Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, backed a bill to criminalize the denial of Israel’s right to exist on Friday, a motion that constitutional experts said could jeopardize freedom of expression.
According to the bill, anyone denying Israel’s right to exist or calling for its abolition would be punished with a prison sentence of up to five years under the regulation. The bill will be examined by the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, after its summer recess.
Can we first know what “right to exist” means for the context of a nation state? Surely, Nazi Germany didn’t have a “right to exist”. So, surely it’s not a universal right like a person’s right to exist? This means there are things a state can do that revoke it’s “right to exist”? So, what does it actually mean?
All states (even Nazi Germany) have a “right to exist” and it cannot be revoked.
No states have a “right to exist”.
All states have a right to exist until some defined violation that revokes that right.
It’s a meaningless phrase that is only used in the context of defending a genocidal apartheid state.
I’m leaning towards thinking they are using the last definition.