I don’t think anything in the ruling hinged on the semantics if the world “means”. That said, there is nothing ambiguous in saying that a logical relation is not symmetric. Symmetry, like reflexivity, transitivity etc, are well defined in algebra.
The American mind cannot comprehend this.
Only if you assume that the word “means” defines a symmetric relation.
Sorry mate, that’s on you. Your founding padres even told you that unless you water your tree of liberty you might not keep your republic (paraphrasing Jefferson and Franklin here).
However, the known record of German institutions cracking down on dissident Jewish voices(*) is a very good indicator of what’s going on here. Now, I’m not saying that any of these people are little saints, or that they did nothing questionable, but that there is a systemic bias in Germany against pro-Palestinian activism. Which is the more burning point than counting pennies of the particularities of each individual legal case.
(*) such as Masha Gessen, Nancy Fraser, Yuval Abraham, Omri Boehm and others.
Are you asking me to play the role of a search engine for you? 😏
Imagine if the NYT treated Palestinian lives with as much concern.
#notallmen vibes
Can’t read German. Is the article about how the group they were allegedly with did things? Because the article I linked to says they were targeted by association.
It really blows my mind. Masha Gessen, Nancy Fraser, Yuval Abraham, Omri Boehm, and also others not mentioned in the article. Who the fuck gave Germany the right to decide who is a good pro-Israel Jew and who is a bad anti-Israel Jew? Germany of all countries, being in the business of labelling Jewish people as acceptable and unacceptable. The fucking nerve on these people.
The author of the article links to their own earlier article in the Intercept that goes in detail: https://theintercept.com/2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-deport/
The only event that tied the four cases together was the allegation that the protesters participated in the university occupation, which involved property damage, and alleged obstruction of an arrest — a so-called de-arrest aimed at blocking a fellow protesters’ detention. None of the protesters are accused of any particular acts of vandalism or the de-arrest at the university. Instead, the deportation order cites the suspicion that they took part in a coordinated group action. (The Free University told The Intercept it had no knowledge of the deportation orders.)
Some of the allegations are minor. Two, for example, are accused of calling a police officer “fascist” — insulting an officer, which is a crime. Three are accused of demonstrating with groups chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine Will be Free” — which was outlawed last year in Germany — and “free Palestine.” Authorities also claim all four shouted antisemitic or anti-Israel slogans, though none are specified.
Two are accused of grabbing an officers’ or another protesters’ arm in an attempt to stop arrests at the train station sit-in.
O’Brien, one of the Irish citizens, is the only one of the four whose deportation order included a charge – the accusation that he called a police officer a “fascist” – that has been brought before a criminal court in Berlin, where he was acquitted.
All four are accused, without evidence, of supporting Hamas, a group Germany has designated as a terrorist organization.
It’s really really cute to see Germans/Europeans/Westerners pretending that antisemitism is an imported problem.
Vlad Vexler makes the point that the point of is not at all economics but that it does have a basis in logic: it is about asserting that he can do this, that his political power is above economic rationality. It is a political move, not an economic play.
But their shills in the West will make sure that if you raise your voice, depending on your legal status, you will be slandered, roughed up by police, have your degree revoked, snatched up from your family or in the middle of the street, and deported.
And they will use the charge of antisemitism as a cudgel, all the while playing into all the worst antisemitic tropes and preparing the ground for the next round of actual antisemitic violence.
Zionism hurts Palestinians first, people who stand up for humanity second, all Jews third. It’s a shit ideology.
How long do you think until an ICE agent is killed in the line of “duty”? A week, a month? And how many seconds after it happens will the government use it as an excuse to ratchet up the violence?
You dropped this: /s
What is the Turkish government saying about this I wonder.
Hey Americans, is this your government going too far? Or are you just being conditioned to express your rage online and then wait for the next one?
What are you going to do about this?
Up here in Canada, we will fight tooth and nail against your Fascist government. What can we expect from YOU in this fight?
The word “means” is also used for logical entailment, in which case it’s not symmetric. The dog’s coat is wet which means it’s raining. And of course, a man is a featherless biped, but not every featherless biped is a man.
But the way, we are not arguing about the same thing. You think I’m defending the stupid ruling. I’m not, I’m just saying that language is not algebra.
In fact to paraphrase Nish Kumar, if we’re going about precisely characterizing things, a more interesting precise characterization than the meaning of the word woman is the characterization of the people who obsess about it as transphobic idiots.