BERLIN (CN) — As the German government collapses, one issue has invoked rare political unity: fighting antisemitism.
But despite the ongoing debate on how to interpret Germany’s historic responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust, there is widespread criticism of a new resolution that critics say goes too far in support of Israel and curbs freedom of expression.
After months of negotiations between the country’s center-left ruling parties and center-right main opposition, politicians from across the spectrum passed a resolution Nov. 7 aimed at “protecting, preserving and strengthening” Jewish life in Germany. Only the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance voted against it, while the Left Party abstained.
“Despite all of our differences of opinion, there’s one topic which we don’t fight about,” remarked Social Democrat Dirk Wiese on the resolution’s passing.
But support ranging from the far-right Alternative to Germany to the center-left Greens belies the widespread controversy surrounding the move.
“Amnesty International welcomes the goal of fighting antisemitism and racism and protecting Jewish life in Germany,” said Julia Duchrow, general secretary for Amnesty Germany. “But the resolution adopted today not only fails to achieve this goal, it also raises fears of serious violations of fundamental and human rights as well as legal uncertainty.”
Duchrow’s criticism mirrors an array of voices within academic, cultural and activist spaces, illustrating the complexity of defining and fighting antisemitism in a nation with a Nazi past.
Far-reaching resolution
According to the resolution, the Bundestag, “reaffirms its decision to ensure that organizations and projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel, or actively support the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement do not receive funding.”
Despite the stated focus on Jewish life in Germany, Israel notably takes center stage — a key source of backlash. The resolution further cements Germany’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which specifically lists targeting the state of Israel and comparing Israeli policy to Nazism as examples of antisemitism.
Though the resolution isn’t legally binding, many critics are concerned it will have a chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom, pointing to limits on pro-Palestian speech in the aftermath of a 2019 resolution against the movement to boycott companies that support certain Israeli government policies.
“They’re not legally binding, but what we’ve seen in the past with other resolutions of that kind is that authorities at state and regional levels very often take it as a crucial reason to make decisions,” Matthias Goldmann, International Law Chair of Wiesbaden’s EBS University, told Courthouse News. “For instance, this could mean disinviting speakers, or defunding organizations.”
Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel exacerbated an already charged environment in Germany. High-profile cancellations — including a German foundation anulling an award ceremony for writer Masha Gessen after they compared Gaza to Jewish ghettos, or the University of Cologne scrapping a visiting professorship for philosopher Nancy Fraser after she signed a letter supporting Palestine — have grabbed headlines. Both Gessen and Fraser are Jewish.
Meanwhile German police have taken a hard line against demonstrations that can be perceived as antisemitic, from clearing pro-Palestinian protest camps at universities and shutting down a “Palestinian Congress” in Berlin.
“People will obey even if it’s not technically a law. So it becomes de facto law,” Wieland Hoban, chairman of Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East, the German branch of a Jewish group opposing the occupation of Palestinian territory, told Courthouse News. Hoban’s organization has frequently found itself in the crosshairs for criticizing Israeli policy.
“Since Oct. 7, the repression has become so excessive and overt that it’s impossible to hide. Before that, things were under the radar. Someone might just be excluded from an event, or wouldn’t be given some job, or an article wouldn’t be published — which is different than police disrupting a protest, or city authorities banning a demonstration,” he said.
Public funding is vital for arts, culture and academia in Germany, meaning potentially withholding state finances could have extensive ramifications.
“In Germany, funding is a lot more concentrated with the government as a funder,” said Goldmann. “One would normally assume that leads to a fairer distribution of money, because in principle government institutions are bound by fundamental rights. But that’s not really true in this case, because if the whole measure is meant to silence certain voices that have a different perspective, it can be fatal if there’s only one decisionmaker.”
Contested interpretations of historic responsibility
Controversy over the resolution harkens back to the debate over Germany’s understanding of its historic responsibility for perpetrating the Holocaust. At the state level, this has long been interpreted as an impetus to support Israel. In 2008, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel declared Israel’s security part of Germany’s Staatsräson, or reason of state.
Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has created a climate where scholars and civil society organizations can be painted as antisemitic for sympathizing with Hamas; for arguing Israeli policy resembles apartheid, or could potentially constitute a genocide. This has put pressure on Germany’s unwavering support for Israel and shunted criticism of the state and its actions to the forefront of the public understanding of antisemitism. There is a small but vocal minority arguing that Germany’s history demands the nation stop systemic marginalization regardless of who commits it.
“There are loads of different kinds of antisemitism, but what they all really boil down to is an animus towards Jews,” Itamar Mann, a legal scholar at the University of Haifa and currently a visiting researcher at Berlin’s Humboldt University, told Courthouse News. “That animus should be the baseline for the definition of antisemitism, whether or not it’s couched in the terms of Zionism.”
Mann argues using a different definition of antisemitism, such as the Jerusalem Declaration’s, would be an improvement. “It would allow the German state to strongly act against antisemitism, as it should, while not casting a net that is too broad and ends up stifling both political opinion and cultural pluralism,” he said.
Despite the controversy, many Jewish institutions in Germany have welcomed the resolution. In a written statement to Courthouse News, Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called it a moment of cautious optimism.
“The resolution must be brought to life by the federal government and, crucially, by the states in order to achieve lasting impact,” he said.
Many Jews whose opinions stray from mainstream institutions believe the limited visibility for dissenting voices indicates how few Germans — in politics or otherwise — regularly interact with Jews.
“One important factor that allows this situation to develop with relatively little resistance is that the Jewish population of Germany is small, for obvious reasons,” said Hoban. “Inevitably, you’re not going to get the presence and diversity and visibility of different opinions that you would with a larger population.”
With only about 100,000 Jews living in Germany and zero in the Bundestag, political debates about what constitutes antisemitism, and relatedly, which Jewish opinions are valid, are typically dominated by German gentiles.
“By enshrining the IHRA definition as done in the Bundestag resolution, Germany is taking on the role of defining what it means to be ‘correctly’ Jewish,” said Mann. “And that is not the role of the German state. Indeed, the idea of defining what it means to be ‘the right kind’ of Jewish is itself arguably antisemitic.”
“In my opinion, there is a room for a pluralism of articulations of Jewish identity within Germany, just as there should be that room in any other place,” he continued.
This narrow understanding of Judaism — one tied to assumptions about the state of Israel and its actions — means that countless Jews critical of Israeli policy have been painted as antisemitic by the German state and its institutions, as well as Germany’s loudly pro-Israel media.
Aiding the far right in the name of equality?
While calling a vocal minority of critical Jews antisemitic has created a painful and often awkward atmosphere, most public vitriol and political repression has been aimed at Arabs and Muslims living in Germany.
Politicians from nearly every party have warned of “imported antisemitism,” and the resolution specifically mentions rising antisemitism due to migration from the Middle East and Northern Africa and notes the national antisemitism strategy applies to “criminal law as well as residence, asylum and citizenship law.”
Mann argues Germany’s use of a wide interpretation of antisemitism that incorporates criticism of Israel goes beyond its relation to Jews.
“One explanation for why it was chosen is not despite the fact that it’s too broad, but because of it,” he said. “It allows Germany and other states to achieve political ends that are completely unrelated to the protection of Jews. For instance, to close Germany’s borders to prevent ‘uncontrollable’ immigration. This has been smuggled into the antisemitism debate despite being a policy agenda not strictly related to antisemitism.”
Germany’s ascendant far-right AfD party has led the pushback against antisemitism based on being anti-Israel. They’d initially called for an outright ban on the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement in 2019 and were vocally supportive of the recent antisemitism resolution.
The AfD’s Beatrix von Storch — the granddaughter of Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Hitler’s finance minister and Nazi Germany’s last head of state — applauded the resolution and reaffirmed her view that “exploding antisemitism” in Germany was related to both immigration and Islam. That one of her party’s most popular members, Thuringia’s state chair Björn Höcke, has been fined for using Nazi slogans doesn’t seem relevant to her views on antisemitism.
According to EBS University’s Goldmann, far-right support for a resolution designed to “protect Jewish life in Germany” highlights flaws in how Germany approaches antisemitism.
“The resolution sees antisemitism in an isolated fashion, rather than seeing it in the context of attacks on minorities in general, which would be much more pluralistic. That’s how you have such a broad spectrum of support, ranging from the AfD to the Greens. If you saw it as an integral part of a comprehensive strategy to fight racism and anti-Muslim sentiment, you would lose the AfD instantly,” he said.
Gushing support from the far right hasn’t given Germany’s other parties pause. The heavy focus on Israel —and the insistence on interpreting even the common Palestinian head covering, the keffiyeh, as a dangerous symbol — has allowed the fight against antisemitism to be rolled into Germany’s broader rightward shift on immigration and integration. Critics argue the far right’s use of the fight against antisemitism is frequently removed from this context.
“The far right’s main targets are Muslims and Arabs, the groups that have immigrated here in large numbers in the last 10 years. They’re the ones that fascists focus on,” said Hoban. “I’m sure if they were to succeed in taking power and getting lots of Muslims and Arabs deported, they’d soon move to Jews as some of the next in line.”
According to Hoban, broadening the focus onto discrimination more generally wouldn’t take away from combating antisemitism, but would instead strengthen the fight.
“Acknowledging that the same people who hate Jews are the people who hate Muslims, Arabs, Black people, any kind of minority, would destroy this facade and bring minorities together to fight discrimination,” he said.
Instead, Germany’s understanding of the Holocaust as a unique historic event incapable of any form of comparison means antisemitism is a unique issue that must be separated from all other social ills. How anti-Jewish sentiment is defined means Israel’s foreign policy is given equal importance to issues for German Jews.
After last week’s resolution, many critics of this framing worry they will have a much harder time making their point.