🚨 Germany’s New “Anti-Semitism” Law: A Direct Attack on Academic Freedom & Palestinian Solidarity

Germany just took another alarming step towards silencing any criticism of Israel—even inside universities. 🇩🇪✖️🎓

Under a new anti-Semitism resolution, German lawmakers have essentially made it illegal for academics, students, and institutions to discuss or criticize Israel’s apartheid policies. This resolution doesn’t protect Jewish people—it protects a settler-colonial regime from accountability. And scholars, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are calling it out.

📚 What’s Happening?

The German Bundestag passed a resolution titled "Resolutely Opposing Anti-Semitism and Hostility Towards Israel in Schools and Universities and Securing Free Discourse." Sounds good on the surface, right? But here’s the catch:

🔴 The resolution bans groups that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement from universities. This means students and professors who advocate for Palestinian rights could be silenced, blacklisted, or even penalized.

🔴 It adopts the controversial IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which conflates legitimate criticism of Israel with hatred against Jewish people. Scholars and human rights groups have long warned that this definition is weaponized to suppress discussions about Israel’s crimes.

🔴 It creates a dangerous precedent where universities may be forced to vet every student and professor’s political beliefs before allowing them on campus. As Prof. Michael Zürn from the Berlin Social Science Centre put it:

“We would actually have to subject every doctoral student or post-doc scholar to a political attitudes inquiry before inviting them as guests. This would paint a strange picture of German academia.”

🚔 Criminalizing Dissent: The TUM Lock-In

If you think this is just political talk, think again. Just days before this resolution passed, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) locked students and staff inside a lecture hall for three hours after they tried to discuss their university’s collaboration with Israeli institutions—including those directly tied to military research.

🔒 Students were accused of trespassing—inside their own university.
👮 The administration called the police on them instead of allowing an open discussion.
📝 The students simply wanted to address research collaborations with Ariel University, an Israeli institution inside an illegal West Bank settlement.

This is not democracy. This is not free speech. This is state-enforced repression to shield Israel from accountability.

🎭 Germany’s Fake “Anti-Semitism” Crusade

Make no mistake: This law isn’t about protecting Jewish people—it’s about protecting Zionism and criminalizing Palestinians and their allies.

🔹 Jewish scholars like Judith Butler, Amos Goldberg, and Omer Bartov could now be banned from German institutions because of their critical stance on Israel.

🔹 The resolution expands the power of Germany’s “Anti-Semitism Commissioners”—figures who, instead of addressing actual anti-Semitism (which overwhelmingly comes from the far-right), focus on silencing Palestinian voices and leftist critics.

🔹 Even the German government admits illegal Israeli settlements violate international law—yet German universities continue collaborating with Israeli institutions that support them.

🔥 Why This Matters

Germany is setting a terrifying precedent: If you oppose Israel’s genocide, apartheid, or occupation, you are an anti-Semite—even if you’re Jewish.

This is how authoritarianism creeps in. First, they silence academics. Then, they criminalize protests. Then, they target students. Sound familiar?

Germany, a country that claims to have learned from its past, is now repeating the same mistakes—this time in service of Zionist extremism.

✊ What Can We Do?

We cannot let Germany normalize this repression. Here’s how we fight back:

📢 Raise Awareness: Share this article, call out Germany’s crackdown, and spread the truth.
🎓 Support Students & Academics Under Attack: Donate to legal defense funds for Palestinian solidarity activists in Germany.
🛑 Boycott German Institutions Complicit in Israeli Apartheid: Universities that collaborate with Israeli military research must be held accountable.
📲 Use Boycat to Stay Informed: Track which brands, institutions, and organizations are complicit in Israel’s crimes and find ethical alternatives.

🚨 This Is Bigger Than Germany

The global pro-Palestine movement is growing, and governments that back Israel’s genocide are scrambling to crush it. Whether it’s Germany silencing universities, the U.S. criminalizing BDS, or France banning Palestine protests, the message is clear: They’re afraid of the truth.

But we’re not backing down. We will keep speaking up. We will keep boycotting. And we will not let Germany, or any other government, erase Palestine.

🛑 Free speech is not a crime. Supporting Palestine is not hate. Boycotting apartheid is not optional—it’s a responsibility.