So there they are – pleas, essays, letters of protest etc.. Right on time for the Jewish festival of family and lights, Chanukkah, they come from various directions and have a common aim: to discredit and unhinge the Bundestag resolution of May 2019 against the boycott campaign BDS, which is antisemitic and hostile to Israel at its core. While society is fighting the coronavirus pandemic, while artists and parts of the economy are struggling for their existence, while antisemitic conspiracy myths and hostilities are booming, the moment appears to have come for the various authors to unite their forces for battle. For what, actually? For a problem that is none.We have already been able to read a great deal over the past 19 months. Mostly high-flown in language and shaped by the alarmist pseudo-argument that the Bundestag resolution and many similar resolutions at municipal level inadmissibly restrict freedom of opinion. Talk of supposed narrowings of spaces of discourse, of curtailments of academic and artistic freedom and even of the „abusive use of the concept of antisemitism“ is doing the rounds.
The central accusation in this – that the anti-BDS resolution criminalises criticism of Israeli policy and silences „important voices“ by accusing them of antisemitism – is quite simply false. The media, discussion events and politics are bursting with critical statements about Israeli policy. There is scarcely another country that „concerns“ German minds as much as Israel. Neither the outrageous injustice towards the Uyghurs nor the state-ordered murders in Iran or Belarus awaken such a need for criticism as the State of Israel.
In their texts the boycott apologists demand that they should not be boycotted in boycotting the State of Israel. Here it is hard to say whether they have formulated this deliberately falsely or merely naively. BDS does not boycott „the state“ of Israel. BDS is a total boycott of everything Jewish-Israeli, such as tourists, artists, sportspeople, academics, business and politics. And even if this total boycott is antisemitic and wrong for the cause of peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, such a total boycott is not prohibited – not even after the Bundestag’s anti-BDS resolution. Nor is it prohibited to join, free of facts, the narrative around the founding and intentions of the BDS campaign that has been prettified for Western ears (to avoid the word „tall tale“). However, the aim of the Bundestag resolution should be that this is not a stance subsidised and promoted by taxpayers’ money.
Resistance to this is now stirring, mostly from circles already known in this respect before. This resistance is not comprehensible. It is as if one were to demand for right-wing extremist movements that they should henceforth be allowed to use publicly owned premises, since otherwise spaces of discourse would be narrowed. For the antisemitic BDS campaign continues to threaten Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and gives encouragement to antisemites worldwide who are only too happy to try to disguise their hatred as „criticism of Israel“. It is an ideology open to extremists and terrorists and has in fact done nothing yet to improve the living situation of Palestinians, but has campaigned exclusively against Israel.
It makes one sad and stunned to see that large (tax-funded) institutions such as the Goethe-Institut, the Kulturstiftung des Bundes or indeed the Einstein Forum, in each case in the shape of their top personnel, are agitating against this Bundestag resolution.
As if this were not scandal enough, the head of the “Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung” (ZfA) also signs one of these BDS-apologist letters. Among many Jews and among experts it is already known as a “Zentrum für Antisemitismus-Relativierung” (centre for the relativisation of antisemitism), and unfortunately it once again does full justice to this reputation. According to a study by the University of Bielefeld, over 80%[1] of the Jewish citizens surveyed experience BDS as antisemitic. But what does that count for? The ZfA knows better and ignores the voices of those affected. Just as its head likes to deny other obvious matters, such as the existence of antisemitic outbursts in German school playgrounds.
Particularly striking among the names listed under one of the BDS-apologist texts in the nebulous rubric „expert advice and contributions to the discussion“:
Thomas Krüger, the president of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, advised the actors involved, although with this institution in particular one ought to be able to assume neutrality and compliance with democratic decisions of the Bundestag.
Another of the “spin doctors” involved appears, disturbingly, to be Dr Andreas Görgen, “head of the department of culture and communication” at the Auswärtiges Amt. The authority that in 2020 holds the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). And it is precisely this IHRA that has created the internationally most renowned definition of antisemitism. This definition has already been adopted by over 40 governments – the German one included. The motivation of BDS is, according to the criteria for recognising antisemitism named in the definition, antisemitic in large part. Yet instead of the Auswärtiges Amt supporting and disseminating the IHRA’s own definition of antisemitism during its time as chair of the IHRA, the responsible department distinguishes itself by complete invisibility. Only Mr Görgen is active and evidently sets himself against the resolutions of the Bundestag and of the Federal Government.
We welcome the steadfastness of the Federal Government in respecting the Bundestag’s anti-BDS resolution and adhering to it. We therefore call on the signatories to reconsider their positioning and to engage intensively with the history, the means and the aims of the BDS campaign. We are certain that afterwards some of those to whom we give the benefit of the doubt as to good intentions will withdraw their co-signature.
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[1] https://uni-bielefeld.de/ikg/daten/JuPe_Bericht_April2017.pdf
