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“Occasionally, we are invited — and then disinvited. Sometimes we are considered too pro-Israel, and other times too pro-Palestine,” wrote Jewish historian Meron Mendel on his Facebook page two weeks ago. He included a screenshot of his most recent column, co-written with his Muslim wife, Saba-Nur Cheema, for the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. In the column, they discuss their Muslim-Jewish dinner table in Frankfurt, demonstrating that societal changes require genuine debate. However, rather than seeking open debate in Germany, Mendel notes that “pro-Israel and pro-Palestine institutions are caving into their camps.”
“That’s exemplary of what’s happening on a small scale, but it also happens on a large scale again and again. We wanted to point that out and problematize it.”
This month, they were scheduled to read from their new book, Muslimisch-jüdisches Abendbrot (translated as Muslim-Jewish Supper), at Shura Hamburg, the local umbrella organization for Islamic communities. However, three weeks before the event, the organization called to postpone, stating, “We wanted to invite you for a long time, six months ago, but now the situation in Gaza is completely different.”
It wasn’t the first time that they’d been asked to withdraw their invitations. In 2023, the backlash came from the other side. They were invited by a Jewish salon in Hamburg, but a wave of protests emerged against their participation. An official letter from the German-Israeli Society questioned how anti-Israeli speakers could be welcomed. Despite Mendel and Cheema receiving the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal for their efforts against antisemitism, their critics, including the Commissioner for Antisemitism and the Central Council of Jews, expressed that they were perceived as “too pro-Palestinian.”
In December 2024, the University of Leipzig canceled an event titled “The 1948 War and Jihad,” with Professor Dr. Benny Morris citing security concerns. Morris, a historian who has extensively studied the 1948 Palestinian expulsion, has reportedly adopted a more conservative stance that is less favorable to Palestinians. “We are currently dealing with a heated social atmosphere in which event organizers are being harshly attacked and, in some cases, threatened, either before or during an event,” explained Rector Prof. Dr. Eva Inés Obergfell.
In February 2025, the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich canceled an event featuring human rights activist Francesca Albanese, who is a fierce critic of Israel. LMU stated that it does not, as a matter of principle, provide space for general political events. The event was also “not integrated into an academic conference,” the university added. Furthermore, LMU pointed to security concerns in light of an expected “clash of opinions” in a debate that would put Israel under scrutiny in Germany.
In April 2025, the Associate Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York Omri Boehm was scheduled to speak in Weimar on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11. But after massive pressure from the Israeli government through the embassy, Buechenwald’s director, Prof. Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner, agreed with Boehm to postpone his speech to a later date. Boehm has been very outspoken about the violation of human rights in Palestine and Gaza and has repeatedly expressed criticism of the Israeli government.
German institutions and universities fear criticism. Hosting voices that could spark the debate in Germany towards its position with Israel feels like walking on eggshells. But a particular frustration is starting to be felt in German society. For instance, students in Munich have increasingly expressed skepticism about the content they are exposed to in their university halls. “One view does not exclude the other,” claimed one student during the talk “Between Dialogue and Boycott: Negotiating the Middle East Conflict in Germany” by Mendel at the LMU in Munich last week. “We feel an asymmetry in the conversation. Dialog should be at the same eye level,” added another student.
For Mendel, silencing the dissent is a rare sign of what’s going wrong in the dynamics of the public debate in Germany — people are being rejected by both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel camps. “And that’s why we should be invited. You see the absurdity of the whole thing. We certainly don’t hold all the answers to the conflict, but what troubles us is the way people articulate their positions. If someone believes you’re wrong, they should present a counterargument instead of simply categorizing you as ‘not belonging to our camp.’ Meanwhile, the larger camp views those outside their circle as enemies. We aim to address this dynamic.”
In Mendel’s words, he and Cheema represent an unusual constellation; they are a constant irritation because they dare to fall into this camp mentality. “We don’t want to outsource our judgment and say, ‘Yes, everything my camp says is right, so I’ll go along with it,’” he reiterated.
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Meron Mendel was born and raised in a small town in the southern desert of Israel. He served in the Israeli military during his time in the West Bank and Lebanon, while also actively participating in local peace movement projects. In October 2000, the second phase of the Intifada began, leaving him disheartened by the escalating conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Seeking a change of scenery, he accepted a scholarship to pursue his master’s degree at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.
Mendel initially aimed for a traditional academic career, but soon realized that to effect change in society, there are numerous creative avenues that can coexist with the academic sphere. He started a temporary research project in Frankfurt am Main, where Anne Frank was born in 1929. For the first 5 years of her life, Anne lived with her parents and older sister in an apartment on the outskirts of Frankfurt before moving to Amsterdam. Mendel and his team spoke to neighbors who had known Anne Frank and her family, which inspired them to establish a small association that eventually led to the creation of the Anne Frank Educational Center in Frankfurt. This center aims to connect Anne Frank’s story and the Holocaust with contemporary issues.
“The person of Anne Frank obviously plays a role, and often the foundation is misperceived as a Jewish institution, but it is not,” says Mendel. Their target group isn’t particularly Jewish either. Mendel explains that 98% of the work lies in the present-day problems and conflicts of migrant communities in German society. The employees are diverse in terms of their religious affiliation, ethnicity, and language. They develop innovative projects to convey how racism and discrimination can arise from prejudices against people who have fled conspiracy theories on the internet and how they can counteract them.
His wife is the political scientist Saba-Nur Cheema, the daughter of Muslim Pakistani parents who came to Germany as refugees. Since July 2021, they have written together the column, where they also connect these private aspects of Jewish-Muslim marriage with political issues in Germany and the world. They both advocate for a culture of open discussion and are frequently invited by cultural institutions, literary houses, and other organizations.
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When I asked Mendel why he believes people on both sides of the issue—Pro-Palestine and Pro-Israel—are often unwilling to listen to more liberal voices like his, he reframed the question: Why do these communities feel compelled to trust in such a way? He added, why is it so natural for Jews to support the state of Israel and for Muslims, regardless of their background, to support the Palestinians? He uses quotation marks around the word “support,” suggesting that neither Israelis nor Palestinians truly need these kinds of fan clubs; rather, they require a different kind of solidarity.
Mendel argues that both Muslim and Jewish communities in Germany have been exploiting the conflict for their own purposes. Their identities in German society manifest through a conflict occurring 3,000 kilometers away. This ongoing issue serves as a major projection surface for both groups, who experience antisemitism and racism in German society. Consequently, there is a reflex to unite and present a united front. However, as soon as someone voices an opinion that deviates from the official narrative, pressure to conform is exerted, resulting in both sides retreating to their respective trenches.
But it is also the German identity that has a complex relationship with Israel. “People talk about Israel differently here than in Spain, France, or India because it’s a different historical connection,” said Mendel. The legacy of the Holocaust and the culture of remembrance in Germany are intricately tied to its relationship with Israel. In his book Talking About Israel, Mendel examines the development of social discourse and debate about Israel in Germany over the years, from the late 1940s to the present day. In Angela Merkel’s speech to the Knesset in 2008, she coined the very famous phrase that Israel’s security is part of German raison d’état, which solidified Israel’s role as an integral part of German identity.
However, it’s worth noting that Merkel made this statement during a time when Israel’s Prime Minister was Ehud Olmert, a supporter of the two-state solution. Today, Olmert is one of the most vocal critics of Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza. Mendel recalls that two weeks after submitting the manuscript of his book, Netanyahu won the election, and it was clear that he would be forming a government with right-wing extremists. “Then I negotiated with the publisher that I could change a few passages, which would call everything into question even more. You can sharply criticize the Israeli government; I’ve always done that, but it was within the democratic spectrum. The moment that anti-democratic, right-wing extremist forces came to power in Israel that fundamentally changed all the forms.”
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What does Israel mean today for the German identity? Journalist Sonja Zekri asked the German-Jewish philosopher Omri Boehm to discuss the shift in Germany’s culture of remembrance in front of a packed theater in Munich last Monday. He believes that the fact that Germany supports Israel is essential. However, Boehm argued, this can not provide easy ‘Verschönnung’ to Germans, it can not be a blind check to Israel, and it can not replace Germany’s commitment to its past, which is about Jews and not the state of Israel. But he warned, “All criticism in the way this relation is abused needs to be done based on protecting the achievement of Germany and Israel relations, and not out of mocking those relations.”
He also adds, “To outsource German relations to its past, which has to do with relations to Jews, to support the State of Israel is a huge mistake because Jews are not only represented by the State of Israel.” Ultimately, a state is a political entity like any other, which cannot fulfill its function as a moral cult. “The commitment to a state can only be political, can not be a moral commitment,” he pointed out. Due to its past, Germany also has a strong commitment to international law. Therefore, both commitments should be coherent. The question is how to bring them together.
Boehm expressed concern that certain thinkers and political figures keen on undermining Germany’s dedication to cosmopolitanism and international law are using the moral obligation to Israel as a tool to weaken Germany’s commitment to those principles. He continues explaining that making a mockery of the commitment to the past, to the Jews and “for all of us who love the State of Israel like I do, it’s my country,” it also makes a mockery of the commitment to Israel. “As a Jew who cares about Germany’s commitment to its past, I am very worried when I suddenly see the thought that they can overcome their past if they would provide a diplomatic and legal umbrella to people suspected of war crimes,” he pounds. The audience responded with applause.
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But perhaps equally telling is the solidarity the far-right party AfD has expressed to Israel, reflecting a troubling trend in European politics. Many political leaders within far-right circles endorse a tactical alliance with the current Israeli government. Boehm observed that many of them wish to restrict citizenship based solely on blood nationality, a move that could adversely affect future generations of individuals of Arab descent or Muslim faith in Germany.
A similar dynamic has emerged in the United States. In 2018, Omri Boehm wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, “Liberal Zionism in the Age of Trump.” The article served as a harbinger of the current state of politics in the US warning that “the alliance that’s beginning to form between Zionist leadership and politicians with anti-Semitic tendencies has the power to transform Jewish-American consciousness for years to come.” Trump’s government has interfered with university policies and targeted Muslim students, all under the guise of protecting Jews from antisemitism. Boehm remarked, “A world that tolerates war against humanity in Gaza is not a world that is safe for Jews.”
In Germany, the polarized debate between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel factions, as pointed out by Mendel, is unproductive for both Jews and Palestinians. It leaves a void in the debate that can be exploited by those promoting anti-Muslim racism and antisemitism, which often underpins support for Germany’s stance on Israel. If both camps, Pro-Palestine or Pro-Israel, are to change anything, explains Mendel, they need to overcome their own limitations and stop canceling each other.
Judging by the nearly sold-out event featuring Boehm in Munich and the well-attended talk by Mendel at LMU Munich on a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon, it appears that Germans are slowly willing to listen to other voices outside their camps and are open to debate that increasingly questions the position of Germany towards Israel. This time, Germans do not want to be on the wrong side of history, again.
