Germany’s anti-Palestinian censorship turns on Jews

Over the last few years, the space for Palestine advocacy in Germany has shrunk. Pro-Palestinian speech is reflexively labeled as antisemitic and, following the passage of the anti-BDS resolution in the German parliament in 2019, federal institutions have begun declaring all actions that support the boycott movement as antisemitic. This has allowed universities, state governments, and public institutions to deny Palestinians the right to free speech and assembly.

Moreover, the 2019 resolution also dramatically expanded the scope of what is deemed antisemitic — and, while it is not legally binding, many officials use it as the standard by which they determine what is and is not antisemitism. And while this policy was previously deployed almost exclusively against Palestinian Germans, Germany’s attempt to preserve its allegiance to the State of Israel has moved it to target a new and unexpected group: Jews in Germany who are critical of the apartheid state.

Wieland Hoban, a composer and academic translator who is also the chairman of Jüdische Stimme, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization, told +972 that he has seen a surge in the targeting of Jews who do not agree with Germany’s adamantly pro-Israel stance. “While Germans and state institutions are comfortable defaming and slandering Palestinians, we are getting to a point where even non-Jewish people will just flatly call Jews antisemites,” he said. “That’s a new level reached in the last couple of years.”