While the situation here is not (yet) as bleak as Berlin, it is certainly not pleasant either. There are mainly three anti-Semitic and Israel-hating groups active in Goettingen: The “Students for Palestine”, the “Zivilgesellschaft für Gerechtigkeit” [Civil Society for Justice], and “Zeytoun” (probably the most aggressive). Their members and sympathizers remain consistently anonymous and are always covering up their faces with a kuffyeh. Fittingly, all these groups are part of the German-wide “Kufiya Netzwerk”[1] that denies Israel’s right to exist, alternately celebrates or denies Hamas’ bestialities of October 7, and fights against the ban of the Hamas-supporting organizations “Samidoun” and “Palästina Solidarität Duisburg” with whom they work closely together (“Samidoun” is notorious, among other things, for having celebrated in Berlin the massacre of October 7).[2]
These groups managed to acquire two “patron saints” in Goettingen who write for them their letters to the authorities, compose indignant letters to the editor on their behalf in the local newspaper and help organize their rallies: One is a notorious antisemite in his seventies who finds the gratification of his life in insulting the people who are holding monthly vigils for the Israeli hostages. The other is a professor of Materials Physics who also happens to be a high-ranking member of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), a group that is ridiculously small (albeit stunningly wealthy) but so extremist that it is under surveillance of the “Verfassungsschutz” [Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution], not least because its ties to the terror organization “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (PLFP).[3] Members of the PLFP were part of the vicious propaganda show of February 20, 2025, when Hamas terrorists and the mob of Gaza rejoiced around the coffins of the cruelly slaughtered Bibas family.
Since October 7th 2023 the university and city of Goettingen have been the scene of unending harassment against Jewish people and those who stand against anti-Semitism and Israel-hatred. Pictures of the hostages that were put up after the massacre were torn down within half an hour, whereas anti-Israel-, pro BDS- or so-called “pro-Palestine” stickers, flyers and posters are everywhere. In the weeks after October 7th groups of young men (their faces of course hidden by their keffiyeh) regularly gathered at noon at the entrance of the central canteen of the university, waving Palestine flags, screaming paroles and harassing visitors. Even more frightening was a group that “greeted” those who entered the foyer of the “Zentrale Hörsaalgebäude” (the main building on the campus) with hands dripping from artificial blood, the well-known symbol for the lynching of Jews. Since all these actions were so-called “flashmobs” the activists were of course long gone when campus security arrived.
A young female student who wore a “Never Again is Now” tag on her rucksack found threatening messages on her desk in the library; another displaying a poster with the words “Believe Israeli Women” on Woman’s Day (March 8, 2024) was threatened with rape and murder. In some ways the aggressiveness unfortunately paid off: Jewish students preferred not to attend the monthly vigils for the hostages in order not to be seen by members or sympathizers of the “Students for Palestine”.
In the summer 2024 the “Students for Palestine” announced that a “Pro-Palestine-Camp” would soon grace the campus; this part of the University of Goettingen is under jurisdiction of the city, not of the president of the university who always stood by the Jewish community, unlike his Berlin counterparts and very unlike the mayor of Goettingen. Several professors dared to object in the local newspaper and were then publicly insulted by the professor of Materials Physics mentioned above: Not those who had by then been creating for months an atmosphere of intimidation and fear, but those who protested against their actions where accused of “defamation” and “lack of differentiated discourse”. The grotesque highlight of this slur campaign were leaflets spread all over the city, where the university members who had spoken out against the camp were called “the Goettingen hate preachers” and charged with “calling for a pogrom against the Muslims of the city”. Although these absurd accusations were hardly even noticed beyond the anti-Semitic, Israel-hating “bubble” there was some reason for concern in view of the case of the French teacher who was gruesomely murdered after a similar campaign against him.[4]
The enthusiasm for the camp on the part of the real students (who were at that time studying for their exams) was very limited. A considerable part of the protesters obviously consisted of professional Israel-haters, as usual in the mob terrorizing the German universities. One participant even stated, perhaps by mistake, that he was “neither under 40 nor a student.” Critical questions (especially from women!) were not acceptable for the self-styled “peaceful campers”: A young female journalist who wanted to report on the camp had to organize police protection first so that she could exercise her right to freedom of the press and carry out her journalistic work. She was then followed by two male “activists” from the camp halfway across the city and eventually received comments on her Instagram account such as “Palestine is free, you whore, you Jewish girl”, “whore”, “shame on you, you piece of shit”.
The activities in the camp covered the usual range from the infantile (“Bracelet workshop”) to the downright fascist, namely a lecture on the instrumentalization of the Holocaust (a perennial issue among anti-Semites, I recall the fascist German politician Björn Höcke’s term “cult of guilt”). Some students who listened to this and dared to ask critical questions were photographed by the “campers” and asked threateningly why they were asking such questions.
After the end the camp (July 4th 2024) two students (of course remaining anonymous) gave a „press conference“ where they demanded that the university of Goettingen was made to break off contact with all Israeli universities because “they were all involved in the development of weapons of war.” Since it is really not difficult to verify that no Israeli university is developing weapons this accusation was not exactly an impressive feat of intellectual labour. The most compelling act of unmasking themselves, however, was certainly their statement that the atrocities of Hamas, the worst massacre of Jews since Auschwitz, had “played no role for the protesters in the camp”, there had only been “Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians since October 7, 2023”. Of course none of this was surprising for those who followed the “Student for Palestine”s incessant hate propaganda in the social networks, where they also use to mark names of unwelcome citizens with red Hamas triangles as target.
A continual complaint by pro-Palestine activists is the alleged suppression of their freedom of expression. However, when they were asked for a statement by the Northern German Television (NDR) for a report in “Hallo Niedersachsen” at their demonstration on May 31, 2024 none of them were prepared to talk to the journalist. Similarly, around two weeks later, the organizers of the pro-Palestine demonstrations immediately broke off the interview with two young student reporters from “Campus Radio” when a question was asked about Hamas and the massacre on 7 October.
At the beginning of the winter term 2024/25 the antisemites managed to hack the intern network at the initial lecture of business economics; on the whiteboard in the lecture hall the phrases “Free Palestine” and “Fuck the Jews” were then growing bigger by the second, causing some frightened Jewish students to flee the premises.
During winter term 2024/5 a public Anti-Israel lecture series entitled “Academia in the authoritarian turn: Conversations on global conflict, militarisation and the right to dissent”[5] was organized by members of several institutes (among them sociology, ethnology and, surprise, Materials Physics). It featured, among others, Dr. Nahed Samour, an Islamic studies scholar from the Humboldt University Berlin who talks of Israeli as “colonists” and denied the right of Israel to defend itself after the massacre of October 7. In case anyone missed the point, the background of the two-page flyer is a discreetly stylized Palestinian flag. The protests of a Jewish scholar of the university and an official inquiry by the “Antisemitismusbeauftragte” of the county of Lower Saxonia were answered by the university with the usual formula about “freedom of speech”.
Whereas there is obviously no great sympathy with the anti-Semites and Israel-haters within the local population of the city and among the real students who are mainly focused on their studies, the three groups mentioned at the beginning are becoming more radical and violent by the day. At the end of September 2024, four protesters with pictures of hostages and an Israeli flag standing quietly at the edge of an anti-Israel-rally organized by “Zeytoun” were viciously attacked, two people (one of them a police woman) hurt, the Israeli flagged ripped away and partly burnt before the police could retrieve it.
While all this does not bode well for the future, it is perfectly clear for all of us that the most important thing is not to give up and remain visible and audible. We will not be silent!
Georg-August-Universität, Goettingen, Germany
[1] https://kufiya-netzwerk.de/
[4] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mord_an_Samuel_Paty
[5] https://events.goettingen-campus.de/gfx/2024-11/1732865645406-academiaintheauthoritarianturn.pdf
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