Interview with Udi Raz

中文版：对话反锡安主义犹太活动家: 在德国，犹太人成为“反犹”指控的最大受害者（端传媒）
特約撰稿人 斑戈 發自柏林

I often encountered Udi Raz in various Palestinian scenes in Berlin. She always wore a kippah with a watermelon pattern, standing out among the numerous keffiyehs, became her distinctive mark. The watermelon pattern symbolizes Palestine because the four colors of "red, green, white, and black" happen to be the colors of the Palestinian flag. After the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Israel, the Palestinian flag became taboo there, and people began using the watermelon pattern to represent the flag. Today, the comprehensive suppression of voices supporting Palestine in the Western world has revitalized this symbol as an expression of resistance to censorship.

Udi's biological gender is male, and her preferred pronoun is "she." She is a member of the Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East, a Germany based Jewish pro-Palestinian network.  She is also one of the organizers of the Palestine Congress, originally scheduled to start in Berlin on April 12. The Palestine Congress, initiated by supporters of the Palestinian solidarity movement from around the world, was expected to last for three days, discussing Gaza ceasefire, Israeli violations of international law, and condemning Germany's complicity in the massacre. However, on the opening day, the police cut off the electricity of the conference hall and raided it soon after. Major mainstream media in Germany had launched a smear campaign even before the opening of the congress. Mayor Kai Wegner commented on the Palestine Congress on Twitter, saying, "Berlin does not tolerate antisemitism, hatred, and incitement against Jews."

Among those arrested at the congress were two Jews, including Udi. The video of her arrest was highly symbolic; wearing a kippah, she was escorted downstairs by the police, shouting "Free Palestine" to the public. A woman behind her yelled at the police, "You are arresting a Jewish person!"

Since October 7, 2023, Jews in Germany have been "cancelled" on charges of "anti-Semitism" far exceeding their proportion of the population. Today, the abuse of the term "anti-Semitism" has completely robbed it of its meaning, and anyone who supports Palestine or condemns the Israeli regime may be accused of "anti-Semitism," while real anti-Semitism is shielded under this "umbrella".

On the other hand, the history of the Jewish Holocaust has gradually become a taboo among groups supporting Palestine. This trauma has been continuously invoked by mainstream politics, becoming an oppressive tool and even legitimising another massacre. Arabs, who have suffered greatly, naturally sneer at it. Progressive Jewish groups are at a loss as to how to address their hijacked collective trauma.

Two days after the closure of the Palestine Congress on April 14, I saw Udi at another resistance movement taking place during the same period—an occupation movement called "Occupy against Occupation" in front of the Bundestag (German parliament). This occupy movement has been going on for two weeks now, and as of the time of writing this article, people are still holding on to the camp. When I arrived at the camp, a rapper was performing. When this line "From the River to the Sea" in his lyric came out, the police suddenly rushed in, arrested the singer, and violently clashed with the crowd. Ambulances arrived, and several people who were attacked by the police were carried away on stretchers.

After witnessing that police violence together, I asked Udi under what circumstances she was arrested on the day of the Palestine Congress. She told me that the police mocked the watermelon kippah she was wearing, and she retorted, "You're being anti-Semitic," and then she was taken away by the police. I couldn't help but laugh—Germany has actually started producing "Soviet jokes." Thinking back to April Fools' Day, an art media outlet, Hyperallergic's Instagram account, posted a news story claiming that museums in Germany had removed works depicting the "river" and the "sea." At the time, I thought it was a funny April Fools' joke. However, after what happened to Udi and the violence at the camp, I hesitated for a few seconds and asked my friends at the camp if that post could be real?

During the interview, when Udi hesitated about whether to use "Palestine" or "Israel" to refer to the region, she often referred to the people between “the River and the Sea." "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" is a long-standing slogan against occupation, first shouted by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1960s. The "River" refers to the Jordan River, and the "Sea" refers to the Mediterranean Sea. Between them lies the land of endless conflict under 70 years of occupation, sometimes called Israel, sometimes called Palestine. This famous slogan has a long history and has been used by numerous resistance organizations and people, and its meaning has been continuously enriched. Last October, after Hamas attacked Israel, the Berlin Public Prosecutor's Office listed this slogan as a form of "anti-Semitism" and "inciting hatred," and users would be subject to criminal penalties.

In Germany, the widespread Jewish memorials in urban landscape and the abuse of "anti-Semitism" allegations make this country burdened with the history of the Holocaust seem like it suffers from a kind of moral masochism. To Udi, the seemingly overcorrection today is a repetition of the same ideology from the Nazi era. With the Islamophobia accompanying the arrival of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe, Germany's authorities began to create an anti-Muslim atmosphere in the name of Jews. Only Jews who were subjected to a genocide, namely dead Jews, or the genocidal jews, namely the jews commit genocide against muslims are defined as "Jews" in Germany.

When all crimes are committed in the name of Jews, and Jews are completely tied to the Israeli regime, the presence of anti-Zionist Jews becomes even more important—not only for the justice of the Palestinians but also for Jews to reclaim their own identity and reclaim their hijacked history and reality.

In this context, I interviewed Udi.

Part 1. Jews are the biggest victims of “anti-semitism” accusations in Germany

01. Can you introduce a bit of yourself and your organisation Jewish Voice for Just Peace?

Udi Raz: I came from Israel, some refer to this area as Palestine —I personally don't mind how you name it, what matters is what are the power dynamics that characterise the living realities of those who live between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. To me it really doesn't matter if you call it Israel or Palestine.

I am a board member of the organisation Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East (I will use “Jewish Voice” refer to the organisation), which was established in 2003 in Germany, symbolically in November, as commemoration for the so called Crystal Night, also known as Night of Broken Glass, the night when the Nazis were raiding Jewish institutions. 

And it was created by a group of Jews who are based in Germany, as they understood that in the German media, the way that it's being reported about the reality of those who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, is very much one-sided. Not only one-sided to the extent that only Jews are able to speak up to claim what reality is, but specifically those Jews who are also Zionists. So very rarely the anti-Zionist Jews would have the opportunity to speak up.

In this sense, they also learned that nevertheless in the context of Germany, Jewish voices in general get more room than voices of Palestinians. So those individuals who created the “Jewish voice” decided to use this privilege that is given to us -- ironically by racial supremacist structure – in order to bring in voices that are even more marginalised than those of our own and specifically Palestinian voices.

02. Many Jews have been accused as anti-semitism in Germany in recent years, especially after October 7 last year, i remember you are also one of the victims. Can you share with us about your work experience in Jewish Museum here and how you lost your job? Jewish Museum, along with other holocaust monuments which can be seen everywhere, constitute the landscape of memory politics in Germany. As a Jew living in Germany, how do you see the landscape of the holocaust memory? 

Udi Raz:I was accused more than once as an anti-semite. I heard (not confirmed) about a third of all individuals who were cancelled in Germany in the last six months are Jews. And to my understanding, this is hundreds percent of over-representation of Jewish subjects. And I think it hints to how vulnerable Jews are within the general discourse nowadays in Germany. We are still one of the most vulnerable groups. 

The Jewish Museum is a huge project. You can spend more than one day for sure. For this reason, the education department of the museum created guided tours within it that specify certain topics that the Jewish Museum touches upon. One of those topics is Jews in Germany after 1945. This was the topic that I was specialising in when I worked for the Jewish Museum, I worked as a freelancer and the concept is that I am being booked by the Jewish Museum whenever a group wishes to go to deal with this topic. And me as a Jewish individual who grew up in Israel and came to Germany, I would usually also explain the reason why I decided to move to Germany. And I would explain that the place where I come from is characterized through a civil war that is an outcome of a system that is based on injustice. In this context I would give one example referring to the West Bank, where I would make the point that Jews who live in the West Bank are citizens, considered citizens of the State of Israel. Accordingly, they are allowed to decide who sits in the Israeli parliament, but the Palestinian population who live in the exact same geographical area, are not citizens of the State of Israel. Therefore, they are not allowed to decide who sits in the Israeli parliament, or in other words, they are not allowed to decide who occupies them. 

And then I refer specifically to a report that was published 2 or 3 years ago by Amnesty International, where it comes to the conclusion that this living reality is one of the many manifestations of a broader phenomenon better described as apartheid system. For the Education Department of the Jewish Museum, the fact that I use the term apartheid was too much. They did not care about the fact that I'm talking about a certain given living reality. They were like, "Yeah, you can talk about the living realities, but just don't use the term apartheid," which I find quite revealing considering the fact that this term has been used by all human rights organisations who study the same phenomenon. They all come to the same conclusion that Israel is the state of apartheid. Those who made the decision whether I'm allowed to work are non-Jews. Non Jews decide for me what knowledge the Jewish Museum will deliver about Jews in Germany?. Yeah, so just like making the point again, we Jews are not allowed to narrate realities as we perceive it. 

There was a big article about me in the Bild where they accused me of being an “Israel hater”.  I was socialised in a Zionist Israeli habitus. So to call me an Israel hater is quite telling about those who call me this way, completely neglecting my own living experience and my own heritage and the fact that my family still live there. As if we are not allowed to think for ourselves, right? We are constantly being told by Aryans that’s who we are. 

About all the holocaust monuments in Germany, to me, is another proof that Germany celebrates, first and foremost, Jews who are dead. These dead Jews are the most utilized subject in the public sphere in Germany nowadays, in order to create an idea of Germany is not the Nazi-Germany anymore, so to say, right? Jews who do speak up rarely have the opportunity to share from our own experiences unless we are willing to engage in the discourse of anti-Muslim racism. So either Germany allows room for Jews who have been subjected to a genocide, namely dead Jews, or they allow room for genocidal jews, namely the jews commit genocide against muslims. There is no spectrum, unfortunately. 

Part 2. Why the term “Ayan” is still relevant”

03. Then how do you see the phenomenon of “German Guilt”?

Udi Raz: I think talking about German guilt in general is quite telling in different aspects. First of all, I think it generates the understanding that being German means also to have certain feelings. I'm also a German citizen, I don't feel guilty for Aryans committing atrocities against grandparents. The concept of German guilt is misleading. 

My grandparents on my mother’s side migrated from Argentina to Palestine, and the parents of my father migrated from Lithuania. My grandmother survived the Holocaust under German rule in Lithuania, and my grandpa made it to flee in the last seconds to cross the border to the Soviet side fighting for the Red Army against the Nazis. And then my grandparents found each other again after the war. But the entire family of my grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust by the atrocities of Aryan Supremacists, namely Nazis. So as a German citizen, I don’t feel guilt for this, right? And besides this, I don't think that there is something inherently wrong in trying to come to terms with atrocities that have been committed in the past. But what I find really worrying is that those who are now in powers in Germany come to terms with their own past, with their own genocide, by promoting another genocide. 

04. You kept using Aryans, why do you think the term “Aryan” is still relevant today?

Udi Raz: It's a category that has disappeared with the collapse of Nazi Germany. But on the other hand, the term anti-Semitism has survived until nowadays. When referring to hatreds toward Jews, racism toward Jews, this is the term one would use. To be aware, I'm talking specifically in the context of Germany, of course I refer to the Nazi logic to provoke it. 

So my claim as a Jewish individual is that if we want to talk about anti-Semitism, we also need to talk about Aryan supremacy because the discourse that allows us to still maintain or reproduce Nazi logic only when referring to Jews is something that I want to call into question. And whenever I am being told that I am subjected to antisemitism by Aryans, I remind them that the difference between me and them, me as a Jewish person and them, It's not that there is no difference, right? 

I was struggling for the longest time to conceptualise the difference between me and Aryans because I was told again and again, okay, there are white Germans. And then the question is like, wait, are Jews white? if I go down the street without the Kippah, I pass as white, right? There is no external characteristic that would make me appear as a Jewish individual. Then again, it's the category of national context and not of racial. This way for me, it's very important to recall the difference between Aryans and Jews.  it's not the question whether we are Jews or not, the question is why some white people have more access to privileges than other white people, namely Jews. This is why it's important for me to use the term "Aryans" in order to differentiate between different groups of whites in Germany. Because if it's not relevant, then why still Aryans are those who are in power? If it's not relevant, if you are aryan or not, how come Jews are still structurally made other? If it's not relevant, how come Muslims have been made a problem with the concept of Germanness? To me, the question that must be asked again and again is why are we still a very hegemonic social group in today's Germany, in Germany that claims to be denazified? 

Some people use this term Bio Deutsch to refer to what I call Arians, but for me, this bio Deutsch implies that there are Germans that are more German than other Germans, right?  And I want to avoid that. The point that I want to make is that if a country is designed for one specific group to feel at home, then this group must be named. 

Let me give some examples of Ayans being the hegemonic group over others. Germany by law keeps the calendar according to the sun, which is Giorgian Calendar, which excludes all traditions that do not do so if we wish, for example, to celebrate our own holidays. During the university semester, for example, we are being told that it's the price that we have to pay for living in a society that has been designed for Christians. this one example of how this discrimination has been neutralised to the extent that one even cannot question that.

another example was that when Corona hit Germany, the German, there was fake news circulating that Muslims went to Mosques to celebrate Eid when Ramadan was finished. The Ministry of the Interior was quick to respond that everybody must obey their corona regulations in Germany. But then when Christmas took place, you know, then there were special regulations for it. The fact that one week before that, Jews celebrated another holiday and were not freed from this regulation implies again that Jews and Muslims are secondary in the political decision-making  or interests of German politicians. 

And I think it's also quite telling when it comes to the question of representation of Jews in the political decision making in Germany because when we look nowadays at how many self-identifying Jews sitting in the German parliament, the answer is zero, none. it's important for me to underline this because we are being excluded.  So there is this aspect of we don't have direct representation within the parliament of Germany as Jews. And the second thing is that since 2018 there is a new office which is called the Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the fight against anti-Semitism. And you find this position, this office on federal level, on state level, on municipal level and also in the executive bodies of the German state, for example, within the police and the military. More often than not, those who have, those who control this office are non-Jews. They self-identify as Christians, as protestants, Catholic, evangelists, and so on and so on. And those people are deciding for us whether we are anti-Semitic or not. They pointed at us and tell us that we are anti-Semitic for speaking about democracy that should be applied for everyone who lives between the river and the sea. They call us anti-Semites for speaking for human rights and saying that also Palestinians should enjoy human rights.  They pointed at us and called us anti-Semites when we speak about international law and say that international law should be applied for everyone, also for Palestinians. They pointed at us and called us anti-Semites when we called for a ceasefire. To my understanding, those who accuse us as anti-Semites or Israel haters for calling for a ceasefire are nothing less but genocide lovers. So we were talking about the parliament, we were talking about the commissioners for Jewish life who are non-Jews.

And let's talk about one institution that is actually recognized by the German which is called the Central Council of Jews in Germany. This institution, if you go to their website and check on the About Us, you'll see that they claim to speak for all Jews who live in Germany, claiming it is an umbrella organization of all Jewish communities in Germany, but all Jewish communities in Germany are organized around synagogues. So the central Council of Jews in Germany doesn’t represent all Jews, but only those Jews who understand their Jewishness as a religious identity. Jewish individuals like me who do not practice Jewishness as a religious identity, secular Jews, for example, are completely ignored and excluded from the discourse around Jewishness in today's Germany, quite ridiculously or quite ironically, this happens in a state that claims to be a secular state. Secular Jews in Germany don't have a voice. Not only this, we are being accused as being dangerous for Jewishness itself, for the German nations, for humanity even. So we are talking about representation of Jews in the Parliament, representation of Jews in offices that are owed to actually generate knowledge about Jews. Who have power to decide for Jews who we are, how we should feel, how we should think, who are our enemies and who are our friends. So Jewish Voice for Just Peace is the largest secular Jewish organization nowadays in Germany. And it's quite telling that we are marked as a problem for Germany and for Jews by Aryans. 

Part 3. How have the “protecting jew” discourses served “islam phobia”

05. Germany has also been using this memory politics,  making Jews and Arabs enemies, right? For example, assuming Anti-Semitism was merely an Arab sentiment. 

Udi Raz: To my knowledge, more than 90% of the anti-Semitic cases that have been registered in recent years are committed come from the far right in Germany. So keeping in mind the central role that Arabs play in so-called anti-Semitism is a phenomenon that is being brought back to Germany completely neglects the fact that most of anti-Semitism in Germany are actually Aryans. Also, a big population of Jews in Palestine are ethnically Arabs. The term “Semite” is a category that actually gives so much empowerment and this is why I feel like I want to celebrate it. I am Semite. I have much more in common with my Palestinian sisters and brothers than I have in common with my Aryans in general. 

In recent years, you hear it more and more often that people like me, that anti-Zionist Jews, are being marked by Aryans as anti-Semites. And I think what we can learn out of it is that whenever such an accusation takes place, it's another proof to the fact that those who are in power in Germany are not interested in the protection of Jews as such, but they are only interested in the protection of those Jews who are also willing to reproduce anti-Muslim racism. And if we think about decades-long anti-Muslim racism that is inherent, that is very specific or underlining the nation-building process of Germany in the last few decades, we see that we see a phenomenon that repeats again and again and again with different subjects. In this case, what we're witnessing since the 7th of October, in Germany specifically, you see how those who are in power take the Jewish subject in order to claim that Muslims are so dangerous for Jews and therefore Muslims are also so dangerous for Germany, for Germanness. 

But it comes after a decades long process of accusing Muslims for being anti-queer, accusing Muslim people for being anti-feminist or anti-women specifically, accusing Muslims for being anti-animal rights, and accusing Muslims for being unable to live in a secular state. So what we're witnessing now specifically in the case of how Germany wishes to protect Jews, allegedly, is only one manifestation of a wider discourse that is by definition anti-Muslim. The body of Arabs specifically is the body on which the German political elite projects its anti-Muslim racism – why we should insist to use the term to reproduce the concept of racism when we talk about anti-Muslim discourse because it targets specifically racailized bodies. 

And if we keep in mind that the Nazis, what they wish to do was to purify the German nation from the Jewish subject. And indeed, they were very successful in doing so. because from a population of about half a million Jews living in Germany before the Second World War, less than 1% of this population actually survived the Holocaust and stayed in Germany or returned to Germany. Most of the Jewish population who used to live in Germany before the Nazis took over Germany either were systematically murdered by the Nazis or decided to emigrate to leave Germany. So it's quite ridiculous now, there's the Germany or those who are in power in Germany claim to come to terms with their genocidal past, not only by promoting another genocide against Muslims, against Palestinians specifically, but also by explaining again why Germany should remain pure of non-Aryan, namely of the Muslim population.

It is the same ideology. Germany, in other words, has never been denazified. I think that in Germany, it is not necessarily that all Aryans who live in Germany also believe that Aryan supremacy is a necessity. But I think most of the Aryans who live in Germany are simply not aware of how severe the situation is for non-Aryans. because for them, our claims for basic human rights is a matter that they entertain themselves with as a matter to discuss about. Our life for many Aryans is a matter for discussion instead of a matter that must be protected at any cost.

06. There are some more practical disagreements that divide Palestine movements, such as “one state solution” or “two state solution”, how do you see it?

Udi Raz: So the main question of whether one-state solution or two-state solution, to my understanding, indicates to what extent some people are willing to neutralize the idea that a nation should be organized around one ethnicity. We always must ask why is it necessary to use categories of division rather than categories of inclusion. To my understanding, one state solution is the queer answer to the ongoing imbalance, injustice, that characterizes the living realities of people between the river and the sea. So I personally oppose any other idea but a one-state solution. Not only this, I'm up for an idea of getting rid of nationalism or nationalist categories in general. I think the Middle East is one of many examples why nation-states is an invasion that does not uphold to the living realities of the actual people who live in the geographical area that is divided into nations, whatever this should mean. 

07. I think Hamas also becomes like a topic which is very hard to talk about now because on one hand, the mainstream media has justify the genocide by Hamas’ attack and reshaped the reality as if Hamas was the cause of everything. As a result, within the pro-Palestine movement, it's also very hard to address the issue that should the movement condemn Hamas or not?

Udi Raz: I would answer it through the historical narratives that I grew up with. I grew up with an narrative that celebrated Jewish resistance during the Nazi regime here in Germany or here in Europe in general and there is one person his name is Mordecai Aniliewicz and he is an Ukrainian who was leading a resistance movement within the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. And in one of the last letters that he made that he managed to send to his brother before fighting his last battle against all odds against the Nazis who were about to evacuate the Warsaw ghetto and send everybody basically to Auschwitz to be murdered, he describes how proud he is to have the privilege to witness Jews fighting as Jews against those who tried to kill or against the ruling power of the Nazis. So I grew up with this narrative of if you are a minority group who is being systemically discriminated, not only that, but systemically governed to the extent that your lives are worthless. because we know how Israel, the Israeli military has the policy of killing Palestinians and the entire Israeli discourse dehumanized Palestinians as such, then resisting such an oppressive regime is an imperative. 

I am not justifying the act of killing, I'm not justifying the act of violence. To my understanding, the 7th of October was something that was not inevitable, right? Avoidable. And also the 76 years of Jewish supremacy is avoidable. There is no need to maintain the structure of power that prescribes violence as something that is necessary. There is always an alternative to violence, to my understanding. And this is exactly why I insist that we should promote ideas that are actually their lessons that we are being told that should have been from the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jews. We should promote ideas of democracy. We should promote ideas of human rights. We should promote the international law that was created against the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the Second World War. So it's heartbreaking reality that so many people lost their life in the last six months, and it's heartbreaking reality that specifically Westernized leaders fail to recognize that the power they have in order to bring an end to this human suffering of Jews, of Palestinians, of so many innocent lives. So the question whether one should condemn Hamas or not is legitimate only to the extent that one also asks in the same time whether one condemns the Israeli apartheid and the Israeli occupation and the Jewish supremacy that governs the realities of people between the river and the sea. 

Part 4.  “My queerness opened the door to see the solidarity with Palestine”

08. Can you share your grow-up experience in Israel? What made you an anti-zionist Jew?

Udi Raz: So I grew up in Haifa, and Haifa is known as a city where Jews and Palestinians live together. So growing up in Haifa, it was never a surprise for me that the place where I'm living in has more than one name. Maybe Jews would refer to this area as Israel, while the Palestinian population would refer to this area as Palestine. But nevertheless, I was surprised to learn that Palestinians are subjected to a complete different living realities than people like me, like Jews. And this happened actually through the fact that as I grew up, I also learned that I’m a queer. So growing up in a heteronormative context, you don't have a safe space unless you create it for yourself. So together with other queers who live in Haifa and other teenagers, we decided to create our own safe space where we would meet once a week. We would just sit together and talk and laugh and cry, you know, whatever teenagers do when they come to term with their otherness and trying to take care of each other. So creating such a safe space was also an invitation for non-Jewish queers to join in. It was never a question actually whether one is Jewish or not, but to say the space was defined for queer individuals. So in the city where not only Jews live, and then also Palestinians, it's not a surprise that also Palestinians joined this safe space. And it was the first time in my life that I heard from the perspective of Palestinians what it is like to live in a state, in the state of Israel, in the Jewish state as a Palestinian individual. 

And I learned for the first time in my life that they are subjected to complete different reality than me as a Jewish person. Not only this, I also met other Jews who come or their family migrated to Palestine from Arab Muslim world, you know, from the Muslim Arab world. So also then, I learned so much about the social structure of Haifa through my queerness. It was a door that opened me access to understand the complexities of the living realities that shaped the life of different queers. 

I was forced to serve the military, which I perceived as something that is not negotiable,its  something that I'm really ashamed of. But nevertheless, I was trained to be a pilot at first and as a child, it was always a dream of mine to become a pilot. So in a way, I was focusing more on this experience of being a pilot than on the fact that I'm also a soldier. But after a year of training, I decided to finish my training as pilot because it's such a demanding role. You can at any point say that you don't want to continue the training and then you are basically out of the training. And then I was sent to serve at the headquarters of the Air Force in Tel Aviv. And I was trained to escort missions of the Air Force from the ground. And among those missions, there were also missions of killing people. And I remember also very clearly how whenever there was such a mission, the officers who would have basically catering with cakes and nice food to celebrate their success, you know, at this time. So it was a very surreal experience for me to be there and I felt very uncomfortable and I said that I'm not going to continue in this position. And again, I ended the training of becoming this officer. 

And then the military, the argument of the officers that are above me was that since the military already invested enough resources in training me to become a soldier, They will not send me to another training, but they will just put me in a unit where my job would be just to count stuff and to make sure that the administration works. So they sent me to Haifa, to my hometown, where I was stationed at the University of Haifa. 

There is a unit there within the university that trains officers. And the concept is that they go to university as students, they finish their studies there and then they move on to the training as intelligence officers. So my role was basically to make sure that they have enough pens, enough papers, whatever they need kind of to be good students. Nevertheless, I also had access to the copy machine of the unit and it was around the time that together with other queer individuals in Haifa, we decided to organize the first Pride Parade in Haifa. So one of the many things that they do in order to support this production of the first Pride Parade in Haifa was to basically copy flyers for the Pride Parade. So I used my access to the printing machine in order to print flyers to the Pride Parade. and then an officer caught me doing this. And I think at this moment, I just realized that as a civilian, I do so much more for society than I could ever do as a soldier. So at this moment, I decided to do everything I can to leave the military. And the only way out was to convince my officers that I would kill myself if they don't let me out. And it was a very tough process, actually, to try to convince somebody that you would kill yourself. Nobody should ever experience this attempt to convince somebody that one would kill themselves.  And this is how I ended up out of the military. And officially according to the Israeli military and mentally ill. and there are many implications for people like me within the social context of Jewish state, of Israel that we are being mocked as basically if the military says that you are mentally ill and you probably are, according to them. So it's hard to, you would probably not get a job for any state institution, probably also not in academia.

Back then, I was still trying to make sense out of the reality that unfolds in front of me. Shortly after I left military, I traveled a lot to the West Bank, specifically to a village that is on the border, so to say, between Palestine 48 and Palestine 67, where the Israeli regime put a wall, basically cutting the village population from the field that they would walk since generations. And this place became a symbolic place for the struggle against the separation wall. So this was one of the first times that I actually understood how severe the situation is for Palestinians who cannot walk the land from which they live. They cannot have food. They cannot have resources. They are cut off of the main resources they had in order to sustain a community. 

It took me years to finally self-identify, to fully embrace the self-identification as anti-Zionist jew because it took me years to unlearn that Jewish supremacy is something that is necessary as a governing structure for the people who live between the river to the sea. Because I grew up into a Zionist habitus that would neutralize this idea. So if this is neutral, why would you question that? This is what I was thinking for many years.

Then I moved to Berlin, it was a time where Berlin was a city that celebrates diversity, that celebrates pluralism, a hotspot for leftists from around the world, and also as a queer heaven.

Once I came to Berlin, to Germany, it was the first time in my life that I met Muslim people, specifically Arabs, Palestinians, but also Iraqis, Syrian, Lebanese. I met them for the first time in my life as equal, you know, to me. Not only that we were equal, but we all were sharing this experience of being a minoritized group in Germany.

I found much more in common with either minoritized group here in Germany as a Jewish person than with Aryans. So, me encountering other individuals from other minorities groups helped me to learn or explore the different characteristics, or the different manifestations of the phenomenon that makes us in a position of being minoritized groups, vis-a-vis Aryans.

09. Pinkwashing has been a strategy used long by Israel, promoting itself as the only liberal democratic country in the Middle supporting woman’s rights and LGBTQ rights, and weaponize it agianst middle eastern muslims by depicting them as rapists, oppressors of women and LGBTQ groups. And the propaganda has worked successfully.

Udi Raz: I lost a friend of mine who was murdered in a brutal attack in Tel Aviv in 2009. Somebody entered a safe space for queer teenagers and started shooting the people who were there. And a good friend of mine, Nia Katz was murdered. And another individual was murdered. And another dozens of teenagers, create teenagers, were injured. Some of them, until nowadays, could not, cannot walk. Some of them, in the meantime, committed suicide. And until nowadays, we don't know who did that.

And I think it's also quite telling since after the 7th of October, the reaction of the Israeli government was to kill everyone who was suspected of even imagining supporting what Hamas did. And whenever there is an act of violence committed as an act of resistance by Palestinians, the Israeli authorities and the Israeli government would raid entire villages until they find who committed the act of violence, the act of resistance. But in this case, more than almost, not two decades, one and a half decades after this incident took place. The fact that we do not know who committed the crime indicates how irrelevant queer experiences are for the policymaking of the State of Israel for the last 15 years.

It's successful in a society that wishes to look at Muslims as inherently bad people, as less human than other people. the technique of power is always successful to the extent that power is still remaining in the hands of those who control the discourse. But nevertheless I think that we are also very successful in pointing out the hypocrisy hat is inherent to such attempts to justify an ongoing genocide.

But once you dive into the logic of how pink washing works, every reasonable person must oppose policies of pink washing. Because this argument that Israel is safer for queer people than other countries in the middle east simply is not true. Also,  as if the people who are being killed in Gaza are not queer, for example. I think Israel is the most dangerous country nowadays for queer Palestinians, for example. So how can Israel claim to be a safe place for queers while it's killing the entire queer population of Gaza in the name of protecting queer people? 

I think that the logic that is being deployed by those who are in power, both in Israel and here in Germany is cracking, and I think more and more people are aware of that. And according to recent surveys, most of the German population opposes the policies promoted by the German government, for example, by supporting Israel with weapons. Most of the German population nowadays opposes the idea that Germany should deliver weapons to Israel.

And we are on the edge of a geopolitical shift, also specifically in the context of Germany. And in a way, it's also a wake-up call to everybody who lives in Germany nowadays, because we also know, according to recent surveys, that what will happen next is probably that the AFD will take over Germany. And if history ought to repeat itself, those who will suffer are not only the non-Aryan population of Germany, but also the Aryans who is not Aryan supremacists. So in a way, our struggle of Palestinians, of Jews, of queers, family struggle, climate struggle is assured struggle that more and more people, that includes everybody and anybody. So in a way, this is a wake-up call to everybody who leaves night-days in Germany, who does not wish to live under the rule of AfD to join us. We hold spaces since months already, and it's about time that more and more Aryans will their comfort zone and help us to regain what is ours as human beings who live in a country that promised us democracy, that promised us civic rights and human rights, that promised us the commitment to the international law. 

I think the case of Palestine also gives signals as there is a lot of hope.The fact that we unite around the struggle against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, around the struggle for liberation of Palestinians from the rule of Zionism, We also unite as Jewish people around the struggle of liberating Judaism from Zionism. And we are united across national contexts, across genders, across religions, across cultural contexts. And Palestine brings us together and we learn from each other about the different oppressing mechanisms that characterize the living experience of so many individuals nowadays around us, be it in the context of Gaza, of the Uyghur region in China, with Kurdistan, in Myanmar and in Congo, in Sudan and in Cameroon and the list just goes on and on and on. we know how to connect the dots. This is the most important thing that happens now around us, I think within this movement that we are part of. 

10. The vision of solidarity sounds idealistic, recalling the 1960s and 1970s when the Palestinian resistance movement symbolized internationalism, bringing together resistance groups from around the world. The Palestinian liberation movement wasn't just about Palestine; it stood for anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism, striving for a world with justice and equality.  However, today, much like how feminist and LGBTQ discourse have been used to divide progressive movements, geopolitics have made global resistance movements' solidarity seem very difficult. They've been fragmented into different camps. For example, Ukraine, seeking support from Western establishments, aligns with Israel, while the Iranian regime's backing of Hamas prevents Iran's resistance forces from sympathising with Palestine.

Udi Raz: We need to stay sensitive and I think what queerness tell we teach us is that whatever answer we come up with is never the full answer. queerness is always the failure by definition of the attempt to define because once you define something there is always margin that does not fit into this definition. So whatever answer we find now to the mechanism, to the oppressing mechanism around us, is not a singular one, to the mechanism, to the oppressing mechanism around us, is not a singular one, is not a set one, is not a fixed one, but it's the best that we can find right now at this moment in this context. We always need to reflect, to question the possibility that the answers that we come to or the words that we choose in order to narrate reality is at best an attempt to fail better.