In Germany, Academic Activism Fuels Antisemitism

Whenever you think things can’t get any worse, you find an open letter from so-called experts, researchers from various disciplines who need to express their “concern” in a public way. October 7, 2025 marked the second anniversary of the Islamist-jihadist massacres carried out by Hamas and eight other Palestinian terrorist organizations in southern Israel. The massacres were the reason for the war in Gaza. The war has ended for now, but Islamist-jihadist means in plain language that the “resistance” of the Palestinian Mujahideen (as they call themselves) will not end; they will fight to the death in the name of their faith and take everyone and everything that stands in their way, including Palestinian women, children and men.

The second anniversary of the massacres was an occasion for academics in Germany who see themselves as progressives and experts to initiate or support events to assess the factors that led to Oct. 7. Recently, the initiative “Beyond raison d’état. How historical responsibility, strategic interests and international law can be reconciled. Expert paper for a change in Middle East policy” was published. This refers to the security of Israel formulated by Angela Merkel in the Israeli Knesset as part of the German raison d’état. This is always cause for outrage, criticism and excitement. At the “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations, the simply formulated criticism is “Free Gaza from German Guilt” or “Germany finances—Israel bombs.” During the anti-Israeli demonstrations worldwide, but also even among prominent antisemitism, Holocaust and genocide researchers, a similar argument is repeatedly constantly: that the German government is involved in a “genocide” in Gaza, and this is based on the allegation that Germany is “uncritically” supplying the state of Israel with weapons because of Germany’s guilt for the Holocaust.

The “expert paper” sees the existence and founding of Israel as a problem, asserts that the state must apologize, and suggests that encounters between Jews and Muslims should be promoted, an idea that sounds good but is already a reality. Palestinians appear here exclusively as victims, while the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood (the spiritual brother of Hamas) do not appear. The narrow view focuses on two peoples. The war of the neighboring Arab states against the newly founded state of Israel is also omitted, and the almost complete expulsion of Jews from Arab countries in the course of the founding of the state is conspicuously missing. Today, these Jews make up around 60% of Israeli society. It could hardly be more ahistorical and one-sided to omit this fact. In addition to many other questionable statements, there is also a plea for the genocide accusation to be considered a relevant opinion.

Academic genocide accusations drive antisemitic hatred and violence.

After the antisemitic murders in Manchester by a Syrian-British Islamist, the victims were blamed on social media the same day “because of the genocide in Gaza” and the acts were justified. It has now become normal to insult Jews and Israelis who do not belong to the extremist anti-Zionist organization “Jewish Voice for Peace,” to denigrate them as “Zionists” (now a cipher for all evil par excellence) and to threaten them with violence. All Jews, Israelis or Israel-solidarity actors who do not unilaterally blame Israel for the war in Gaza or who assign responsibility for the massacres of Oct. 7 to Palestinians are the target of hate speech. They are boycotted, marginalized and attacked. And it is apparently also “normal” to defame non-Jews who provide a balanced picture by using their real names and threatening them with death.

These academics do not seem to understand the reality.

These academics do not seem to understand the reality. The Hamas-led massacres were the trigger for the war in Gaza, which was framed in academically questionable terms as “textbook genocide” by Israeli Holocaust researcher Raz Segal just six days after Oct. 7. Although it took almost a year for the Israeli Holocaust researcher Omer Bartov from Brown University to come to the same conclusion “as a former IDF soldier,” by then he had attested to war crimes and crimes against humanity in a defamatory manner and unilaterally assigned the “blame” for Oct. 7 to the Netanyahu government. In the absence of substantive statements, he repeatedly used research on the Holocaust to frame the war in Gaza and was among those researchers who permanently misapplied the German genocide of the Herero and Nama to “explain” the genocide in Gaza in the form of an analogy, a commonality with the “UN- Special Rapporteur” Francesca Albanese. Here, together with researchers from the “Journal of Genocide Research,” he created a new phenomenon: genocide inversion. The Chief Editor is A. Dirk Moses.

Meanwhile, an intellectual low has been reached, in that it is enough to say it is a genocide because Bartov says so. Other points of view, such as those of historian Jeffrey Herf or Holocaust researcher Norman W. Goda, are not often published and counter-arguments such as those of antisemitism researcher Balázs Berkovits are ignored. This is why the false claim that there is a “consensus” that Gaza is a genocide is now circulating widely. More than 500 Holocaust and antisemitism researchers and academics recently opposed a statement by the International Association of Genocide Scholars. The Israeli researchers Danny Orbach, Yagil Henkin, Jonathan Boxman and Jonathan Braverman have examined all of the accusations against the state of Israel and refuted them with facts. But they too are simply ignored, even though they were able to disprove the targeted killing of civilians, for example.

The genocide accusation provides violent antisemites on the left and in Muslim communities with the legitimization to take violent action against all those who refuse to accept this view. Right-wing antisemites take a different approach, mobilize no less hatefully and generally do not use the accusation of genocide. Antisemitism worldwide is at its highest level since the Second World War and anything Jewish or Israeli-associated is the target of attacks, including monuments, restaurants, publications, etc.

The Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main invited Bartov to speak on Oct. 6, 2025, on the eve of the second anniversary of the massacres, about his new book “Genocide, the Holocaust, and Israel-Palestine. History, the present, and what went wrong.” A corrective to his one-sided theses—in his own words a “journey from Buczacz to Gaza”—which always omit Palestinian responsibility for their own history and spreading Hamas narratives, was not provided. The only critic, Daniel Rotstein, who was born and raised in Frankfurt am Main, was silenced with a false accusation of “insult.”

For two years, Bartov has tirelessly blamed the state of Israel and the IDF for the Oct. 7 massacres. In doing so, he makes massive mistakes, for example like Segal, Moses and others, by claiming that the International Court of Justice in The Hague has certified the “plausibility” of a genocide in January. Bartov is not a reliable source and has not carried out a fact check, but even spreads disinformation when he describes the abuse of civilians in Gaza as human shields as “Israeli propaganda.” This formulation has since been deleted from the original text in DIE ZEIT, but the original version is available. Academic standards obviously don´t apply to these scholar activists. Now Bartov is speaking at an institute that stands for the lifetime achievements of Fritz Bauer, who was largely responsible for the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial in which the German perpetrators were convicted. And Bartov is one of the experts on the crimes of the genocidal German Wehrmacht and their involvement in the Holocaust. During a talk by Bartov with soldiers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva in June 2024, he used findings from his research on the Wehrmacht and drew similarities between the mindset of Israeli soldiers and German Wehrmacht soldiers at the time.

So is the IDF like the Wehrmacht? The presumption of innocence applies, because the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism” allows such analogies and comparisons. Let us also remember Jan. 27, 2025, the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust, eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz. German magazine SPIEGEL published an interview with Bartov with the ahistorical question “Gaza equals Auschwitz?” This was followed by Bartov’s quote “The Holocaust serves Israel as a lesson in inhumanity.”

Although this headline was changed shortly after, the interview remains a one-sided, defamatory attack on the state of Israel. Perhaps this is precisely why it is so popular in Germany? Bartov is paradigmatic of a German academia that, in the name of Palestine solidarity, protects only those Israelis or Jews in general who fit into its own world view. The event on Oct. 9, 2025 at the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in Berlin can also be understood in this sense. It was moderated by the director of the Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin; also invited was Palestinian lawyer Ahmed Abofoul, who publishes on the antisemitic platform “Electronic Intifada” and is present as a representative of Al Haq Europe, an organization that operates under the title of human rights and has classified the Hamas attack on Israel as “an operation carried out in response to the escalating Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people”. Al Haq Europe does not stand for normalization between Palestinians and Israelis, but for “lawfare,” a method that uses Western legal systems in the name of Palestine solidarity to delegitimize the state of Israel. The umbrella organization Al Haq co-finances Forensic Architecture´s project “Cartography of Genocide,” a project led by British architect Eyal Weizman, which has been claiming genocide in Gaza for two years and proceeds in its methodology as if there were no Hamas or Islamic Jihad in Gaza and as if the IDF were deliberately murdering civilians. “Forensic Architecture” was also at the forefront when it came to claiming state violence in the aftermath of a “pro-Palestinian” demonstration, uncritically disseminated in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. It is also Weizman who is convinced that there were “three genocides” under German responsibility. This is absolutely correct for German Southwest Africa and the Holocaust. Gaza is then also a German genocide because “Germany finances and bombs Israel.” Claiming the genocide in Gaza as the third in this series is, on the one hand, a consequence of the entry of post-colonial theory into Holocaust research, which often insinuates a continuity between the genocide in present-day Namibia and the Holocaust without empirical evidence. The social scientist Ingo Elbe rightly describes this type of historical view as a “progressive attack” and can provide comprehensive empirical evidence for this. On the other hand, the “three genocides” theory is also a consequence of the “victim of the victims” thesis, also promoted by Bartov and others and now recently once again staged by the “Jenseits der Staatsraison” initiative. In this world view, Palestinians are never perpetrators and always victims. This is also known as racism of low expectations (or “Palestinianism,” an over-identification with Palestinian narratives).

Bartov is paradigmatic of a German academia that, in the name of Palestine solidarity, protects only those Israelis or Jews in general who fit into its own world view.

As a final example of intellectual dubiousness, the German “Council for Migration” (Rat für Migration – an association of approximately 200 scientists in German-speaking countries who deal with issues of migration and integration), can be cited as an example of how Jewish and/or Israeli lecturers are deliberately selected in Germany to apparently reflect their own views. Its board is not afraid to ask Judith Butler, a central figure in queer feminism, to give a lecture. Butler did not miss the opportunity to celebrate Hamas or Hezbollah as “progressive social movements” and anti-imperial forces, or, like Bartov, to celebrate Hamas’s intentions with regard to Oct. 7: “Hamas’ despicable attack must be seen as an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.”

We find here blatant misjudgment that consistently fails to mention the crimes committed by Hamas against the Palestinian civilian population, which is currently happening in Gaza. Yes, the Jews and Israelis in Germany are specifically chosen and anti-Zionists or, preferably, extreme left-wing Israelis are allowed to have their say. Left-wing Israelis, who supported the Palestinians for years and promoted coexistence and lost hope for peace after Oct. 7, are not to be found there. Nor do they deal with Palestinians who live under police protection precisely because they are for peace and against Hamas and are in favor of genuine dialogue. Just recently, Ahmed Alkhatib, who lives in the U.S., was rejected by the New York Times because his views—pragmatic peace, renunciation of terror and the violent resistance narrative—do not correspond to those of the majority of Palestinians. This is actually true, because there is a common discourse in Palestinian communities that opposes any normalization with Israel. And it says that “the occupation” or “the Zionist entity” is largely responsible for internal Palestinian problems.

Narrowing of the Discourse in Germany

We are currently experiencing a narrowing of discourse in Germany in which there are no longer any scientific debates. For it is precisely those researchers whose names appear on countless open letters who exclude all those who disagree with them, sometimes defaming other researchers (for example, as “racists”) or blocking them (as we experienced ourselves with regard to the question of why Hamas’s crimes against the civilian population in Gaza are being concealed). And two years later, the genocidal massacres—carefully investigated by Israeli legal scholar Avraham Russell Shalev—carried out by Hamas are apparently no longer an issue for progressive German intellectuals.

We are currently experiencing a narrowing of discourse in Germany in which there are no longer any scientific debates.

Just recently, editor-in-chief of Deutschlandfunk, Stephan Detjen, interviewed genocide researcher A. Dirk Moses. Two days after the arrests of Hamas members in Berlin, Moses insinuated that Hamas is no longer a threat to Israel (obviously also not to Palestinians). In this interview, it is already clear what the future holds: It was “splitting hairs” to consider whether there was genocide in Gaza. It is much more important to name the mass violence by Israel against Gazan civilians. But war is always mass violence; innocent people always die. The war in Gaza is over now, and scholar activists who spread Hamas narratives are silent while Hamas murders hunt Palestinian “collaborators” with Israel.

Is the genocide proven? No, it is not.

There is no judgment by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but the bottom line is always to portray Israel as the perpetrator, for different motivations. Detjen’s comments on this are enlightening. After suffering criticism from the Central Council of Jews in Germany  because he characterized the state of Israel as analogous to Nazi Germany, he now sees himself as a victim of the Central Council and attests to a “blindness” in Germany and an unwillingness to see what is “actually” happening in Gaza. The word “genocide” is not used here, but one can guess. The blindness probably lies in what Moses says in the above interview, which also reflects Bartov’s argumentation. “Just because the genocide in Gaza is not like the Holocaust does not mean it is not genocide.” Detjen’s comments are intended to provide clarity, but they also indicate what this obsession with wanting to establish genocide with all one’s might is all about. “Also” the state of Israel—allegedly perceived in Germany as a victim country—is now a “perpetrator.” This seems to be a hidden whitewashing of Germany´s Nazi past. An editor-in-chief of a mass medium is not supposed to indoctrinate, but to inform.

You don’t choose your Jews and Israelis at random.

Perhaps Germans finally want to be victims too. Yes, Germany was a perpetrator at the end of the Second World War, but it was also a victim. Which German considered himself a perpetrator after the end of the war, after the unconditional surrender, bombed cities, raped women, a whole generation of children who had to endure the bomb shelters? Nobody.

Perhaps Germans finally want to be victims too.

Detjen suggests with the support of Moses: Yes, the Germans were perpetrators, but “also” victims. This is then projected onto Israel. And that might be the reason why Bartov is celebrated—because he uses the desired analogies between the IDF and the Wehrmacht. Is that antisemitism? Sometimes it’s not that easy to answer. But it definitely helps to fuel the willingness of antisemites to use violence. The accusation of genocide against the state of Israel is not antisemitic per se, but if it is still being spread uncritically, in October 2025, despite contradictory sources, there should be a discussion about the way in which antisemitism researchers promote antisemitic narratives and whether Israeli Holocaust researchers are not also stirring up antisemitism in the name of freedom of science or freedom of opinion.

Antisemitic rhetoric has antisemitic consequences, according to British researcher David Hirsh. So if Palestine solidarity does not entail taking responsibility—it not only has a right to “resist,” but also a duty to be responsible for peace—then it does not deserve the name because it manifests the conflict and is not progressive. It is not balanced, and its statements are not based on empiricism, but on opinions where it is quite clear that no source criticism has taken place. There are false claims, as with the initiative “Jenseits der Staatsraison,” which continues to claim a targeted starvation campaign by Israel, long since refuted by the study by Danny Orbach and others. One cannot claim to discuss “Israel/Palestine” but only criticize and defame Israel. This is not being “multidirectional,” but one-dimensional. It also does not make one an expert on the Middle East or antisemitism. Antisemitism as an ideology and as a fusion of Nazi antisemitism and Islamic, anti-Jewish world views plays no role in Bartov, Butler and others’ explanations of the massacres of Oct. 7, and is not even discussed as a possible framework. Oct. 7 is “explained” solely from the motive of repression.

If the search for truth no longer plays a role, but what appears to be true is staged as truth, then science has lost.

Dr. Verena Buser is an associate researcher of the Holocaust Studies Program at Western Galilee College, Israel and lives in Berlin.