the Palestine Congress and also from Karen Derigo, the person in charge of our attempt to get elected in the European Parliament elections in Germany. Karen is leading our list of candidates for the European Parliament. I wasn't there. I was meant to connect through Zoom, which I now find out even that I can't do or at least there is a threat that if I do it, I will be crossing the legal maze in which presents itself as a rules-based German system. Allow me to offer a broader perspective. I feel very honored to have been banned by this German government. But, you know, I don't have the right to think personally because there are people who are, as we speak, terrified of what might happen to them. If they are associated with the struggle that they believe in for political rights in Palestine, in Germany for that matter, because I have a certain presence in the media, which to some extent shames me. If something happens to me, it will become news. But many of our volunteers, many of our supporters, many of the people out there who are carrying the weight of the struggle on their shoulders don't feel as secure as they do. And we have to seriously worry about them and work towards their safety and psychological policing. So, having made that preface, allow me to take a broader view of what has happened last week. And I'm going to start the week, the account of last week, of this momentous week, with what happened at the beginning of last week, on Monday, because on Monday, I was in Milano, in Italy. Nothing to do with what we are discussing today, but I think at the same time, everything to do with what we are discussing today. In Milano, first I addressed a Meta 25 Italian meeting, but then the next morning, on Tuesday, I gave a speech to a gathering of hundreds of European financial analysts. In which, without knowing, of course, what was going to follow during the rest of the week, especially last Friday and Saturday, talking to these financiers, I outlined my analysis of what's going on in the German economy. In particular, I outlined dire domestications about the long-term damage inflicted upon Germany's social economy by decades of austerity, combined with money printing, that hugely impressive largesse on behalf of financiers, you know, the whole Merkel-Scheuble period, extending to the Olaf Scholz era. To my surprise, those hard-nosed financiers, many of the suits and some women, not many, hundreds of them in Milano, they applauded my analysis. And many of them approached me afterwards, this is what was all done behind closed doors, they approached me to say that I was right. I have to tell you that when these financiers hear me come up with prognosis of substantial economic distress, especially in Germany, and I put forward these ideas, and then they come to me and they say that I'm right. I'm very vexed, very worried, deep down, I hope that I'm wrong. Okay, and then there was a speech that I never got delivered in Berlin, which left me not merely troubled, but literally speechless. Let's go much further back, you all know, but maybe many of our viewers won't know, that it all began on the 8th of October, the day after Hamas attacked Israel when I was in Berlin, visiting our Merit 25 Deutschland comrades and participating in events. We'll remember that event, some of you. And on that day, I found out about what had happened in Gaza during a television interview. And today, inevitable question, do I condemn Hamas? I replied that I condemn every single atrocity whomever has committed it, but I do not condemn armed resistance to an apartheid system, designed as part of a slow-burning, ethnic cleansing problem. And I made the point, which really annoyed a lot of people, that as a European, I feel the need to refrain from condemning either the Israelis or the Palestinians when it is us Europeans who have caused this never-ending cycle of tragedies, after practicing rabid antisemitism for centuries, leading up to the uniquely, to pogroms and more pogroms and more pogroms leading up to the Holocaust. We Europeans have been complicit for decades with a slow genocide of initially the Israelis and now the Palestinians, as if two wrongs or two genocides make one right. A days later, it all began with the rescinding of an invitation I had from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, who had invited me to collect the prize and deliver the prestigious autobiography lecture. Then the plot thickened. You will recall last February, mid-February, when I was in Berlin to help Raoul Martinez, our comrade British filmmaker, artist and philosopher who had made that six-part documentary centering around me, called In the Eye of the Storm. And remember, we were due to launch that documentary in the Babylon Theater in Berlin. And then we found out that Berlin's police and municipality were leaning heavily on the proprietor of Babylon to cancel the event. When asked for the reasons why they were so insistent on banning us, mid-February, the authorities gave to the proprietor a single word reply, Varoufakis. Interestingly, Babylon's Jewish proprietor told the police where to get off and that he would not budge. And if you recall, he was really touching how he stayed in situ during the event, walking up and down the packed auditorium and auditorium packed and bursting at the rims with Jewish, Palestinian and German supporters. I'm saying this because it's important to put the whole thing of what happened last weekend in context. Now, a month ago, I got a very curious email from my German publisher, Kunstmann. It warned me ominously that if I participate in the Palestine Congress, which we as Merit 25 Dodges run together with Jewish Voice for Peace and many other organizations, we were putting together. And I was told by my publisher that if I participate, this will overshadow my next book's reception in Germany and that it will be highly problematic. It's very interesting that my publisher who are not that of a with what's going on in the political sphere were informed that there will be problems with my book if I dare participate in this Congress, long time before the Congress. Of course, as a result of this rather rude email, I severed my links with that publisher, even though we've published six books together for the last 12 years or so. Essentially, what has been happening is in Germany as the body count in Gaza is mounting and hearings on the International Court of Justice are challenging Germany's official policy of that reason of the logic of the state that Israel security is German security or reason that it's clear that the authorities are increasingly lashing out. Remember, Iris Hefetz, our friend and colleague in Berlin having been arrested for anti-Semitism and Israeli Jewish woman being arrested by a white Aryan policeman in Berlin for anti-Semitism because she dared have a placard as an Israeli as a Jew stopped the genocide in Gaza, which of course prompted us to remember back then to say if she had said as an Israeli and a Jew I support the genocide in Gaza that would probably be okay, right? Because in Germany, you can only talk about genocide if you are supporting. Now, going to last week and to the beginning of it, there was a joint statement, remember, by Germany's almost entire political class, CDU, CSU, SPD, the Greens, and sadly two leaders of the link in Berlin that portrayed us as terror trivializers, as anti-Semites. They created the political pretext, they paved the ground politically for the police action that followed on Friday. Now, I don't need to remind you, I think Maren explained it very well and I think Eric will tell us more about what went down when our Congress eventually got out of the way, even though hundreds and hundreds of police were there to prevent it and the police burst into the building, into the venue and interrupted the proceedings. I recorded the speech that was unable to deliver through the live streaming which was interrupted and posted it on my personal blog. Clearly, the authorities were not very pleased. So on Saturday, we were informed during the demonstration that we staged in Berlin against that unprecedented police intervention, not intervention, incursion, invasion of the value that a ban on any political activity, my political activity was slapped of the kind that has been used only previously for ISIS operatives and the like. When our lawyers reminded the authorities that besides being an EU citizen, I was also a candidate in Germany as a German candidate for the European Parliament five years ago and collected quite a few votes, remember? There was an embarrassed silence and then this prohibition was replaced by another softer prohibition. In any case, I'm not going to go into the details now because I think we should wait for a couple of days. I believe we have caught the authorities in Germany lying through their teeth even in the written form and we shall be back with this because they broke their own rules and if Germans, even conservative Germans, dislike one thing, it is their own government breaking their own rules. So I will conclude with the essence of it all. It is now clear, at least to me, that Germany's state rationale, state raison, is not about protecting Jews. It is about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice. And it is also a sad reflection, going back to what I said right at the beginning about my speech in Milano to financiers. I think it's also a sad reflection on a country who's waning economic dominance, or to be more precise, the waning economic dominance of its oligarchy is fanning the flames of increasing and increasingly farcical authoritarianism. Georg, Karen, I'm looking forward to hearing your side of the story. Thanks, Janis. Yes, Georg, you have the floor. Georg is a member of the Student Coalition Berlin and Arbiter Inenmacht, and one of the co-organizers of the event that was so brutally shut down on Friday. Georg, please take it away and tell us your experience of what happened. Well, first of all, great thanks to the comrades of DiEM and Mera25 for offering their support in organizing this crucial congress, the Palestinian Congress. Without you, we would not have been able to accuse the German state as we did, especially after the authorities pushed the Berliner Sparkas to close down the bank account of the Judische Stimme, the Jewish voice here in Germany. And it was very important that you landed your organizational capacities as well to make this all happen. So thank you very much. I'd like to say a few broader words in the beginning as well, because I think it's important that, especially in Germany, we understand the situation that we are in generally, because I think for more than a decade now, you know, a world situation of wars, crisis, very often counterrevolution has been building up, a very, you know, instable world situation. And for a long time, Germany as the economic powerhouse of Europe thought to itself that imperialism was over. And this is a story that we have been told in schools as well, I myself have been told. And I think this illusion is now shattering in the world that we live in. And I think therefore that what's happening in Gaza is somewhat of a turning point for this whole narrative for Germany itself. And therefore it's very important that we are cautious, that we look very closely what's happening. Because in some sense, I think Germans, you know, unwavering support for this horrible genocide in Gaza is also both an attempt to absolve Germany by its own history and therefore breakthrough through all the, you know, foreign policy restraints that Germany had after the Second World War in the world situation that we are currently facing. And this is accompanied with a turn towards more authoritarian rule, Bonapetist policies inside Germany as well. So something that in fact Germany through its economy has been exporting, you know, to the whole world and in fact to a lot of European countries. I might personally remember very well what Germany did for example to Greece and I'm sure Janis does as well. Germany is now doing on other levels as well again, you know and the military level is part of this. So I think this is important for us to understand and therefore what's happening in Gaza is also about something that's happening in Germany and to German society. And I think it's very important that we as leftists and as the labor movement also remember something very important that the German socialist once then said that the main enemy is at home. And I think we tried to refresh that knowledge as well through the Palestine Congress when we said we accuse and of course we accuse Israel for carrying out this genocide, but we accuse Germany of supporting it and abetting it on all levels that you can imagine. And even though the Congress could not really take place, I think we brought the canvas and we brought, you know, the paint and the German government and the German authorities, they took it into their hands and they painted it in the front of the eyes of the whole world to see where we stand right now. And I think this was very important because this was nothing new. Germany had been doing this, the German authorities had been doing this for six months already that been brutalizing, you know, Palestinians, their allies throughout, you know, we have seen everything we've seen here in Berlin, youth being beaten into coma and after waking up being too afraid to speak out about it because they've feared that this would somehow impact their own lives. We've seen policemen stomping out candles of people who gathered to mourn, you know, their loved ones, their families. So this did not come as a surprise what we saw on Friday, but I'm glad that the whole world watched it and I think it's important that we go on from here on though, you know, accusations as they stand have never changed the world. People realizing something and then organizing, you know, together that has changed the world. And I think it's important that we also see in the, see the ways how the government restrained us from doing that by banning the Congress, by banning all those opportunities and that we come true on them in the coming weeks and months. And I think despite everything we did some, we did lay some grounds for this and this is also a call to comrades in other European countries and beyond Europe, get in touch with us. We will try to get in touch with you to organize together in order to stop the atrocities happening in Gaza and also to stop the German government from supplying weapons to Israel from giving any diplomatic, economic, financial, political support whatsoever. And I would also like to say a few words to, in response to Kai Wiegner and to Nancy Faeser, Kai Wiegner said that he was very happy, you know, that the Palestine Congress got crushed because one had to do everything against those hating Israel. I reply very simply, you know, if I had been a socialist in the 80s and before that I would have hated South Africa and I would have hated my government and my state for supporting it and I do the same with the Israeli state. This is not about religion. This is not about ethnicity. It's about a state that is pushing these things to the fore and I'm completely against that and then every same person should be, every person standing up for humanity and democracy should be. And to Nancy Faeser who said that we don't allow any Islamist propaganda and no hate against Jews. I think this also shows, you know, the danger of the moment that we are in right now and what's happened after 20 years of the so-called war on terror that fake news can be spread, you know, with such impunity by high officials of a government that claims that it is democratic. And it also shows, if we look at how the Palestine Congress could be banned, yes, a lot of illegal things happened, but it also shows how the so-called imperialist democracies have all kinds of means and measures in place, have implemented all kinds of laws over the last few decades that allow for all these things to happen. And I think in so far what's happening, what we see right now is a moment where all the colonialism, all the imperialism that Germany has been exporting to the world, it's coming now back to its own metropolis and we have it in our hands of what the response is. Are we going to forge new alliances with the comrades who've made their way to Europe, to Germany, will we take in their revolutionary experiences, will we build a new labor movement that can effectively fight back in order to stand at the side of our comrades, be they in Palestine, or be they in Sudan, or be they in Congo, or be they wherever. And can we also change and transform the trade unions and the labor movements here in order to achieve these goals, or will we fall back into an age of right-wing authoritarianism and possibly fascism as well? Because if we don't push back against the so-called progressive government in doing so, that is going to be the alternative waiting around the corner. And I think a lot of people have pointed this out. What the government is currently doing, they're basically laying the blueprint for any far-right government in Germany. And therefore it's very important, I think, that we build these international solidarities and fight back. And I'm very glad that we might have the chance to do this together. Thank you very much for that, Georg. Couple of comments from the chat. Non-Latifundia says, most of us thought fascism was over in Germany. What the fuck happened? Jesko says, big thanks to the organizers for voluntarily exposing German authoritarianism. Max Ford notes that the European Union is concerned about CO2 emissions from cows but remains silent about the bombs and missiles. And Gerd Schnepel says, no, sorry, Tarek says, please don't say Germany, he asks us. It's the government at fault and an unknown percentage of the people. Yes, I agree. I hope you will forgive us that shorthand that we're using here today. Karin, Karin Doriko, our lead candidate for our German bid for the upcoming European elections, who was also speaking at the conference or would have spoken a little bit more, had it not been shut down, thought was yours. Thank you, Marianne. So, this week I'm trying to kind of zoom out of all what happened in order to analyze it with the calm, but still I get so upset and because probably I told myself I am just way too naive. I had never expected that in 2024, in Germany, in Europe, something like this would have happened in front of my eyes. First of all, I also want to thank all the other organizations that organize with such a strength and such a dedication, this work for months because as I try to imagine it, there is like a climax on all this. The conference started organizing basically December, January, and we didn't expect to create such a big story, honestly. We would have liked, obviously, but it was not planned. The German government did us a great gift and we thanked them for that. But still, what I'm still super upset about is that it was really a provocation from the first moment, not only from freezing the bank account of the Judischer's team, because the donations and the tickets were collected there, not only for that, not only because they tried to cancel our fundraising event, not all because they spread so much hate propaganda through the media, which were just repeating, what also politicians were saying. So we were kind of attacked in every front and also the police trying to find out the location, trying to stop every possible step that we could take. So in this environment, we managed to really achieve actually what we wanted because a small group of people staying for peace, for solidarity, asking to stop a genocide, could actually, in the end, hold accountable the German government, because there was also a press conference and the minister of the interior was so embarrassing. I don't know what I would have done in their place. But still, what we lived on Friday was just a bridge of every democratic right there is in Europe. Not only, first of all, the police broke the electricity, to stop a live stream, well, not even a live stream, broke the electricity to stop a video that was pre-registered because just to act in the form of a preventive censorship, they always, they also try to present the press that we didn't accredited, letting them out from a back door in order to reduce even more the capacity of the room because from 800 people that were supposed to come in, we were suddenly 250. So all this restriction from any part have just confirmed that Germany has lost completely its narrative. They are scared because of what is happening and what can happen in the future because even though the ICJ doesn't have direct power, but still all the rest of the world I see what they are capable of and they will be stopped sooner or later. What I would like to remind again, this was a positive moment for us but we cannot forget that the important thing is that the ceasefire gets approved immediately and Germany has to stop to send weapons. This is what counts now and all the responsibles must be held responsible. Sorry. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I could tell 10,000 details of that days but the important thing is the end is that Germany has its classes face and we have to keep fighting in order to change the narrative. Thank you. Thank you, Perrin. Amir, Amir Kiayi, who was also at the event. What was yours? Thank you, Mehran. Georg mentioned something in his intervention. I said, when people realize and then organize, that's when change can happen, real change. And it became very apparent to us that the authorities are trying to prevent people realizing by doing what they did. And something that has been mentioned in the press reports, et cetera, was that everything that the police did on that day, on Friday, was through a verbal instruction for a country that loves to give written instructions through the fax machine. We didn't get a single piece of paper saying what actually the issue was that they had to take the action that they did. And bearing in mind the list of actions is really long. Everything from a fire and safety inspection all of a sudden to counting the chairs in the room and so on. Everything was commanded to us verbally. It was confusing messages all the time between the federal police level and the city level, Ministry of Interior. There was just a really well-organized chaos production and provoking of everybody that was there. And not just in the room but outside the conference area in the subsequent March that we held on Saturday and the protest camp that's been going on for the past few days. The level of unprofessionalism and disregard for human life was also very much on display. And this is also very concerning because this was just a simple, nonviolent assembly of people trying to talk and present something. So you can imagine that the level of repression is really high. There was no, you would typically have the state also considering emergency services, nothing. It was all riot police in full gear, heavily armed. And the numbers was really ridiculous. There was over two and a half thousand police mobilized for a few hundred attendees of a conference. So you can imagine the level of the atmosphere of the terrifying atmosphere that they were creating was beyond in that sense. No respect for the elderly, people in wheelchairs, children, babies that were with the nursing mothers. So it was simply the mode of operation of the police was simply to burst in whenever they could create a terrifying atmosphere, purpose, prayer, liberally, entertain forcefully. And this really has to serve as a warning call to the unions, to environmental activists, other movements that the slide has already started and that's gonna hit everybody. And at a more personal level, this is something that we hope that if there's people listening here today that belong to Extinction Rebellion, FFF, Last Generation, Just Stop Oil, all those other protest movements and activists, think about what happened here and consider why you're not at the Bundestag right now in the protest camp supporting the other people that are actually fighting the oppression that will eventually hit everybody. We have to always remember that our power is in the numbers and where the repression is the highest is where we all need to be. Because if voices are being stifled, we must double down and raise our voices and support those that need their voices raised. And don't forget history always shows us that we'll be victorious and let's watch towards it. Thank you very much, Amir. You did, you did Maya. And as I hand it over to you, I'd be grateful if you could outline a little bit the reaction. I mean, some people have already explained the statements from the Mayor of Berlin and the Interior Minister, but what has the reaction been to this repression in Germany from the media, from the establishment, but also from other activists, if you're aware, what do you think we could learn from that? Well, they really tried to shut down the Congress with every means possible. And the idea that also Janusz's speech was shut down has fortunately given rise to a bit of a strizand effect. If you're familiar with the term is when you try to bend something and the internet says, nope, not having that. So yes, that has been our biggest advantage because of this huge amount of attention from the newspapers who had to at least report the controversy, right, who have been referencing or sometimes embedding Janusz's speech. This speech has been viewed by 5 million people, something that we couldn't have dreamt of if you had only spoken at the conference. And that's a good thing, of course, but in general, I must say I'm a bit more optimistic than the people who've spoken before me because I was talking to a journalist a few days ago working on the reporting about this event. And we kind of agreed that so far it has all been like a house of lies. The German government has constructed this house of lies, like starting with the idea that attacking Gaza is self-defense on the part of Israel. And then because they lied about it being self-defense, then they had to come up with another lie to cover why Israel does not agree to a ceasefire. They're saying it's a complicated thing. Hamas would just start again or anything. And then, you know, with all the war crimes becoming clear, they just start not showing stuff, completely giving incorrect or, yeah, just leaving out major parts of reality. For example, when the IDF kills children, it's never in German news. When there's starvation, it is very, very rarely. One recent case, a very obvious case, all the world's media reported about the killing of Hanye's family, right? I'm not sympathetic to Hanye, obviously, but international law clearly forbids targeting a family of even criminals. So in Germany, there was no reporting that his family had been struck. Children, 10 years old, six years old were killed. There was just, yeah, his sons were able to commit and assault something and they got killed. It's like completely, it's a mirror world, which you cannot imagine. So this house of lies just keeps going on, keeps going on when there was an ICJ accusation against Israel, the German government had bucked itself in such a corner with all these lies that they had to say, no, no, this is completely untrue. It is so untrue that Israel should be doing anything illegal or against international law that we will sit down, we will be co-defendants with Israel, it's the only country that did that and not just verbally support Israel, but actually say, no, we are also on the bench, we are defendants in this trial. And then of course, when there was news about this Congress to call out Germany's complicity in all these crimes that Israel is committing, they had to say that this Congress is all Islamists, all anti-Semites, they have no point whatsoever, don't listen to them because whatever they would say at the Congress is everything to debunk all these lies that have been accumulated over the past six months or longer. So they say it's all Islamists, they shut down the Congress and now with the news getting out that this Congress was organized by a Jewish organization. And with Janis Varoufakis speaking and so on, it's crashing down. So this journalist that I was talking to had the same impression that right now we're seeing this House of Lies coming, crashing down under the weight of everything that they had to conceal. And it is also at the same time, we're seeing crashing down of international law and freedom of speech here in Germany or the impression that people had that there was freedom of speech here in Germany because of everything that's happened in the past months. It's just, it's a waking up, it's a root waking up for a lot of people. And what, so I'm in a way, I'm in a way happy that all these lies are now coming to the fore mainly on social media, not on the mainstream media, I still can't read anything, but on social media, it's all coming out, the stress artifact is helping, everyone is sharing what they see and how it doesn't match what they've been told they would see, where I'm still a bit pessimistic or unhappy is mainly the rest of the left, you know. Here in Germany, there hasn't been solidarity from most of the known figures of the left or from any party, no other, no party, except obviously Meta-25 ourselves, has spoken out about this. And that is completely different than Greece, for example, where there were, there's a society-wide consensus that people should not be banned from entering the country or speaking at an event. And this consensus seems to be missing or at least badly damaged in Germany. And I think we can, I hope we can restore it. Thank you, you did. And while we're on the subject of the media coverage, with what's currently happening between Iran and Israel, are you concerned that this might knock Gaza off the headlines somewhat? Because what I'm seeing is that that's what media are focusing on now. They've had plenty of, they've tried many different angles with this story, as you've mentioned, with Gaza. And now it's all about the prospect of war breaking out and very little about what's actually happening to Palestinian people. So what would you say to that? Yes, absolutely. That's, I think that's part of the point of having this escalation with Iran is to cover up all these things that would otherwise come to the fore now. And I hope that we won't fall into that trap and that we will stay focused on Gaza. Thank you, you did. Hand the floor over to Johannes Fair, who's also a candidate with Mera25 in Germany for a bid for the European elections. Johannes. Thank you. And who was too late to the conference, to actually make it in sight, was prevented by the police to entering and then just saw the police storming in and yeah, being very concerned for some minutes until it was clear that, well, they arrested some people, but at least no one was, yeah, no one was seriously hurt. But of course, what happened is absolutely ridiculous. I actually also wanted to thank again, Karin Georg, everyone that organized that Congress under great pressure from the authorities over month. And actually also mentioned solidarity going out to the protest camp that is happening in front of the German parliament, as we speaking since weeks now, they need support. So if you that are watching this are in Berlin, they can need all the support that they can get, go there, bring them food, tents, whatever they need to get because they also have been attacked on the weekend by the police and can use the support that Amir was already mentioning. One update that I wanted to share with everyone is also that yesterday, there was after the weekend, the first press conference where journalists could ask the German government about what had happened on the weekend and on Friday. And the basic report from that is, they just told the government line and then refused to answer any questions. And I think that is still where the government is now. It was becoming very clear when the government representative spokesperson had said that there was an Islamist and anti-Semitic Congress going on and so on and what you already heard these lies. And when she was asked that Jewish organization was co-organizing this event, that if there are now any Jewish Islamists in Germany, is that really the case? The spokesperson basically said, no further comment. And yeah, that's where basically this government has completely embarrassed itself and we, but we need to keep the pressure up so that they have to actually come clear on that. Some said that this whole things as they were happening were very surprising. And I think we haven't seen them as such before the last six months, as Georg has mentioned, but I think I was actually personally reminded to a different protest that I went with the M25 comrades back then in Hamburg when the G20 was taking place by when our now current leader of this government as a mayor in Hamburg organized the meeting of the most powerful leaders of capitalist nations of the world. And we were there to protest and the M25 was holding an event where Julian Assange was appeared in a live stream and the fire alarm went off and that event didn't happen and the complete state of Hamburg was a police state over those days and weeks and many got arrested, many protesters were beaten by the police. And I think that just shows us that the state here in Germany and probably that's true for other European states as well, whenever they want to, and then they can go to authoritarianism. Whenever now, and I think to go a bit into detail about why the German government is doing that, my analysis would be that it's about the complicity. They had to appear in front of the international court and in their defense against the complicity in Gaza, complicity for the genocide in Gaza, they actually had to list their weapon exports to Israel, to the Israeli army. And they had a slide where it was saying how many millions of weapons they delivered. And in only in October last year it was over 200 millions worth of weapons. And that's what is complicity. So they had to reveal that because they couldn't hide it there. And of course the coverage was very poor on it. And of course they are trying to, going to try to prevent everyone from speaking about this. And it's our task as we are doing it now to speak about it. Thanks. Thank you, Johannes. Couple of comments from the chat. Vig Username says, what happened over the weekend is a worrisome attack on our freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. If you agree with the views of the participants or not, the level of repression is highly concerning. Violin makes a recommendation. They say that Noura Errakats' insight into the Nakbar has essentially excluded from the 1948 genocide convention as a critical idea to spread. Lotta Pettersson from Sweden notes that I haven't seen anything in Swedish media about what happened in Berlin last Friday. Am I surprised? Sad to say no. And Scepti says they can ban Yanis, but citizens of the world cannot all be banned. Danai, Danai Stratu, based in Greece, for us yours. Thank you, Mahan. Actually Johannes has covered quite a lot, a point I wanted to make, but I think it's still important because it's a little bit different than Yanis also mentioned it before, but I think it's very important to realize that for a few weeks now, Yanis is a publisher in Germany of his book that had also published the previous books and there has been a long history there, had been warning him not to participate in the conference and obviously there was a warning there to the publishers, right? Because how would they know that there would be this fuss? So here we listen to the description of all the comrades that were present in Berlin the police, the way that there was so much police, all these things, if you put everything together about what happened before the conference, about trying to stop him from participating, the way that they were there at the conference, so aggressive in so many numbers, the way that they are distorting the news coming out, where the lies about the content of the speeches and the whole thing have been completely distorted, all this is extremely problematic as all the speakers before me also mentioned, but it's important to bring this out and to expose, as everyone said before, this reality of what's happening in Germany and elsewhere. So just these small points to give a bit more of the perspective and emphasize on these, I thought is important. Thank you. Thank you, Danai, Juliana. Juliana also based in Germany, the speaker of our Mera25 party in Germany. Thank you. Thanks, Mera. Yeah, I mean, I'm really, really not surprised and I have to say that I think every leftist person that ever was on a protest against fascists on the street knows that it's always the left people who have took the beating and the fascist on the street got protected by the police. That's one picture that stands from my youth in my mind. So I'm really not surprised when I see these pictures, unfortunately. The other thing I wanted to say is that, although, yeah, of course you can say not, if we say Germany, not every German, but I wouldn't let German society so easily off the hook when it comes to this topic because I think a lot of people are making it very easy for themselves and they have instrumentalized German history as some sort of single explanation on why Israel can do whatever they want. And I think besides confronting the German government, the other thing that is still yet to do here in Germany is really to talk to people and to explain to them if they are not yet at the point to open their eyes to the truth of what's happening there, is to really try to explain to those parts of society that they are literally on the wrong side of history here. And it has nothing to do with German history or being protective of Jews. It's just simply wrong what's happening in Gaza today. And it hurts me to have conversations based on but Israel, but, but, but those parts really need to go. And it's also on the German people who are staying quiet that this police brutality can be done and that the government can act as they act. So yes, they are kind of also backed by a good proportion of society that is complicit to this. I have to say. Thank you, Juliana, well said. And we're nearing the top of the hour. So let's close and look back to Janice. Janice, where can we go from here? European Parliament elections, first week of June. But before I get there, let me say that we at the M25 and M25, we are not demagogues. We do not try to ride a wave of popularity, of populism or anything like that. And let me try to prove this by making a point that jars with a lot of what constitutes our ideology and philosophy. So, you know, you have heard that over the last two days there was a conference in Belgium of the ultra-right of the parliamentary ultra-right. Nigel Farage, Shrella Braverman, the awful person from former minister of Home Affairs of the Interior in the UK, Seymour, the ultra-rightist who was stood for president of France last time around and or Ban and various others. And it turns out from what I read that the authorities in Belgium did something similar to what they did to us. They sent the police in there to interrupt the proceedings of that conference. Now, I came out with a statement today on unheard, unheard.com saying that I demand my right to be pissed off by Nigel Farage's free speech. If we reach the point where the radical center bans anyone it doesn't like, either us or Farage or Obama, then there will be very little space left for democracy, for politics, or even for the idea. I love Farage. I love Obama. I love Seymour. I love particularly Shrella Braverman. But we should be ready to fight for their right to annoy us, to speak out. Many on the left don't like hearing these terms. But then again, don't forget that many on the left supported the banning of our Congress, Palestinian Congress. It is the speaker that the linker either supported the stigmatization and the demonization of Mera 25 Deutschland of the Jewish voiceful piece of the Palestine Congress or kept their mouth shut. Another dimension that Meraan and Judith looked into consensual run. Now, we will never fall in favor of taking sides between the West and Iran on the basis of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. There are no good guys here. We have to be clear on this. Iran is a brutal authoritarian state that condemns women to third rate, not second rate, third rate status, which kills women, as we saw recently, for wanting to be free and not to wear the veil. The oppression inside Iran of progressives is unbearable. At the same time, and this is the nuanced position that only our movement can take, Iran is a force of stability in a very unstable area. Let's be clear, this authoritarian awful regime is responsible together with the Kurds for defeating ISIS. ISIS would not have been defeated in Syria and Iraq if it wasn't for Iran. Iraq would not have been stabilized. Many lives, hundreds of thousands of lives were saved by the intervention of Iran in Iraq. And when it comes to the clash with Israel, it is clear to me that firstly, you have the vile attack by Israel, the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, which is a clear violation of international law. The embassy of any country anywhere is sovereign territory. Attacking it or violating it is a violation of international rules based order. And what did the West do when the Israeli Air Force bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus? Silence. So when it suits them, then the international rules based order can be junked. And then when in a very interesting way, Iran responded to the other day with those 300 missiles and mostly drones, which for me was the most diplomatic attack that has ever happened in the history of the world. Yes, it was large because they had to make a large statement. They sent 300 aerial weapons in the direction of Israel. But have you ever heard of a power, state organization, whatever, sending drones and advertising that they've sent the drones right at the time when they're unleashing them before they hit the target? It was like inviting the Americans and the Israelis to shoot them down. So it was a very nuanced attempt in order to de-escalate to show that Iran does not take lying down the bombardment of the Damascus embassy of Iran. But at the same time, it is trying to de-escalate. I'm saying all that because DiEM25 and Mirab 25, we look at you out there watching us now in the eye and we tell you our views as they are. We're not hiding anything from you. We say things that are uncomfortable. We offer a nuanced explanation of our positions and a nuanced take on the world that we live in. We support freedom even of our opponents. We can criticize a regime like Iran very harshly but at the same time recognize its contribution to de-escalation in the Middle East for all those reasons. And to answer Marin's question, how do we proceed from here? Well, vote for Mirab 25 Deutschland in Germany. Vote for Mirab 25 in Italy and help them gather the last few signatures that are necessary to contest the Italian election, the Italian-European election. And vote for Mirab 25 in Greece. Thank you, Yanis. Some last comments from the chat. Alberto Duarte says institutional and individual silence is complicity in genocide, which is why one talks about Germany and not just the state. It is the banality of evil. Claudia Filippi says fascism is back. It never died. Palestine is in our hearts. And Loki says in response to what Yanis was just saying, long live critical thinking. And as Yanis echoed there, if you appreciate a party that believes in critical thinking, in nuanced positions on global affairs instead of binary good and evil, then please support us. We are running in the European elections, as Yanis said, in Germany, in Italy, in Greece. And all you have to do to become a member of DM25 is go to dm25.org. Join in a couple of seconds. You can be a member. Look for us on the ballot in the European elections in June and vote for us. And thank you again to our panel. Thank you again to you guys out there for your comments and questions. Come back in two weeks time, same time, same place for another live discussion.