Letter to the CFFP Why Shadow World Investigations and the Transnational Institute declined an invitation to speak at an event organised by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy

Dear Kristina Lunz and Nina Bernarding,

We, Andrew Feinstein and I, were invited to attend a meeting in Berlin titled Confronting Obstacles to Peace hosted by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy. Initially we thought it might be a good opportunity to raise publicly Germany's complicity in the genocide in Gaza considering that the greatest obstacle to global peace at present is Israel's erosion of post World War II international legal and multilateral structures put in place to maintain global peace and security. Through its genocidal war on Palestine, its war in Lebanon, and its systematic targeting of Iran, Syria and Yemen - all of which it does with German political and military support - Israel is the greatest threat to global stability.

However, in the time since we accepted the invitation to speak, it has been brought to our attention that the CFFP has faced allegations of silencing board members regarding the genocide in Gaza. To wit, key advisory board members, Kavita Nandini Ramdas and Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, resigned, citing CFFP’s reluctance to take a strong stance on Gaza and its poor treatment of board members, which they felt contradicted feminist principles. Moreover, a public letter signed by former staff of CFFP made serious allegations including systematic mistreatment, silencing of voices when advocating for Palestinian rights, and laying off or sidelining all BIPOC employees since October 7, 2023.

In addition, CFFP has provided platforms to controversial German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who claims to be a feminist despite showing no humanity, sympathy or willingness to advocate for the women of Gaza, instead offering uncritical support to Israel's continuing brutality. On 16 October 2024 Minister Baerbock claimed that Israel could kill civilians while exercising its right to defend itself. The UN-OHCHR recently reported that seventy percent of the victims killed in Gaza during the first six months of the genocide were women and children, confirming what Palestinian and international organisations have been denouncing for over a year. According to the German foreign minister these deaths are justified. CFFP hosted the foreign minister just days after she justified the mass killing of civilians. This is entirely unacceptable as serves as a dangerous attempt to normalise the most egregious violations of international law.

We are deeply concerned by Germany’s appalling stance on the genocide, especially for a country that has committed at least two genocides itself. It has clearly learned nothing from its history and is now repeating the same mistakes of the past by supporting yet another genocide. The country seems caught in a historical misapprehension that its victims have the right to commit atrocities against others, because of their victimhood. The minimum expectation of German human rights and feminist organisations is to speak out clearly and unequivocally against the ongoing slaughter and the incalculable harm done to women and girls by the systematic destruction of every single aspect of their lives and their communities. CFFP has failed to do this and has rather provided a platform to a powerful faux-feminist who is central to German complicity. 

Therefore, we do not believe we can accept this invitation as it would be an inappropriate platform to utilise to raise the existential issues facing Germany and the world, but will boycott this event in solidarity with the CFFP’s courageous board members and staff, and of course, with the girls, women, children and men of Gaza and Lebanon. 

Rather than looking outward and analysing NATO and the EU as obstacles to peace, CFFP would do well to look inward and dedicate time to reflecting on its own role in contributing to the web of German complicity in the genocide in Gaza. History will not look kindly on those who were complicit, silent or indifferent during this mass slaughter.

Regards,

Niamh Áine Ní Bhriain, Coordinator of the Transnational Institute's War and Pacification programme

Andrew Feinstein, Executive Director, Shadow World Investigations; author ‘The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade’; former ANC Member of Parliament under Nelson Mandela