Germany cancelled me for speaking out against Gaza genocide. So I persisted

In early June, my colleague Mahmud and I were invited by a professor from the German University of Heidelberg to speak to her class on the manufacturing of consent for genocide, in German media and its repression of the Palestinian perspective. However, after an organised smear campaign first by pro-Israel groups, subsequently picked up by the German media, the University cancelled the event. 

On October 7 I made a video — which I later deleted after concerns it would be taken out of context — that attempted to contextualise the attack on Israel. It was an attempt to explain that such violence does not occur in a vacuum but as a result of decades of brutal Israeli violence, occupation and apartheid. The video, uncovered by Vice President of the Jewish Student Union, Noam Petri, was posted on Twitter in an attempt to scandalise the event. 

What transpired immediately after was a smear campaign spearheaded by the far-right German press such as the Zionist publication Judische Allgemeine, the notoriously xenophobic Bild Zeitung, and even the local paper, Mannheimer Morgen. I was called a “Hamas fanatic”, “terror sympathiser,” and “Jew hater.” 

Politicians even joined in the campaign against me. Green Party council member of the city where I live, Chris Rihm, said that I and Mahmud are “not people that a university invites” as we are only “trained rhetoricians who are able to rally large crowds behind them.” 

CDU politician Manuel Hagel wrote an open letter to the University saying “Supporters of terrorism who reject Israel’s right to exist and call for the destruction of an entire state and the expulsion or murder of people based on their ethnic or religious affiliation must never be given the space or opportunity to spread hatred and incitement.”

I, of course, said none of the above. Yet, I made it a personal decision not to apologise, not to clarify my words, nor to allow myself to go on the defensive because I refuse to put myself in a position to give the German press and Zionist lobbies any false legitimacy or moral authority. 

Israel killed thirty members of my family. My children’s great-grandmother who was older than the state of Israel, died in a refugee camp in Khan Yunis due to dehydration and worsening conditions in the camps. As I wrote for The New Arab months ago, Palestinians should  “refuse to condemn and be subjected to a viciously racist discourse that places our respective communities as suspect. I refuse to condemn because we are not pawns in political ambitions that are focused on offsetting Germany’s historical responsibility towards Jewish people onto the Palestinian population.” 

I instead, condemn this country’s politics and media, which have trivialised, belittled, and justified the murder of, what the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, estimates, to be 186,000 Palestinians — 8% of Gaza’s population. 

It is not Palestinians, or I, who support terror, rather it is this state and its institutions that unconditionally support genocide and state-sanctioned terrorism against 2 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged Gaza enclave. 

The university event was supposed to be a small and rather insignificant class discussion yet it led to a scandal, major media attention and responses from political figures. This is probably because there is a rising fear that pro-Palestinian sentiment could be present in German academic spaces.

Recently, the President Prof. Dr. Cornelia Woll of the German private university, The Hertie School, came under fire after mentioning the victims in Gaza at their university’s graduation ceremony. “Our greatest privilege is that we’re able to concentrate on education and see you graduate at all. Our university is standing. Our city is safe. Germany is not under attack” Woll said.

“Some of you brought with you signs of solidarity with the terrible plight of the Palestinians, the destruction of Gaza and the death of tens of thousands of civilians, including an unbearably high number of children. I commend you for it, and would like to invite you to stand up to express that solidarity.” 

In the media, Woll was accused of bias and not acknowledging the Israeli victims of October 7. She then apologised on Twitter. The board of the Hertie Foundation then reaffirmed their stance: “After the massacre on October 7, the Hertie Foundation stands unequivocally on Israel's side and feels for the victims and their families, especially for the hostages still held by Hamas.” What should have been a moment to mourn systematic destruction turned into reaffirming support of Israel’s genocide.  

In other words, there is no space in German universities to express empathy or even engage in discussion on why it is this state supports Israel as fervently as it does. But in Germany, it can go even further: expressing that students have a right to protest can be a scandal. 

After students at the Free University of Berlin set up an encampment in solidarity with the people of Gaza, it was immediately attacked and evicted by Berlin police at the request of the university administrators. In response, 1,400 university lecturers wrote an open letter defending free speech and their students’ ability to protest free from police persecution. 

Germany’s Education Minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, expressed outrage. “This statement by teachers at Berlin universities is shocking,” Watzinger said. “Instead of clearly standing up against hatred of Israel and Jews, university occupiers are made into victims and violence is being trivialised.” 

According to leaked emails, Watzinger went beyond criticism to actually trying to investigate to see if the ministry had grounds to cut grant funding to signatories of the open letter and whether they had broken criminal law. 

The state is increasing its meddling in even the smallest examples of pro-Palestinian sentiment. Professors, presidents, and students are denied the luxury of discussion or debate, and in fact, it may be a lost cause to assume that the state will allow for a shift to take place - even if there are sympathies. Instead, it is necessary to reclaim these spaces and demand, through pressure, protest or occupations, for their complicity in manufacturing consent for genocide to end. 

The Students for Palestine at the University of Bonn spoke to me about their latest occupation of a lecture hall. Before the occupation they wanted to organise film screenings, but they were denied rooms. They wrote open letters that fell on deaf ears, and they finally decided to take matters into their own hands. 

“Since we were left without community space, we decided it was necessary to reclaim our space inside the university, and although the whole building was closed down, and the police were called on us, and our actions were called “disgusting,” we managed to educate our students and show important content. Shouldn’t the university be a place for students, their interests and aspirations? 

It is not possible to become a good journalist in such an environment, nor become a good doctor in a place that prohibits you from protesting massacres in hospitals, the destruction of a health care system and the targeting of medical workers. So we will keep on fighting. It is the future, life and dignity of Palestinians, and it is tied to our future and our liberation as well.” 

Although, currently, the streets are our classrooms and universities, and that is where we have pushed the conversation on Palestine into the psyche of regular people, we must continue to push and force our institutions, our educational environments, to reflect the change we want.

The event I was set to speak at the University of Heidelberg was cancelled. However, students at the University created a demonstration on my and my colleague’s behalf to protest the university's decision. We decided to give our talks right there outside campus. Instead of speaking to 20 students, I spoke to 250. 

Hebh Jamal is a Palestinian American journalist based in Germany. 

Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @hebh_jamal

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.