Germany Proposes Law to Penalize Denial of Hamas Crimes Comparable to Holocaust Denial

Germany steps forward in Europe with a proposal. Anyone who intentionally doubts the crimes of Hamas on October 7th should be punished by law, just as those who deny the Holocaust are. The idea comes from the commissioner for antisemitism of Hesse, Uwe Becker, considering that the percentages of antisemites, deniers, and Israelophobes is on the rise, not only in Germany but throughout Europe. "It should become a punishable offense in Germany just like Holocaust denial. Similarly, the denial of the massacres by Hamas should be explicitly considered crimes," Becker explained in Wiesbaden on Monday, according to reports from the Catholic agency KNA. The proposal was subsequently also sent to the Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP). Casini: "Netanyahu is not Israel, his mistakes help Hamas. In Russia, the gulags have returned." At the heart of this initiative is the consideration that October 7th was the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. And the traumas continue to have an effect as the brutal violence shapes the collective memory of the Jewish community for generations. Despite this, there runs parallel a reinterpretation of what happened by intellectuals, like the American philosopher Judith Butler, who justifies the antisemitic pogrom as a legitimate act of resistance by the Palestinians. The massacred children, women brutally raped, and parents burned alive are not so much barbaric terrorist attacks but resistance to the oppressor. "A thesis, that of Butler, which spreads in too many extremist left-wing solidarity groups and should give pause," Becker explained. German criminal law provides for prison sentences of up to five years for those who deny the Holocaust.