A London surgeon who has provided testimony over the current war in Gaza after operating during the conflict has been denied entry to France, where he was due to speak in the French senate later on Saturday.
After arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris on Saturday morning on a flight from London, Prof Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, was informed by French authorities that Germany had enforced a Schengen-wide ban on his entry to Europe.
French police said the German authorities, who had previously refused Abu-Sitta entry to Germany in April, had put a visa ban on him for a year, meaning he was banned from entering any Schengen country. It is not clear whether Abu-Sitta was aware of this before flying to Paris.
“They are preventing me from entering France. I am supposed to speak at the French senate today,” said Abu-Sitta, who had been invited by Green party parliamentarians to take part in a conference at the Sénat, the upper house, to speak about Gaza. The theme of the conference was: France and its responsibility in the application of international law in Gaza.
Because cutting off ties with Israel doesn’t change Israel’s mind, especially if you’re Germany, while with intact relations you can still work from the inside. Germany has deep ties to all aspects of Israeli society, not just the government. Or, differently put: Breaking ties won’t happen until the Kahanites outlaw the Haaretz.
On the flipside I don’t see any other possible explanation for the lack of issued weapons export permits than them being of the opinion that there’s at least a strong risk that those weapons would be used in a genocide. You might’ve heard that the ICJ didn’t enact any preliminary rulings against Germany to stop weapons exports, that is why: There’s no exports that could be reasonably used in the perpetration of a genocide.
Germany never decided that, Germany, or rather Berlin (as in the state government in its role as municipality, not the federal government) decided he should not speak in Germany on grounds of public order concerns. I suppose it has something to do with him glorifying war criminals, no matter how often he says that he disavows terrorism. The convention he was to speak at also showed videos of someone else already banned, there might be some degree of getting caught in the cross fire involved. He’s not a German citizen thus political activism within Germany is not a right but privilege.
Plenty of Palestinians are not getting banned from Germany like that because they’re way less iffy, and with that I don’t mean “Don’t criticise Israel”.
France is free to make arrangements that allow him to enter France without risking him entering Schengen states he’s banned from. Also this would’ve looked differently without Brexit as then he’d still be a EU citizen and the ban wouldn’t have automatically extended to Schengen so why aren’t you blaming the Tories instead of Germany.