Debatte

KriSol

Author: Redaktion

  • Dossier on the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA)

    Peter Ullrich: Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, in: Themenportal Europäische Geschichte, 2025, www.europa.clio-online.de/essay/id/fdae-154267.

    The definition of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) cannot be understood without its much more influential counterpart, the definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), that it responded to. That is why this dossier actually deals with both: with their backgrounds and objectives, their structures and specific provisions, and their examples and explanations, “with the aim of making it at least conceivable to ground the general, predominantly highly emotional discussion.”

    The dossier describes the JDA’s main achievement as differentiating and delimiting the phenomena that can be described as antisemitic, in line with a measurable definition. This makes it possible to identify the manifestations of Israel-related antisemitism in their respective contexts, without precipitous closures. According to the JDA, only phenomena that are directed against Jews and Judaism as such, in whatever context, are antisemitic per se. In addition, there are phenomena that are not antisemitic per se but can be antisemitic depending on the context. The JDA demands that in the case of statements and actions that are not antisemitic per se, the anti-Jewish intent must be proven based on knowledge of the context and cannot simply be asserted. “This conceptual tool for clarifying gray areas in the discourse on Israel-related antisemitism cannot be praised highly enough,” the dossier states. The JDA does recognize that Israel-related phenomena can be antisemitic per se in any given context, for example when classic antisemitic stereotypes are applied to Israel or when Jews are being held liable for actions of the State of Israel. But denying Israel’s right to exist is not antisemitic in every context. The researchers involved in the JDA struggled for a long time to reach a common position before agreeing on the following wording: it is antisemitic to “deny Jews in the State of Israel the right to live collectively and individually in accordance with the principle of equality” – not to challenge any state’s existence.

    This is in stark contrast to the IHRA definition. Although the IHRA definition also states that the “overall context” must be taken into account when assessing antisemitism, it does not seek to narrow down the group of phenomena to be considered antisemitic, but rather to broaden it. The examples given in the IHRA definition also include statements that are not directed against Jews in every context, but should, in every context and always, be considered antisemitic; first and foremost the denial of Israel’s right to exist. According to the IHRA definition, boycott movements such as BDS are also always to be classified as antisemitic, regardless of their actual objective, e.g., when they react to human rights violations.

    The dossier counters criticism of the JDA definition that it allegedly sets too high a bar for classifying “worldview-based anti-Zionism as antisemitic” and argues that these are questions of degree that can only be answered in a differentiated manner. And it suggests that it is also researchers involved in the JDA who are affected by the consequences of the IHRA definition, namely those who speak out “against the concrete form of the Zionist movement and statehood” of Israel. These researchers, too, are exposed to accusations of “worldview-based anti-Zionism,” which, in cases of doubt, is considered antisemitic under the IHRA definition. However, the antisemitism accusation prevents serious engagement with the context that led these researchers to their position. Here one can clearly see the fundamental asymmetry between these two definitions and the resulting problems for their academic discussion and their (legal) application.

    ↗ www.europa.clio-online.de/essay/id/fdae-154267

  • The Serbian government’s revenge on students and professors

    Adriana Zaharijević und Jana Krstić: How Did a Fight Against Corruption Become a Struggle Over Education? — Chronology of Pressure, Balkan Talks, 23. Mai 2025, https://balkantalks.org/chronicle-of-serbias-student-and-academic-uprising-2024-2025/

    Largely unnoticed in Western Europe, the conflict between the government and universities, students, and professors in Serbia continues to escalate. Since the end of last year, civil society in Serbia has been staging mass protests, mainly against widespread corruption and the collapse of constitutional institutions. (Snežana Stanković, here at Debatte, already outlined how the EU is involved in these events with its “lithium pact” and arms trade, in her pick on February 3.) The protests are mainly led by students. In December 2024, almost all public faculties in the country backed the students’ demands, fearing that the very existence of science and the education system itself was at stake. Teachers have organized and networked nationwide.

    Since March, the government has been cracking down relentlessly: the Ministry of Education, dubbed the “Ministry of Revenge,” is simply refusing to pay teachers and university professors most of their salaries. Peaceful protests are being hijacked by agents provocateurs to damage the reputation of the demonstrators, and the government is stirring up fears of violent clashes. University professors are now required to teach 35 hours per week, which makes research almost impossible. They often no longer know how they will make a living. Many are facing dismissal, and the accreditation system is in danger of collapsing. Since May 8, the government has been planning a new law on higher education that is expected to drastically restrict freedom of research and teaching.

    Our Serbian colleagues appeal to the international community not to ignore the repressive measures in Serbia, but to stand in solidarity with the students and professors and their demands for transparency, accountability, and academic independence.

    ↗ https://balkantalks.org/chronicle-of-serbias-student-and-academic-uprising-2024-2025/

  • From bystander to accomplice

    Sarah Schulman: The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, New York (Penguin Random House) 2025, 320 pp.

    The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity is the latest book by Sarah Schulman, a US writer, educator, and activist, perhaps best known to the wider public for her monumental oral history of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Part political memoir, part manual, the book offers nuanced reflections on the practice of solidarity and features some highly quotable definitions such as: “Solidarity is the essential human process of recognizing that other people are real and their experiences matter,” and “Solidarity is the action behind the revelation that each of us, individually, are not the only people with dreams.” 

    While the book’s focus is on solidarity Palestine (a cause Schulman has been involved in since 2009), the author also draws on her broader activist, artistic, and teaching work, offering examples of solidarity in action, from clandestine reproductive rights activism to informal support groups formed within the exclusionary spaces of New York’s theater scene. Beyond her own experiences, Schulman finds valuable lessons in the work of Vivian Gornick, Wilmette Brown, and Jean Genet, among others.

    Embracing its inherent messiness, Schulman convincingly argues that ”solidarity is possible without ideological purity, without 100 percent didacticism of motive, and yet despite contradictions, it can still be important, evolve, and have an impact.” But perhaps the most important wisdom Schulman offers — rooted in decades of organizing and heartbreak — is her honest and lucid acknowledgment of the difficulty and necessity of coalition politics in solidarity work: “There is an unease in coalition because we sacrifice the very specific personal politics that none of us can achieve alone, for a more compromised collective. But without that flexibility, no movement building would be able to take place. It is the change, the peace, and the justice we seek that are more important than being right in our living rooms.” 

    ↗ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/771411/the-fantasy-and-necessity-of-solidarity-by-sarah-schulman/

  • Wrong signals: State visit to Israel in sight of genocide

    Dörthe Engelcke/Elad Lapidot/Alex Müller: Steinmeier in Israel: Zu Besuch bei einem Angeklagten [Steinmeier in Israel: Visiting an accused man], taz, May 14, 2025.

    The state visit with military honors for Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Berlin and the subsequent visit by German President Steinmeier to Israel are emblematic of the double standards of German foreign policy—and of the cowardice of German politicians in clearly naming Israeli war crimes for what they are. Federal President Steinmeier described the foundation of German-Israeli relations as “deep and sustainable.” It carries “the memory of the past as well as the shared values of two liberal democracies based on the rule of law” (translated by the editors). These statements reveal the extent of Germany’s denial of reality. While a trapped, starving, and traumatized civilian population continues to be systematically wiped out in Gaza, Germany celebrates 60 years of diplomatic relations with hollow symbolic gestures, photo opportunities, and demonstrative displays of friendship. At this point in time, this visit can hardly be understood as anything other than diplomatic backing for the genocide of the Palestinian people.

    The 60th anniversary of German-Israeli relations could have been commemorated differently. There was an alternative to this grotesque spectacle. The German president could have met with critical academics, journalists, and representatives of civil society who are coming under increasing pressure in Israel. That would have been a symbolic gesture that Germany supports those voices that stand up for democracy, human rights, and peace. Instead, what remains is a missed opportunity—and the depressing realization that with politicians who are incapable of clearly condemning the killing of over 17,000 children in Gaza, fascism can return to Germany at any time.

    Before the state visit, KriSol appealed to Federal Minister Steinmeier: “Use the anniversary celebrations as an opportunity to send a signal for an end to violence, for justice and for humanity. Invite Israeli peace activists, human rights defenders, critical journalists and intellectuals, Holocaust survivors, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and committed civil society organizations such as Standing Together, Israelis for Peace, Breaking the Silence, and B’Tselem. Strengthening these voices would send an important signal in the current situation—both to the people in the region and to the international community—that Germany is not selectively but consistently committed to human rights and international law” (translated by the editors).

    ↗ https://taz.de/Steinmeier-in-Israel/!6087915

  • Statement from peace and conflict research against German raison d’état and self-censorship

    Arbeitskreis Herrschaftskritische Friedensforschung: Wissenschaftsfreiheit als Prämisse von Friedens- und Konfliktforschung [Academic freedom as a prerequisite for peace and conflict research], March 2025.

    As in other disciplinary fields, the same applies to German speaking peace and conflict research: it is easy to lament threats to academic freedom in distant countries. Opposition/dissent is welcome as long as the attacks on research, teaching, and civil society in one’s own country are aimed at the so-called political center from the far right. However, when science itself is involved in defining and controlling the spaces of the (un)speakable, things become complicated—and controversial.

    At the beginning of the year, members of the Working Group on Peace Research Critical of Power within the German-language academic association for peace and conflict studies, which has existed since 1968, came together to draft a statement. The occasion was the two “antisemitism resolutions” passed by the German Bundestag in November 2024 and January 2025, which seek to commit eligible science and civil society organizations to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is controversial in expert discourse.

    Ironically, the very academic field that claims to study the conditions that make war and peace possible has so far remained remarkably silent when colleagues are disinvited, spaces are taken away, and research projects and publications are obstructed. In particular, when it comes to containing and silencing critical positions on the genocide in Palestine/Israel and the complicity of Western actors such as the Federal Republic of Germany, reasons of state and self-censorship sometimes become powerful tools of war itself, even among academics.

    The working group’s statement aims to raise awareness of this and to mobilize opposition. At the general meeting of the Working Group for Peace and Conflict Research (AFK e.V.), this has so far only been partially successful. Despite the expected controversy, however, the text was ultimately discussed with broad approval on March 20, thus providing an important impetus for the AFK as a whole to continue its engagement with the topic.

    ↗ https://afk-web.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Critical-Peace-Res-WG-Statement-.pdf

  • Life-affirming lessons from Rosa Luxemburg’s herbarium

    Agata Lisiak: Notes on plant companionship: from Rosa Luxemburg’s herbarium to Jumana Manna’s Foragers, Journal of Visual Culture (2024) 23 (2), 131–155.

    In “Notes on plant companionship: From Rosa Luxemburg’s herbarium to Jumana Manna’s Foragers,” Lisiak argues that Luxemburg’s analyses of interlocking systems of oppression provide a framework not only for understanding, but also resisting today’s genocides, wars, occupation, extractivism, and ecological destruction. Luxemburg’s political ecology as well as the work of contemporary artists Milena Bonilla, Marwa Arsanios, and Jumana Manna further expand this framework to include life-affirming lessons drawn from plant companionship. As these women demonstrate, plant companionship can generate liberatory ways of relating to the present and provide a steadfast commitment to keeping our futures open. Only if the future is open can we conceive of alternatives to past and present violence.

    ↗ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14704129241270246

  • Statement by the CCC editorial collective on the ongoing genocide in Gaza

    The CCC Editorial Collective: A statement on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Communication, Culture & Critique (2025) 18 (1), 3-8.

    Communication, Culture and Critique has been the leading venue for critical approaches to communication and media studies since its inauguration in 2008. In January 2025 a newly formed international and interdisciplinary Editorial Collective took over responsibilities. Their first issue combines a sharp protest with a programmatic editorial statement and an analysis of how technology provision for targeted killings and media censorship go together. The Editorial Collective sees as „the glaring epicenter of the prevailing global order’s efforts to reproduce itself: the State of Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and its gradual expansion into the West Bank.“ But it welcomes „critical anticolonial analysis of ethno-nationalist and extractive violence and opposition” from all scenes of these reproduction efforts, „including the Chinese state’s targeting of the Uighur minority; the Indian state’s occupation of Kashmir and ongoing dehumanization of Muslims and oppressed religious and caste communities; the Turkish state’s repression against the Kurds; the Ethiopian ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans, and so on.“ 

    The statement, as an ↗ article of the journal, is now behind a paywall. While we are waiting for the Canadian website we are providing a pdf here: 

    CCC statementHerunterladen

  • The new “Antisemitism” motion of the parliament intends to censure research and teaching

    Dörthe Engelcke: Antisemitismus-Resolution: Gefährdete Diskursräume [Anti-Semitism resolution: Discourse spaces under threat], taz, January 30, 2025.

    And this is happening at a time when the justified and urgently needed discussion and criticism of these crimes is becoming ever louder internationally and slowly also in Germany. The article draws attention to the political context of the resolution: the proceedings before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide, the United Nations reports on the apocalyptic situation in Gaza, and the unanimous assessments of the systematic destruction of the healthcare system and all infrastructure. The resolution ignores this context just as it can only be explained in the light of it.

    ↗ https://taz.de/Antisemitismus-Resolution/!6062292/

  • India as a lesson

    Britta Ohm: Indien als Lehrstück. Vom Ende der Wissenschaftsfreiheit in der Demokratie, in: BdWi Studienheft 14: Umkämpfte Wissenschaftsfreiheit. Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Politik, Oktober 2024, 56 S.

    Western governments increasingly present India as a forward-looking, economically and technologically important partner country, also with reference to its status as the “world’s largest democracy”. Proto-autocratic and established liberal governments in Europe hardly differ in their appreciation of India. In this text, which unfortunately is not available online, Britta Ohm describes how the Hindu nationalist leadership under Narendra Modi has increasingly harassed and ultimately openly attacked universities and university campuses since coming to power in 2014 – especially when students and teachers have shown solidarity with the protests of the Muslim minority and lower-caste engagement. The gradual undermining and delegitimization of universities as places of critical understanding and intellectual debate in India can be seen as an anticipation of current trends in the United States and Europe. The first arrests of students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (NJU) in New Delhi in 2016 were made under the colonial “anti-sedition law” of 1870, which has never been repealed; it was later revealed that the slogans the students were accused of chanting had been chanted by infiltrated provocateurs who had infiltrated the protests.

    “In many ways, this marked the starting point for the university as an open ideological and physical battleground, in which the use of force was determined by the Hindu nationalist government, right-wing extremist networks, private media corporations and social media platforms, and increasingly state organs (police, judiciary) and was brought to bear against the critical student body as well as scholars and university teachers.”

    After the introduction of anti-minority citizenship laws, violence escalated at the Jamia Millia Islamia (National Islamic University) in Delhi in December 2019. The protests spread to other parts of the country and to the population outside the university. The movement became “too big for the police to crush. Instead, the government resorted to a strategy that had been tried and tested since colonial times and intensified in the wake of decades of Hindu nationalist mobilization: instigating a ‘riot’, a pogrom-like outburst, in a remote district of Delhi, for which the attacked were held responsible.”

    To this day, mostly Muslim students and doctoral students are being held in prison without trial.

    “Anyone who wants to (Hindutva-)critically examine questions of caste, minority and gender policy or issues of belonging, civil and human rights does so at their own risk. (…) India shows how far ideologically motivated attacks on academic freedom and the undermining of universities as places of intellectual debate can go without abolishing democracy as an official and globally marketable framework. At the same time, however, these attacks have undoubtedly contributed to the Modi government losing its absolute majority in the 2024 elections.”

    The article ends by saying that we can learn from India not to retreat into a fearful defense of liberal-secular democracy, but to think about democracy in a new way, taking into account the setbacks we can expect, and to put “academic knowledge and the knowledge of the population into new relationships”.

    ↗ https://www.bdwi.de/show/11222980.html

  • The German silence about the protests in Serbia

    Julian Borger: “We’ve Proved that Change is Possible” – but Serbia Protesters Unsure of Next Move, The Guardian, February 3, 2025.

    It was the last working day of the week, November 1, 2024. The train station in Novi Sad, a vibrant, multicultural city, was busier than usual. At 11:52 a.m., the station’s canopy collapsed, killing 15 people. Shock, grief, and anger spread throughout the country. A protest movement developed from vigils and traffic blockades, led by students, who have since demanded accountability, transparency and responsibility from the government. The tragedy in Novi Sad happened against a backdrop of long-standing systemic corruption, increasing poverty and widespread human rights violations. At the same time, Serbia has become an attractive country for foreign investors in recent years and has moved closer to the West in a somewhat contradictory way. Belgrade has supplied ammunition to Ukraine for $800 million without joining the sanctions against Russia. There is a lively arms trade between Serbia and Israel (here,here and here). Last summer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was present when the EU forged a “lithium pact” despite civil protests in Serbia and despite resistance from environmental activists: a framework agreement on lithium mining for the production of electric vehicles. The EU wants to reduce its lithium dependence on China by cooperating with the corrupt and authoritarian rulers in Belgrade. Serbia’s president was part of the Milošević government and shares responsibility for the war crimes (including genocide) committed during the Yugoslav Wars.

    Why are we in Germany being told so little about the student protests in Serbia? (Exceptions here, here, here, here or here). Why are there no statements from EU politicians?

    On February 3, 2025, an article appeared in the Guardian that vividly captures the complexity of these protests, which have been taking place daily for three months, and addresses the silence of the EU. It is difficult for some of us who live in Germany in the diaspora not to think of this silence together with the silence that ignores the genocidal horrors in Gaza and the West Bank.

    ↗ With student-led activists reluctant to engage politically against well-entrenched regime, many are asking: now what?