Debatte

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    • Tag: Anti-Antisemitism

    • Zionism always plays the game of the Right

      Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus: Zionism Cannot Be Left-Wing [Zionismus kann nicht links sein], Jacobin, May 13, 2016, https://www.jacobin.de/artikel/zionismus-linkspartei-antisemitismus-antizionismus.

      The article argues that it is not enough to point to anti-Zionist Jews to counter the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. The internal debate within the Left Party in recent months demonstrates that it is necessary to theoretically demonstrate that Zionism is simply incompatible with left-wing values. This is not particularly difficult: the assumption that a people’s self-determination can only be achieved through the nation-state is, of course, not a left-wing one. Nor is it surprising, however, that this is tearing the Left apart—the party that is forced both to adopt an anti-nation-state position and to participate in the parliament of a nation-state in order to have a say in decision-making. The debate on Zionism within the Left is a debate about the character of this party, one that extends far beyond Israel and Palestine.

      ↗ https://www.jacobin.de/artikel/zionismus-linkspartei-antisemitismus-antizionismus.

    • Countering intimidation

      Benjamin Schütze, “Deutsche Israelpolitik: Die Truppen der Staatsräson” [German policy on Israel. The troops of raison d’état], guest commentary, taz January 20, 2026, https://taz.de/Deutsche-Israelpolitik/!6146623/.

      Benjamin Schütze experienced an attempt at censorship by the antisemitism commissioner at the University of Erlangen. The commissioner had informed the Bavarian chief public prosecutor that Schütze had used the term “genocide” in a lecture at the 35th German Orientalists’ Day. The title of his lecture was “Supporting (plausible) acts of genocide: Red lines and the failure of German Middle Eastern Studies,” and the anti-Semitism commissioner demanded that it be “adjusted.”

      Although this attempt at censorship was successfully repelled, it did not fail to have an intimidating effect. Schütze therefore takes this experience as the starting point for his article on the increasingly authoritarian anti-antisemitism in Germany and the “troops of raison d’état” who established it and continue to expand it. This anti-antisemitism, he argues, does not serve to combat antisemitism at all, but rather aims to institutionalize German support for genocide in Gaza, normalize anti-Arab racism, and defame researchers who show solidarity with Palestine. Respect for international law and freedom of science and assembly has become collateral damage of raison d’état. While the government is thus opposing the Basic Law and international law, society must now ask itself whether it wants to continue to support or submit to this decision, or whether it will fight back.

      ↗ https://taz.de/Deutsche-Israelpolitik/!6146623/

    • Federal Ministry of Education and Research ignores expert opinions when awarding funding

      Stella Hesch: “Despite criticism: Ministry of Research funds controversial project against anti-Semitism”, Correctiv, October 30, 2025.

      Stella Hesch’s investigation at Correctiv reads like a political tragedy: The Federal Ministry of Research has awarded nearly nine million euros in funding to a project run by Ahmad Mansour’s company MIND, based on political considerations and without adhering to scientific standards and award criteria. This decision reveals a highly problematic understanding of academic research among the leadership of the responsible ministry and across all parties involved in the Bundestag committee’s decision. The fact that the funding decision was supported despite negative expert opinions from three science ministers from different parties—Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), Cem Özdemir (Greens), and Dorothee Bär (CSU)—speaks to a broad cross-party consensus on circumventing quality standards in the allocation of funding.

      Mansour’s company was awarded extensive funding from the ministry, although the unanimous conclusion of the experts commissioned by the ministry was that Mansour’s project was “not eligible for funding”. This was explicitly communicated to the ministry in several negative expert reports, and both the experts and the ministry’s technical staff had expressed considerable doubts about the scientific quality and ethical implications of the project.

      The political awarding practices documented in the investigation are unworthy of a federal ministry. They ignore the peer review process necessary for quality assurance and violate the scientific standards inherent in the awarding of funding. This undermines confidence in good and ethical scientific practice and awarding procedures.

      Moreover, this approach is reminiscent of the funding scandal in the summer of 2024, when the then minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, had it examined whether funding could be withdrawn from undesirable scientists. Here, too, political positioning seemed to be more important to the ministry than scientific standards.

      ↗ https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/integration-gesellschaft/2025/10/30/antisemitismus-mansour-foerderprojekt/

    • Antisemitism training at US universities

      Hannah Feuer: “Hundreds of Northwestern students can’t register for class because they won’t watch an antisemitism training video. Here’s what’s in it”, Forward, September 29, 2025.

      It was always to be expected that mandatory anti-discrimination training in schools and universities could also be used to spread propaganda and suppress unpopular positions. Universities in the US are now using this tool to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” of January 29, 2025. At the prestigious Northwestern University in Chicago, around 300 students have now been excluded from course registration because they refused to watch a mandatory “anti-bias” video that—in a slanderous and false manner—defines anti-Zionism as a denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. The video describes—again falsely—a Greater Israel as the only historical homeland of the Jewish people and equates—methodologically untenable—arbitrary and unverifiable “quotes” from “anti-Israel activists” with quotes from Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

      ↗ https://forward.com/news/772504/northwestern-antisemitism-training-jewish-united-fund