Exclusive: German government post-Gaza restructure of renowned Middle East-focused Qantara.de prompts editors resignation

The entire editorial team of the German government-funded Middle East-focused website Qantara have resigned after a restructuring left them “unable to guarantee editorial independence”, with suggestions of a political motivation for the change and dishonesty by the Foreign Office and amid a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices in the wake of the Israeli war in Gaza.

"The editorial team responsible for this internationally renowned, unique and multilingual online magazine announced its resignation a few months ago. We would like to thank all our readers for their loyalty and critical support over the past 16 years and wish you all the best," a statement on the website reads.

But editorial sources in Qantara.de told The New Arab on condition of anonymity the move is related to their fears over compromised editorial independence.

“We resigned together because we came to the conclusion that our independent critical journalism could not continue under IFA, because it is almost completely dependent on the Foreign Office” the sources told The New Arab.

“We asked questions but there was no justification given.” 

Earlier this year it was announced that Qantara would be restructured away from the German state-funded broadcaster Deutsche Welle to the Institute for Foreign Relationships (IFA), an institution set up promote Germany’s reputation internationally, without significant publishing experience. 

The move was justified by the Foreign Office as being purely structural and not related to the site’s content.

But remarks by German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock contradict the claim.

“We have the challenge, particularly with regard to antisemitism, that we must check some communication platforms again and see if everything is going in the right direction. Therefore it is a question of money but also a question of what content is shared” Germany’s top diplomat told a journalist at the Catholic Congress in Dresden in May.

The New Arab heard a recording of the conversation and approached the Foreign Office for comment and to confirm its veracity.

Responding to a request, the German Foreign Office denied this played a role, saying they have "no knowledge of any accusations of antisemitism that have been made against Qantara."

End of an era?

Set up to foster dialogue with and understanding of the Middle East after the terror attacks of 9/11, Qantara, which publishes in German, Arabic and English, was lauded as a rare voice of balance and expertise in the German media, publishing over 90,000 articles by more than 2,000 authors.

The site publishes interviews with experts that questioned the country’s “increasingly off-key” antisemitism debate, noting that “Germany’s reputation is going down the drain on a massive scale.”

Prominent colonial historian Juergen Zimmerer, who listened to the audio recording, condemned the move and the apparently misleading statements by the Foreign Office.

“If now, as the audio recording seems to show, it was antisemitism that the foreign minister and the foreign office was worried about, then that means that all the statements in the past were lies. The lie would be the scandal, for which there should be political consequences.”

Zimmerer condemned the move itself as “deliberately demolishing an important bridge to the Islamic world.”

The move was partly justified by the German Foreign Office as wanting more audience, but the IFA have just a quarter of Qantara’s 800,000 Facebook followers, making the reasoning questionable. Qantara also have a weekly newsletter with 22,000 subscribers.

The editorial sources told The New Arab that the Foreign Office “wanted a grip on the editorial office. They wanted to depoliticise it, which they will do step by step, not all at once” adding that “we were always nuanced about the Middle East, and there is no space for that in Germany anymore.”

The sources complained about poor communication from both the Foreign Office and IFA, with questions not being answered and attempts to communicate over the editorial board’s heads.

“We criticised the self-idealisation of Germans in relation to antisemitism. The debate takes guilt from the Germans and puts it onto migrants” editorial sources said. 

A public letter by 35 Qantara authors wrote that they “see the real danger that a project that allows diversity of opinion and occasionally questions German foreign and cultural policy in its debates will effectively be shut down” and that they doubt that the IFA “has the editorial capacities to successfully continue such a complex project.”

Long-term Qantara editor Claudia Mende called the transfer as happening “without a plan, without a factual reason… over the heads of the editorial team. I don’t see any future for Qantara at the IFA as an editorially independent and credible medium” on social media site X, seeing instead “state control under a government that narrows the scope for discourse.”

Germany, a key ally of and supplier of arms to Israel, has banned the vast majority of pro-Palestine protests and dozens have been detained following marches in Berlin and other German cities.

Restrictions on protests, including those organised by Jewish groups, have been justified in part because of the “immediate threat” of “inflammatory, antisemitic shouts”.