Ska Band Defies German Attempts to Ban Song ‘Intifada’

Objections to the Spanish band Ska-P’s upcoming appearance in Germany have been raised by those offended by the band’s song “Intifada,” in which Jews are accused to treating Palestinians the way the Nazis treated the Jews — i.e., genocidally.

The photograph above says it all. But piquant details about Ska-P, their song “Intifada,” and why so many are trying to ban their appearance in Munich, can be found here: “Spanish Ska Band Accused of Antisemitism Issues Defiant Response Ahead of Germany Gig,” by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, July 12, 2023:

A row over the forthcoming appearance by Spanish ska band Ska-P at a music festival in Germany intensified on Wednesday {July 12], as members of the group angrily denied the accusation of antisemitism and a leading pro-Israel advocate filed a criminal complaint to stop their performance.

The Madrid-based group, who perform ska and punk-influenced songs with a left-wing orientation, is scheduled to play at Munich’s Tollwood Festival on Friday. Earlier this week, a coalition comprised of the Left Alliance against Antisemitism Munich (LBGA), the Association of Jewish Students in Bavaria (VJSB), the Association of German Sinti and Roma in Bavaria and the Youth Forum of the German-Israeli Society — Munich called for the cancellation of Ska-P’s concert, pointing to one of the band’s songs as well as its stage act as problematic.

Ska-P’s track “Intifada” — a tribute to the Palestinian struggle against Israel — was cited as unacceptable because of its comparison of Israeli behavior with that of the Nazis. The song”s lyrics include the lines: “Six million Jews who were exterminated in the most horrific way/An imperialist genocide by fascist armies, we must learn from history/The victims have become executioners, everything has gone wrong.”

Roma groups have meanwhile objected to the group’s alleged appropriation of gypsy traditions, as one band member appears on stage wearing a gypsy costume and holding a crystal ball.

Why should the Roma object? Don’t they all have crystal balls as part of their fortune-telling racket? Ska-P was just making plain what everyone knows. At least the Roma are not genocidal Jews, those quondam victims turned “executioners.”

In a statement released via their Instagram account on Tuesday, Ska-P expressed incredulity at the accusation of antisemitism, insisting that they are “anti-Zionists” and that the two should not be conflated.

“Wow, at this point we are being labeled as antisemitic by some evil tongues in Germany,” the group stated.

“No, WE ARE NOT ANTISEMITES, from our atheism we respect all religious people whatever their religion is, not the religions themselves, since we believe that you can never think freely if you grow up among dogmas and indoctrinations,” they continued.

Of course the members of the far-left Ska-P band have been indoctrinated with the most fashionable of current political dogmas, in which the “brown” third-world Palestinians are moral exemplars, persecuted by the “white” colonial-settler Jews who have stolen their land. They are indignant that anyone should think that the accusations they level against Israel, of treating the Palestinians the way the Nazis treated the Jews, amounts to antisemitism. Nor should their desire to deny the Jewish people a state of their own be considered antisemitic. Ska-P pretends to be amazed that anyone would label them as “antisemitic.” At the top of their lungs they claim, just like Roger Waters before them, “NO, WE ARE NOT ANTISEMITES.” What more proof of their inner essential innocence do those “evil tongues in Germany” need?

“Our song ‘Intifada’ is a denunciation of the occupation by the State of Israel of the people of Palestine, the settlements and land theft, the brutal segregation and the refusal by the State of Israel and its partners of the creation of a Palestinian State. To be ANTI-ZIONIST is not to be ANTISEMITIC.”

Tens of millions of people beg to differ. To be “anti-Zionist” in such a manner goes far beyond any legitimate criticism of the Jewish state. The lies about “land theft” and “brutal segregation,” the claim that Israel opposes the “creation of a Palestinian state” (the Israelis have repeatedly made proposals toward exactly that end, only to have all such proposals rejected by the Palestinians), the attempt to delegitimize the only Jewish state, and to support those who wish to replace it with a 23rd Arab one, are all expressions of a deep hatred that no sensible person should have any trouble labeling as “antisemitic.”

Acknowledging the “persecution to which the Jewish community has been subjected throughout the ages, especially in the Second World War,” the group claimed that “we have always declared ourselves anti-fascists and we have songs that reflect it, that is why we will never accept Zionism.”…

According to Ska-P, it is precisely because “we have always declared ourselves anti-fascists” that we can “never accept Zionism.” For Zionism is Fascism. There’s nothing that will change the band’s mind.

Volker Beck — president of the German-Israeli Friendship Society — accused the group of “hate speech,” specifically citing the line in “Intifada” about the Jewish victims of the Holocaust turning into “executioners.”

“Incitement to hatred is not freedom of art. Something like that shouldn’t have a stage in Munich,” Beck told the Judische Allgemeine news outlet. He said that he would file a criminal complaint in a bid to have Ska-P’s concert canceled….

The line in question, from their songs “Intifada,” bears repeating: “Six million Jews who were exterminated in the most horrific way/An imperialist genocide by fascist armies, we must learn from history/The victims have become executioners, everything has gone wrong.” The “victims have become executioners.” Dwell on that for a moment. The Jews treat the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews. What’s wrong with that? Why are Jews always so touchy? After all, we are all quite aware of the death camps, with those “showers” of Zyklon-B, that the Israelis have set up in Gaza and the West Bank, we know about the mobile killing vans in Jenin and Nablus, the shootings of tens of thousands of Palestinians at the side of open pits into which they then topple, the crematoriums into which Palestinians are shoved while still alive, the cattle cars where the people inside smother to death, the ghastly medical experiments carried out by Jews on helpless Palestinians. Do the Zionists dare deny any of it?

Of course, the defenders of Zionism are bound to note that “on the Internet” we discover that the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza was 1.3 million in 1967 and is 5.2 million today, hardly suggesting any kind of mass execution. But that’s just the point that Ska-P, and so many others, like Roger Waters, are making: who do you think owns and runs the Internet worldwide, and plants false facts to cover their sinister Zionist tracks?