Germany Bans a Group That No Longer Exists, Citing 'Antisemitism' Two Years After It Dissolved

German authorities in the state of Hesse have formally banned Palästina e.V., a pro-Palestinian organization that dissolved itself nearly two years ago. The ban, announced Tuesday, came with police raids on five properties linked to the group.

Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck framed the move as a defense of the "rule of law" against rising antisemitism. His ministry accused the group of "spreading antisemitic stereotypes," denying Israel's right to exist, and disseminating "anti-Israel narratives" that undermine "international understanding."

There is one problem: Palästina e.V. does not exist anymore. The Frankfurt-based group dissolved itself in 2024, telling followers on social media, "You wanted to ban our association? It no longer exists!" German authorities kept investigating anyway, citing the continued activism of its former members, and raided the homes of its leaders in January 2025 before Tuesday's formal ban.

What the government says it found

According to Hesse's Interior Ministry, the group's founding statutes, drafted in 2022, called for support of "all forms of Palestinian resistance" and the "liberation of all of historical Palestine from Zionist occupation, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea," a slogan the German federal government formally banned in 2024. An administrative court had previously ruled the group's activities contradicted Germany's constitutional order.

Authorities also pointed to remarks attributed to an unnamed "prominent member" who allegedly called the October 7 attacks a "successful resistance action." It is unclear when those remarks were made or in what context, and no direct quotation, date, or named speaker has been produced publicly. That distinction matters: the government is using an unattributed, undated statement by one person to help justify banning an entire organization, most of whose members were never named or individually charged.

Part of a pattern

The ban is not an isolated case. Germany's federal Interior Ministry banned the international network Samidoun and its German chapter in late 2023 over alleged Hamas support. North Rhine-Westphalia authorities banned Palestine Solidarity Duisburg in May 2024 after raiding members' homes. Berlin has also imposed blanket restrictions on pro-Palestine protests since October 2023.

These actions have run alongside Germany's continued arms sales to Israel and consistent political backing for Israeli policy throughout the Gaza war. Berlin has long cast unconditional support for Israel as atonement for the Holocaust, a framing that Palestinian solidarity activists argue collapses the distinction between the Israeli state and Jewish people generally, and that critics say is now being used to suppress political speech under the banner of fighting antisemitism.

Activists describe the widening net of German bans as, in effect, a crackdown on criticism of Israel rather than a targeted response to hate speech. Occupation Watch could not independently verify whether Israeli officials or lobby groups directly pressed Hesse authorities on this specific case. The pattern, however, mirrors a broader European trend in which pro-Palestinian organizing is increasingly treated as a security threat, even after the organizations in question have already shut themselves down.