Two weeks after Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Berlin’s senate for culture commissioned a legal report to establish whether a cultural centre in the German capital’s Neukölln district had violated the city’s antisemitism prevention guidelines and should lose its funding as a result. In question were several statements that the cultural centre had posted or shared on its social media channels in response to Israel’s retaliation against Gaza – including phrases such as “apartheid state” and “settler colonialism”. The investigation was also, however, looking at the centre’s plans to host an event one wouldn’t ordinarily suspect...