BERLIN – Munich has not been as quiet, conservative and elegant as ever, Munich has been Germany's southernmost capital, preoccupied, confused and, above all, engaged in a polarizing debate, mixing art with politics, that has it ignored the "misfortune" that its team is close to coming out empty-handed from a football season that is coming to an end.

Munich and other German cities have tried in recent months to attach the accusation of anti-Semitism to the international artist Roger Waters to the extent that the government of one of these cities banned a concert scheduled for next Sunday, but the German judiciary did justice to the artist, who will hold the concert on time after organizing similar concerts in several German cities, including Munich, the capital of Bavaria.

A discussion left behind by 3 other German cities in the past weeks, namely Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, but the "modern history of Germany" makes Munich different from others, the city that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler gave his most dangerous speeches and from which he also incited the march to Berlin, the debate is taking place sharply and polarized, especially when talking about history and a sensitive issue such as the discussion of anti-Semitism.

This peculiarity made the city, with its political and media elites, engage in a discussion of anti-Semitism and accusations against its guest, the great international artist Roger Waters in a special way, and with questions that do not occur to the residents of Berlin, Hamburg or Cologne, where the artist organized 3 concerts in the past weeks.

One of those questions discussed in Munich was: Is Roger Waters really anti-Semitic because he criticizes Israel's actions against Palestinians? Will Munich follow the path of Frankfurt, which banned the concert and embarrassed itself after the judiciary granted him justice and recognized his right to express his opinion as an artist? Did the city government acquiesce to the dictates of some lobbyists when it called for a boycott of the concert? And does Waters' mere proximity to the BDS movement automatically make him anti-Semitic? Above all, where do the boundaries of art end, and what are allowed to artists and not others and in all their categories?

The first newspaper adheres to neutrality

Munich's first newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, which is affiliated with the liberal left, and is one of the largest German newspapers, chose neutrality and only covered the musical event without entering into the corridors of opinion articles, but accompanied the head of cultural and educational affairs in the Israeli community in Bavaria and former president of the Supreme Union of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, during her participation in a demonstration organized last Sunday in front of the Olympic Hall, where the artist's concert was organized and gave her enough space to criticize the concert and its owner and what she described in a speech during The demonstration of "the inability of politics to turn strong words into deeds" in order to combat anti-Semitism.

The Munich public channel (BR) not only accompanied Knobloch to the demonstration and gave Bavarian anti-Semitism Commissioner Ludwig Spenle enough space to criticize the concert and anti-Semitism, but also devoted 13 reports to cover the event, and headlined journalists Birgit Grundner and Peter Jungblot a detailed article: "Roger Waters should be banned from singing in Munich."

Mayor Dieter Reiter also took part in the criticism, who in one interview expanded his criticism of the artist to include accusations against Waters of weaving conspiracy theories about the Russian war on Ukraine, demanding that the company responsible for organizing the concert "examine all possibilities" of the ban.

Lawyer specializing in social law Ahmed Abed was not surprised by the city's handling of the issue in this way, and said – Al Jazeera Net – that Munich "specifically has been trying for years to restrict all activists who are trying to criticize Israel's practices against the Palestinians or just talk about the status of Palestinian rights."

Abed pointed to the difficulty of activists in this city, specifically the BDS movement, to obtain halls and licenses to organize its events, despite the movement's resort to the courts and its success in obtaining judicial decisions allowing it to organize these events.

Lawyer specializing in social law Ahmed Abed (Al Jazeera)

Waters and the White Rose Movement

Roger Waters himself carefully and intelligently chose his first stop in Munich, visiting the tomb of Sophie Schult and Hans Scholl, who were executed by the Nazi regime in Munich in 1943 for founding the anti-Nazi student movement and exterminating the Jews "Die weiße Rose", and commented on the visit with the words of Sophie Scholl: "How can we expect justice to prevail if there are no people who are able to sacrifice themselves?"

"Sophie Scholl is a heroine who deserves to be revered with her comrades in the White Rose movement because of her peaceful struggle against Nazism," the international artist added.

Concert 'does not hurt the dignity of Jews'

The singer's story began with these accusations and the German courts after his management announced at the beginning of the year his plan to perform 5 concerts in 5 German cities: Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt respectively.

Immediately after the announcement, the Frankfurt city and Hesse state governments banned his 28 May concert on anti-Semitic charges.

After the ban was taken, the artist resorted to the judiciary, which on April 24 / April last decision allowed him to hold his concert on the scheduled date and place, attributing this to the need to "guarantee freedom of art."

In this regard, Abed said that state and federal governments "continue to try to harass activists despite winning most cases in the past years, and this applies not only to Roger Waters but to other artists who try to do justice to Palestinians and criticize Israel's practices against them."

Asked whether these decisions prove the integrity of the judiciary in Germany, Abed stressed the independence and impartiality of the German judiciary, but added that this also indicates "the poor situation of human rights in Germany," pointing to the problem of the inability of all activists to go to the judiciary for financial, cognitive or other reasons related to the fact that taking this path requires great effort.

As for the reasons why governments in Germany insist on banning pro-Palestinian rights events despite the defeats they suffered before the judiciary, Abed said that this is a sign that these governments "work against the courts, against the laws, and then against the constitution," stressing that he alone won at least 10 cases related to anti-Semitic charges.

The Frankfurt Administrative Court added that holding the concert in this hall "does not offend the dignity of Jews" and is not a "serious infringement" of the status and rights of Jews in Germany.

According to Abed, the Frankfurt government knew before that it would "risk violating the constitution and bearing the court's estimated costs of a few hundred thousand euros," because it advocates for Israel from an ideological position, he said.

The Munich government has learned its lesson

The city of Munich, which in 2018 resorted to the judiciary to ban a concert by the same artist, and failed to do so, preferred not to repeat the mistake and decided on March 23 not to stand up to the company that runs the Olympic Hall and allow it to organize the concert, in exchange for calling for a boycott of the artist's concert.

The city government based its decision on another court decision taken by administrative courts in Munich and Leipzig earlier this year that allowed the BDS movement to organize another separate event, which according to the Munich government means "legally unable to force the Olympic Hall Management Company (OMG) to cancel the ceremony", so it resorted to jamming the Waters concert as an alternative to losing to the courts.