Last Saturday, hundreds of workers and young people gathered in Stuttgart city centre to demonstrate against Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, which has continued now for nine months. The current protests are taking place against the backdrop of a famine in the Gaza Strip that is worsening every day. The medical journal The Lancet recently published a study showing that the actual number of deaths in Gaza could be far higher than previously thought, with an estimated 186,000 deaths (8 percent of the population).

Although the main imperialist powers and their Zionist proxies continue to intensify the genocide, the opposition is not abating. Many participants travelled to Stuttgart from all over the state of Baden-Württemberg. WSWS reporters spoke to participants and emphasised two points in particular:

1. The genocide in Gaza is not an isolated event but one front in a developing third world war.
2. The genocide in Gaza cannot be stopped by appeals to the government, but only by building an anti-war movement in the working class.

Many participants strongly condemned the German government’s support for the genocide in Gaza. “Germany is not interested in human lives, but in power, gas and oil,” explained one young demonstrator. “We all know that half of the people murdered are children. And now we’ve also learnt that, for example, that 35 injured children sought to travel here, but the German government refused to take them.”

She sees this escalation of the war by the German government not only in Gaza, but also beyond, saying, “You can see that Germany has its hands in everything and also has blood on its hands. Since the beginning of our [Palestine] demos, many other cases have been added from oppressed countries or where genocide is currently taking place, such as in Yemen, Sudan or Congo, for example.”

When asked about the prospect of focussing the protests against genocide on the working class, she responded approvingly, “If we simply went on strike en masse, for example, it would have a much greater impact. ... Of course, it’s the working class that suffers the most, but it could also do a lot about it.”

Two 15-year-old schoolgirls who travelled to the demonstration also believe that the German government is partly to blame for the genocide. “If they didn’t supply weapons to Israel, the genocide wouldn’t be happening,” one of them explained.

The development towards a third world war worries them: “I also think it could definitely lead to a third world war, as many countries are at war. And the US is also heavily involved in all is happening.”

Another student emphasised the repressive role that the German government is playing in suppressing the protests: “It’s the reason why many people are afraid to talk about the issue. Many people have been arrested merely because they went to protest.”

The fact that this is being done in the name of the supposed fight against antisemitism particularly repels him: “I just find it offensive to Jews who genuinely suffer from antisemitism. Most Jews are against what is happening, they are not Zionists. I find it disrespectful that people are told: ‘You’re antisemitic now because you hate the oppression of other people.’”

Another student from Stuttgart also explained, “It is presented as if [supporting Israel] is some sort of contrast to the Nazi past, but I see it as a continuation of this past. Germany was not de-Nazified and support for fascism today only confirms that. It is simply intolerable that a country like Germany is basically supporting the same thing again.”

On the WSWS’s perspective, he explained, “I think that’s a good approach, because you can obviously see that appealing to the German government hasn’t done much good so far. They continue to do their thing. That’s why you have to find other ways, of course, and change often comes from the bottom up, from the working class.

“I think today it is not enough just to be against genocide. The whole system that created this genocide, the colonial occupation of Palestine, must be confronted and mobilised against. This is a struggle not only against genocide, not only against colonialism, but also against capitalism and imperialism. This obviously requires the working class.”

Two students who travelled to the demonstration from Freiburg reported on their own experiences of repression: “Unfortunately, freedom of expression no longer exists here as far as that is concerned. We actually experienced it for ourselves yesterday. We said something in a panel discussion here at the university, just asked a question with some context. Then the police came, we were forced to leave, and they declared we had committed a criminal offence. She [his girlfriend] was put in handcuffs for bringing it up at the university.”

He had also had the same experience with university occupations in Basel: “Of course, they were violently evicted after one or two days, and the students there also had to fear being sanctioned by the university for expressing their opinion. The professors and lecturers, dependent on their contracts, also have to watch out.”

On the prospect of mobilising the working class against the genocide on the basis of a socialist perspective, he explained, “I see it the same way. I also believe that we can only do something through the masses if the population really stands up and understands that there is actually only one problem that we have to tackle at the root.”