Pro-Palestinian protests at German universities have prompted Federal Education and Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger to call on institutions to take action amidst concern over “antisemitic incidents”.
“The extent to which hatred of Israel and Jews has grown at numerous Western universities is unbearable,” said Stark-Watzinger, warning that violent protests similar to those at US universities ought to be a warning for Germany. In this situation, both the government and the universities are called on to take appropriate action.
Universities ought to consistently exercise their right to determine who should be allowed or denied access to their premises. “In particularly severe cases, universities should reserve their right to de-register students,” Stark-Watzinger said.
Escalation fears
Felix Klein, the Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism, fears that anti-Israel activities could escalate.
“With great concern, I have been observing an aggressive anti-Israeli mood at German higher education institutions, a mood which is also motivated by antisemitism,” said Klein. “We may not have reached the deplorable dimensions in the USA yet. But unfortunately, a general antisemitic attitude is widespread and can very easily lead to an escalation.”
Klein also called on universities to deny those not belonging to an institution the right to engage in political activities on its premises and report trespassing and breach of the peace to the police.
The federal government’s activities in combating antisemitism are guided by the term as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), although the government expands this definition somewhat by noting that “the state of Israel, being perceived as a Jewish collective, may be the target of such attacks”.
While the latter is in fact given by the IHRA itself as an example to explain its definition, it also clarifies that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”.
Student activism in Germany
Police cleared a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at the Freie Universitaet Berlin on Tuesday, according to a report by Reuters. The 100 or so protesters occupying 24 tents, were calling for an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza.
The university said protesters had tried to enter university buildings, aiming to occupy them, and the university had filed criminal complaints.
“This kind of protest is not dialogue oriented. An occupation of university property is not acceptable. We welcome academic debate and dialogue – but not in this form,” said Guenter Ziegler, president of Freie Universität Berlin, according to Reuters.
Several hundred teachers at Berlin universities subsequently signed an open letter pledging their commitment to “support our students at eye-level, but also to protect them and in no circumstances leave them at the mercy of the police”.
The letter further reads that regardless of whether they agree with all the demands of the protest camp, the teachers stand up for their students’ right to peaceful protest, including occupying university premises.
“Right of assembly and opinion are fundamental democratic rights which also, and particularly, have to be protected at universities. Given the announcement that Rafah is about to be bombed and that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening, the urgency of the cause the protestors are referring to should also be plausible for those not sharing all the individual demands they raise or not regarding the form of action they have taken appropriate,” the open letter states.
It ends with the teachers calling on university managements to refrain from having police take action against their own students as well as from further criminal law prosecution.
Sites of ‘critical public debate’
“Dialogue with the students and the protection of the universities as places of critical public debate ought to take top priority – both of which are incompatible with police action on the campus. Only with dialogue and debate do we as teachers and universities do justice to our mission,” the letter says.
Commenting on the open letter, Ralf Michaels, director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, stresses that universities are “a place of discussion, not of repression”.
Michaels believes that university management should have discussed issues with the students instead of calling in the police before anything had really happened.
On the same day the encampment in Berlin was cleared, a smaller 15-tent encampment was set up at Bonn University, where students told University World News they were calling for an immediate end to and public recognition of “genocide” in Gaza.
They also wanted an end to sanctions against academics who stood in solidarity with the Gaza protests and transparency in regard to the university’s financial and academic cooperation with Israel, especially with respect to research related to war actions, and termination of any cooperation with institutions contributing to the maintenance of war crimes.
At a sit-in by around 300 students protesting the war in Gaza at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Humboldt University Berlin) early in May, according to the police, around 40 arrests were made because of “antisemitic slogans” and “officers being obstructed in the performance of their duty”.
A camp has also been set up at the University of Cologne, Germany’s largest brick and mortar institution, with students declaring that they see themselves as “part of a global-wide protest”.
The students, who do not give their names for fear of being charged for antisemitism, are demanding “an end to genocide”. Germany, they declare, bears a “historical responsibility”, implying that “we have to keep the descendants of those people among whom we as Germans committed a holocaust from violating human rights themselves”.
