In Germany, debate rages over a state policy to support Israel, no matter what

Repercussions of pushback

But as Israel's retaliation against Palestinians turned more deadly and destructive as the weeks passed, Germany's unwavering pro-Israel Staatsräson and crackdown on criticism of Israel sparked dismay and fury.

Many are now asking whether Germany's pro-Israel policy has gone too far — or even worse, whether the policy is being used as a tool of repression against Palestinians, Muslims, migrants and even Jews opposed to Israeli policies.

“Germany’s reckoning with its history of atrocities began as an undertaking by left-leaning German civil society,” three Jewish writers said in a recent Granta magazine piece. “Today it has become a highly bureaucratized lever of the state that increasingly serves a reactionary agenda.”

Since Oct. 7, academics, writers, artists and activists expressing views deemed to run counter to Germany's pro-Israel Staatsräson and supporting Palestinian causes have faced repercussions.

One of the first controversies took place at the Frankfurt Book Fair, a premier literary event, when an award ceremony was canceled for Palestinian novelist and essayist Adania Shibli. She was to receive an award for her novel about the rape and murder of a Palestinian girl in 1949 by Israeli soldiers.

When Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek took the stage at the fair's opening and criticized the exclusion of Shibli and talked about the need to recognize the plight of Palestinians, he was heckled by many in the crowd. The mayor of Frankfurt and others walked out.

Around the same time in the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein, the region's integration state secretary, Marjam Samadzade, was fired for social media posts critical of Israel's attacks on Gaza.

In mid-November, journalist Vincent Bevins was told he could no longer give a speech at the University of Regensburg because he'd made pro-Palestinian social media posts. He accused the university of saying he supported Hamas simply because he'd posted a video where a Hamas militant leader was interviewed on an Arabic news channel.

In late November, John Keane, a politics professor of the University of Sydney, announced on social media he'd been forced out as a fellow from the well-known WZB Social Science Research Center in Berlin for having posted on Oct. 7 an image of green flags associated with Islam on social media and for later expressing outrage over Israel's bombardment of Gaza. He'd been associated with the center for 25 years, he said.

The breakup was linked to an email he received from the center's president, Jutta Allmendinger, accusing him of showing support for Hamas with the image of the flags, which she said represented Hamas insignia. Keane denied that and said the flags are used widely by Islamic groups.

In his resignation letter, Keane accused Allmendinger of being “unbothered by the barbarous and terroristic behavior of the current Israeli government.”

Recently, the Saarland Museum's Modern Gallery canceled an upcoming show by Candice Breitz, a Jewish South African artist based in Berlin, because she'd spoken out against Israel's assault on Gaza.

In response to having her exhibition nixed, Breitz blasted the Saarland Museum for taking part in what American philosopher Susan Neiman dubbed “philosemitic McCarthyism” in a recent New York Review of Books article.

In a report, Art News cited several other examples where German institutions called off shows because people linked to them had criticized Israel and made pro-Palestinian statements.

Well before the Oct. 7 attacks, artists, scholars, writers and musicians supportive of the "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions" movement and expressing anti-Israeli views had come under attack in Germany, had awards taken away from them and had been blocked from appearing in German institutions.

Keeping antisemitism in check

But state support for Israel has hardened even more in Germany since the Hamas attacks.

In Berlin, primary and secondary schools banned students from displaying signs of support for Palestinians, such as wearing keffiyeh scarves, displaying pro-Palestinian stickers and saying “Free Palestine.”

Teachers were permitted to report students to police for violating the prohibition. In one instance, a teacher struck a student after he displayed a Palestinian flag at a Berlin school in Neukölln, a district with a large Muslim population.

Pro-Palestinian groups have been banned altogether too, and hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested, sometimes violently. Germany is home to Europe's largest Palestinian population, estimated at about 80,000.

On Nov. 2, Germany outlawed the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, accusing the group of spreading antisemitism and glorifying the Hamas attack. Three weeks later, police raided the homes of Samidoun members. The group calls for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

German authorities say the tough stance is necessary because groups like Samidoun are spreading dangerous antisemitic messages and support the use of terrorism.

“Samidoun attracts attention because the group’s followers put their hatred on display in the streets,” said Güner Balci, an integration commissioner in Neukölln, in a recent interview with Der Spiegel. “But their attitudes are widespread in certain Muslim milieus. People don’t want trouble with the police, so they avoid publicizing their antisemitism. But all you have to do is talk to people and you start hearing the same slogans.”

Antisemitism is a major problem in Germany. Arnold said polls show that between a quarter and a third of Germans harbor “very negative, antisemitic views of Israel.” Antisemitism is found among Muslims but also in the views of extremist Germans on the far left and far right, experts say.

In a bid to root out antisemitism among its large Muslim population, the German Bundestag is even mulling a draft law to require people seeking citizenship through naturalization or seeking to obtain asylum and residency in Germany to pledge a commitment to Israel’s right to exist. Lawmakers also are looking at stripping residency and citizenship to dual nationals convicted of antisemitic crimes, according to news reports.

'The German Catechism'

All of this has led critics to warn that Germany's pro-Israel Staatsräson and elevation of the Holocaust above all other crimes against humanity is blinding the country.

This argument was set forth in a much-talked-about essay in 2021 called “The German Catechism” by A. Dirk Moses, an Australian international relations professor at City College of New York and senior editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.

“For many, the memory of the Holocaust as a break with civilization is the moral foundation of the Federal Republic,” Moses wrote. “To compare it with other genocides is therefore considered a heresy, an apostasy from the right faith. It is time to abandon this catechism.”

He argued that Germany has internalized Holocaust memory as “articles of faith” on its “path to national redemption from its sinful past.”

“It is a sacred trauma that cannot be contaminated by profane ones — meaning non-Jewish victims and other genocides — that would vitiate its sacrificial function,” Moses wrote.

To “keep the faith” with this catechism, Moses contended, Germany felt a need to be in “constant vigilance” against antisemitism, a role performed by the commissioner of antisemitism.

“The priests are forever on the lookout for the heresy of antisemitism and signs of the old catechism,” he said. He characterized Germany's “old catechism” as a belief that the Holocaust was “a historical accident committed by a small group of fanatics.”

He said this German catechism has led “to the remarkable situation of gentile Germans lecturing American and Israeli Jews with accusing finger about the correct forms of remembrance and loyalty to Israel.”

For Moses, the Staatsräson is being challenged by Germany's growing migrant population.

“Needless to say, migrants to Germany bring their own experiences and perspectives about history and politics that are not going to indulge the self-congratulatory stories Westerners like to tell themselves about spreading civilization over the centuries,” he wrote.

For many of them, he argued, Germany's sacred debt to Jews “rings hollow” because they see Western colonial history, including that of Germany, as having killed millions of people around the globe.

“For increasing numbers of younger Germans, the catechism does not reflect their lifeworld — despite the best efforts of schoolteachers,” Moses wrote. “Like their cohort in the U.S. and elsewhere who marched for Black Lives Matter, many understand that racism against migrants — not just antisemitism — is a general problem.”

He said many Germans also can't comprehend their country's uncritical support for Israel even as right-wing Israeli governments entrench the settlement project in occupied Palestinian territories and make the two-state solution ever more difficult to accomplish. Germany, like most of the West, backs the two-state solution.

In fact, polls show that most Germans don't agree with the notion that it is Germany's responsibility to support Israel, though support has grown.

In 2006, only 28% of Germans believed they had a special responsibility toward Israel, with 58 percent opposed. Recent polls show about one third of Germans are in favor of the pro-Israeli Staatsräson while 43% are against it.

“It really is more of a political elite phenomenon,” Arnold said. “It clashes with what a large part of the population thinks.”

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit