The most striking feature is the constant, persistent cognitive dissonance. Germany prides itself in having overcome its genocidal past, but we see every day that this is an abject lie made to distract from the violence of its present. In the last two years, Arabs in Germany have watched laws being changed to better surveil, harass, and criminalize us. Phrases such as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” were declared symbols of Hamas and are used as justifications for violent arrests. Berlin alone is investigating 10,000 court cases related to Palestine solidarity protesters. New police laws with expanded police powers have been introduced in multiple federal states. As described in Palestinian-German legal scholar Nahed Samour’s excellent essay, “The Arab in the Law of Berlin, or: ‘How does it feel to be a problem?’” the Berlin police specifically invented a category of crime just to criminalize Arabs. Now, the city’s large Arab population – the largest Palestinian diaspora in Europe, plus lots of Syrians, Lebanese, and other Arab nationalities – is facing a new police law that allows police to covertly break into apartments and install surveillance technology. All of this is done under the guise of needing to “protect against terrorism.” In Berlin, the police have received carte blanche by politicians and civil society to brutalize Palestine solidarity protesters as much as they please, beating, choking, kicking, mass-surveilling, arresting, and imprisoning. The more Arab and more masculine you look, the more the black-clad fists of the ever-present riot cops are attracted to your face, stomach, or balls…