Pro-Palestine Protest in Berlin: Germany’s Struggle with Anti-Semitism and Criticism of Israel

EPAPro-Palestine protest in Berlin (November 18)

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 22:34

Charlotte Waaijers

Germany correspondent

Charlotte Waaijers

Germany correspondent

Germany is struggling with tackling anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, and with its own history. The threat to Jews has increased since the Hamas attacks on Israel, while critics point to declining freedom of expression.

Cracks have appeared in the German memory culture, says Nikolas Lelle, at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. He fights anti-Semitism on behalf of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation. This is increasing, he says: houses of Jews were painted with Stars of David, there was an attempted arson on a synagogue and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli slogans are heard at demonstrations.

Extra painful in Germany. “We have a special responsibility in Germany, with the memory of what happened here, to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”

Support for Israel

Since October 7, there has been support for Israel from left to right in the German parliament. German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in a widely praised speech on social media that this is not the time for ‘yes but discussions’.

Lelle agrees with this. “When people say: ‘What Hamas has done is bad, but how Israel reacts is not good either’. Or: ‘We want everyone to put down their arms’. Then you actually weaken what you said before.” There should be no room for that now either.

Everyone is now throwing around the term ‘anti-Semitic’. As a result, it no longer has any meaning at all.

Eliana Pliskin Jacobs

But there are also other sounds. Eliana Pliskin Jacobs is one of more than a hundred Jewish artists, writers and academics living in Germany who signed an open letter last month. They call for more freedom of expression.

“Everyone is now throwing around the term ‘anti-Semitic’,” says Jacobs. “That means it no longer has any meaning at all.”

She has family on both her father’s and mother’s sides who were murdered in the Holocaust or had to flee. “Fleeing anti-Semitism is my family’s story.”

As a result, she grew up outside Germany. In 2018, she also decided to apply for German citizenship, which she also received as part of a special German government program for Holocaust survivors.

She now looks critically at how the German government deals with the past and the cancellation of protests and gatherings. That does not do justice to Jewish culture, she believes, where differences of opinion are valued. “There is a Jewish saying,” she says with self-mockery. “Two Jews, three opinions.”

‘You have to be able to say it’

And there are certainly also Jews who do not currently support the government in Israel. Cultural center Oyoun in Berlin recently invited a Jewish organization that is critical of how the Israeli government treats Palestinians. The organization is controversial because of the left with a movement that has long called for a boycott of Israel. Moreover, she recently compared Hamas’ attack on Israel to a “prisoner breakout.”

“You don’t have to agree with that,” said Louna Sbou, co-founder of Oyoun. “But in a free democracy, which Germany claims to be, you have to be able to say it.”

The Berlin Senate is now threatening to stop subsidies for the entire center. The 30,000 euros that was promised for next month has already been canceled, says Sbou.

Controversial proposal in Senate

National politics is also not standing still. The largest opposition party CDU/CSU recently put forward a proposal to make it possible for only people who recognize Israel’s right to exist to become German citizens.

This comes at a time when Germany is increasingly looking to migrants as an explanation for rising anti-Semitism. This would be the result of failed integration of Arab families.

For Eliana Pliskin Jacobs the proposal is incomprehensible. “If I criticize Israel, can I lose my Holocaust citizenship for being anti-Semitic?”

2023-11-20 21:34:24
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