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Germany has hardened its ban on Hamas and ordered the dissolution of pro-Palestinian organisations linked to the militant group amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes in the country.
Berlin had already designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but a significant network of sympathetic charities, including Samidoun, which claims to campaign for the release of Palestinian political prisoners, was still allowed to function in the country.
“I have today completely banned the activities of a terrorist organisation that aims to destroy the state of Israel,” said interior minister Nancy Faeser. “Antisemitism has no place in Germany — no matter who it comes from. We will continue to fight it in all its forms with the full rigour of the rule of law.”
Samidoun and an associated organisation known as Hirak will be immediately dissolved, said Faeser. Support for them will now be a criminal offence.
She called the organisations “inhumane” and “disgusting” after they publicly praised Hamas and organised celebratory demonstrations in German cities following the October 7 attack in which, according to Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people were killed and 242 taken hostage.
“This ban is consistent and correct,” said Josef Schuster, the president of the central council of German Jews. “Samidoun has been behind many antisemitic protests Germany-wide. They have spread their Islamist ideological poison for too long.” He said bans on other radical pro-Palestinian organisations were still necessary, however.
While most pro-Palestinian protests in Germany in recent weeks have been peaceful, several have descended into antisemitic violence, prompting a debate about the country’s permissiveness towards anti-Israeli radicalism.
“The extent of Islamist demonstrations in Berlin and other cities in Germany is unacceptable and needs a tough political response,” said Germany’s Green vice-chancellor Robert Habeck on Wednesday. Muslim organisations in Germany must distance themselves from antisemitism, he said. “Not all [have] and some are too hesitant — overall it’s too few, I think.”
According to German police, more than 1,800 antisemitic incidents classified as criminal have occurred in the past four weeks.
“What we are experiencing now is a watershed,” Thomas Haldenwang, Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, said in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine last week.
His agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, estimates that 450 Hamas members live in Germany, with a larger, informal network of supporters behind them.
At some recent protests organised by Hamas-linked groups in Germany, sweets were handed out to celebrate the violence against Israelis, Haldenwang said.
“Some Jewish homes [in Germany] were literally marked with a Star of David . . . these are alarm signals that the situation could worsen further. Such hatred of Jews on German streets is unbearable. This is reminiscent of the worst times in German history.”
The violence included an attack on one of Berlin’s largest synagogues two weeks ago. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the building, which houses a crèche, in an attempt to set it on fire, according to police.
Speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate following the attack, the country’s president Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the violence was a “disgrace for Germany” and filled him with “shame and anger”.
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