While fans express concern about the upcoming SC Freiburg vs Maccabi match in the context of security measures and police control, the Palestine Solidarity movement articulates its concern in terms of the genocide committed by Israel and the Maccabi fans’ explicit support for it. These can seem like disconnected struggles, but they connect through the same surveillance architecture. This article lays out that connection.

Dieser Beitrag ist hier auch auf Englisch verfügbar.

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Background

On January 22, 2026, SC Freiburg hosts Maccabi Tel Aviv. Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans are notorious even in Israel for their propensity for violence and racist excesses¹. Many fans have directly served in the IDF in the Gaza genocide, with the IDF being at the center of the fan culture. Their chants are explicitly pro-IDF and Gaza-directed dehumanization².

This match is also positioned inside Baden-Württemberg’s expansion of police surveillance through preemptive policing and AI tools. By the end of 2025, Palantir’s Gotham has been introduced into the police to link separate police datasets in one system for search and analysis⁴.

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The War on Antisemitism⁶

The German Staatsräson frames the protection of Israel as a commitment and a policing task⁷. It justifies protecting the Maccabi hooligans and fans with several thousand police forces, and it frames the match as a security event. Freiburg’s mayor Martin Horn has invited the mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, to the match⁸. A local “Israeli” restaurant plans to distribute 1,000 Israeli flags for the match day⁹.

Under the IHRA definition of antisemitism, “antisemitism” is used to discipline political speech by treating criticism of Israel as antisemitism¹⁰, which can be a criminal offense. Jewish safety remains a secondary concern, but instrumentalizes antisemitism for a state strategy. German media discourse treats criticism of Maccabi fans as “antisemitism,” even when documented cases of violence by Maccabi fans are documented¹¹.

This fits the frame of a “war on antisemitism,” similar to the “war on drugs” and “war on terror.” It instrumentalizes a moral pretext to expand a racial regime enforced through security, surveillance, and deportation¹². The same framing casts Palestine solidarity, Arabs, Muslims, migrants, and allies as the main suspect population^{13 14}.

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Palestine and the Stadium

Security measures will include thousands of visibly armed police, deployed throughout the city and the stadium. Entry checks will be very thorough under the security concept for this home game. If police claim suspicion, they will carry out more invasive ID checks. With Palantir’s Gotham now introduced for surveillance and preemptive policing, these ID checks can be linked and searched across police datasets¹⁵.

The deployment of thousands of police equipped with Gotham, means that being in the wrong place at the wrong time (even as a bystander) can lead to a data entry in a police database¹⁸. Gotham is a system built for preemptive policing, where innocence or guilt is secondary. Protesting the Maccabi match and being logged in this context can mean a lasting “antisemitism” marker in a person’s file. This is expected to intensify racial profiling and suppress dissenting political speech, and reaches beyond fans and ultras. It reaches residents, commuters, people protesting the Maccabi game as well as passer-bys.

Palantir maintains a strategic partnership with Israel’s defense ministry, which allowed Palantir to collect data from gaza, the west bank and the interior to develop its platform. Palantir has delivered the same systems that BW police now uses¹⁹. Palantir has been implicated in the UN report “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide” for its links to AI targeting software deployed in Gaza²⁰.

The game with Maccabi is a chance for the police and Palantir to fight the “war on antisemitism”. This affects all of us: fans, residents, passer-bys, demonstrators, and activists. Palantir provides military-grade, preemptive targeting software. Innocence and guilt are secondary. This is the method of genocide. This is already used at scale, and the Maccabi game is a chance to expand it. Everyone will be affected.

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JOIN US.

WE MUST RESIST.

INSTAGRAM

SIGNAL

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For a scientific in-depth analysis of Germany’s “war on anti-semitism”, check the paper: Fighting Anti-Semitism in Contemporary German by Anna-Esther Younes

For an in-depth analysis of palantir’s role in genocide, racial-profiling and ICE, check our article: Palantir: Uberwachung, Rassismus und Genozid

For an article discussing how football is a petri dish for the police state, check out: Football is the Police State’s Petri Dish

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References

1. Solidarität mit Palästina, Am 22. Januar 2026: Stadionverbot für Maccabi Tel Aviv in Freiburg ↩︎
2. Solidarität mit Palästina, Am 22. Januar 2026: Stadionverbot für Maccabi Tel Aviv in Freiburg ↩︎
3. ice, Maccabi Tel Aviv for reserve soldiers: “The whole nation is an army” ↩︎
4. tadamun, Palantir: Überwachung, Rassismus und Genozid ↩︎
5. StN, VfB gegen Maccabi Tel Aviv Stark verschärfte Kontrollen – was sich für VfB-Fans ändert ↩︎
6. Anna-Esther Younes, Fighting Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Germany ↩︎
7. Lena Obermaier, “We Are All Israelis”: The Consequences of Germany’s Staatsräson ↩︎
8. welt, Freiburg stellt sich gegen anti-israelische Petition ↩︎
9. Facebook, Jaffa Freiburg ↩︎
10. Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism ↩︎
11. Badische Zeitung, SC Freiburg gegen Maccabi Tel Aviv: Wie Palästina-Aktivisten Stimmung gegen israelische Fans machen ↩︎
12. Anna-Esther Younes, Fighting Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Germany ↩︎
13. bpb, Antisemitismus in der Migrationsgesellschaft ↩︎
14. Anna-Esther Younes, Fighting Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Germany ↩︎
15. tadamun, Palantir: Überwachung, Rassismus und Genozid ↩︎
16. cc97, Spruchband zu Palantir ↩︎
17. ultra1894, Spruchbanderklärung Palantir ↩︎
18. Campact, Drei Gründe gegen Palantir in Baden-Württemberg ↩︎
19. tadamun, Palantir: Überwachung, Rassismus und Genozid ↩︎
20. OHCHR, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide ↩︎