A Hamas slogan, which can be read as a call to wipe out Israel, has apparently been read for months on a student union bungalow in the Olympic Village in Munich. The saying “From the River to the Sea…” has been banned since November; showing or chanting it can be a criminal offense. In the case of the Arabic wall painting in the Olympic Village, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State Security Police are investigating. The new resident of the bungalow and a passerby raised the alarm.
The publicly displayed anti-Israel agitation is particularly explosive because the bungalow is on Connollystrasse – just a few minutes’ walk from the site of the attack on Israeli athletes by a Palestinian terrorist squad in 1972. The memorial to the bloody act during the Olympic Games is also in Visibility.
There are stones on a memorial plaque on Connollystrasse as a sign of mourning for those murdered. Underneath there are withered flowers and a candle. And just three hundred meters further, an Arabic slogan across the entire width of a student bungalow, calling for a “free Palestine” from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, i.e. one that leaves no room for the Jewish state of Israel. The color hasn’t faded yet. Further inscriptions indicate that a former tenant was responsible for the lettering. But it’s been ten months since he moved out.
When the slogan was written on the house, it was not yet a crime. Nobody noticed it when the Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians in October, when Hamas and its license plates were officially banned in Germany, and when Jewish students increasingly reported hostility and a lack of solidarity in Munich. Apparently no one was interested in what the Arabic inscription meant so close to a former attack site and in the middle of a student neighborhood.
Until a new resident moved into the bungalow two weeks ago. The student union then became active, a painter was commissioned and the lettering was to be removed on Thursday. The CSU local chairwoman Tina Pickert looked at the lettering in the morning and was surprised: “The student union has the task of actually checking what is written on their rented apartments – they can’t just let it happen like that!”
“We have numerous students from different backgrounds, including from the Arab world, who use oriental representations and lettering artistically,” says Christopher Klein from the student union. “Therefore, apparently no one assumed that the content was anti-Semitic.” The residents are allowed to paint their bungalows themselves; the colors are provided. Of course, racist, anti-Semitic or unconstitutional content is prohibited. So far, anti-human or anti-constitutional motives have hardly ever appeared. “Rather, many paintings convey motifs for more integration, diversity and philanthropy,” assures Klein. He promises: “We will use the current case as an opportunity to tighten the guidelines even further.” In the future, inscriptions should only be permitted in German or English.
The Anti-Semitism Research and Information Center (Rias) Bavaria was made aware of the slogan by a passer-by a few days ago. She posted on social media Short videowhich points out the special significance of the Connollystrasse memorial site.
Last Friday, the anti-Semitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, senior public prosecutor Andreas Franck, initiated an investigation under Section 86a of the Criminal Code (“Using the symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations”). Since then Ban of Hamas and the Samidoun support network on November 2nd, the general public prosecutor’s office treated the slogan “From the river to the sea” “as a specific characteristic of the terrorist organization Hamas,” according to Franck.