Germany: Sacrificing academic freedom for the sake of ‘Israel’
learning aiding and abetting the repression of Palestine solidarity, setting what the group Students For Palestine Heidelberg describes as “a dangerous precedent in how narratives on anti-semitism are fabricated and employed to bar the development of critical discussions” on college campuses across Germany.
In January, Frankfurt’s Goethe University rescinded an offer to host an international academic conference, entitled “Talking About (the Silencing of) Palestine”, citing administrative reasons. Yet it is an open secret that the decision was the result of political pressure from conservative State (Weaponisation of) Antisemitism Commissioner, Uwe Becker, who defamed the event as a “travelling circus of known Israel haters.”
That same month, in what is a prime example of the unholy alliance between the pro-“Israel” lobby, policing and academic institutions that has coalesced in authoritarian post-October 7 Germany, the administration of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), with the help of the police, locked 30 anti-genocide student protesters and academics into a room for over three hours after luring them inside with fake promises of wanting to engage in a dialogue with them, say the activists.
During their unlawful detention, police harassed the participants, subjected them to body searches, forbade them from going to the bathroom on their own, and slapped them with bogus trespassing charges, according to grassroots left-wing news website klassegegenklasse.org.
When university administrators start assuming the role of snitches and jailers, you know that academic freedom is in the poorest of shapes.
Subcontractors of Zionist hasbara
Not surprisingly, the repressive atmosphere prevalent at German universities since “Israel” launched its campaign of annihilation against Gaza 19 months ago has led to a downgrading of the country’s academic freedom credentials.
In the 2025 update of the Academic Freedom Index, Germany dropped out of the top 10% due to its response to pro-Palestinian protests and the fact that academics are having their research scrutinised for voicing opposition to genocide.
As “Israel’s” relentless attacks and continued blockade on Gaza pushes a starving population to a breaking point in what is the world’s second largest humanitarian catastrophe after war-ravaged Sudan, the role of Germany’s academic institutions in either covering up or supporting the industrial-scale slaughter of Palestinian civilians shows no sign of changing.
At the time of writing, the University of Tübingen is set to host a propaganda event designed to deny the dystopian reality of anti-Palestinian repression in Germany by manufacturing a fictional threat to Jews, entitled “Turning point October 7 – The situation of Jewish students at German universities.”
The counterfactual get-together is organised by the German-Israeli Society (DIG), a Zionist lobby group which emphatically proclaims “Solidarity with the Israeli military!” (whose service members proudly post footage of their heinous war crimes on social media) on the website of one of its local chapters.
Such is the level of contempt in Germany for the unimaginable suffering Palestinians have been forced to endure for the last 19 months of colonial genocide, with the country’s university administrations continuing to act as self-deputised lackeys of authoritarian law-enforcement and subcontractors of Zionist hasbara.
By:
Timo Al-Farooq
