Germany lists BDS movement as ‘extremist’ for questioning ‘Israel’

A new report issued by Germany’s Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Tuesday revealed that it was dealing with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a “suspected extremist case,” noting that it had “links to secular Palestinian extremism.”

The report claimed that the BDS is not a homogeneous association, party, or organization.

German news site Watson cited the report as saying that “there is sufficient, strong, factual evidence to suggest that [the] BDS thereby violates, among other things, the idea of international understanding” by questioning “Israel’s” existence.

The report said, “After the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, BDS-affiliated groups mobilized and participated in many anti-Israel gatherings and intensified their demands for an end to an alleged ‘Israeli apartheid’ as well as called for a boycott of companies and goods related to Israel.”

German news site Judische Allgemeine quoted Faeser as stating, “We must oppose internal threats from extremism just as decisively as [we do] external threats,” adding, “We absolutely have to break the spiral of escalations in the Middle East, leading to even more disgusting hatred of Jews here.”

“Security authorities are reacting with great vigilance to the latest developments and are actively taking action against any kind of anti-Israel and antisemitic agitation,” she continued.

German-Israeli Society welcomes decision

Meanwhile, German public-broadcasting radio station Deutschlandfunk confirmed reports that Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency labeled the BDS movement as an extremist movement – and the German-Israeli Society (DIG) welcomed the decision.

DIG’s president Volker Beck released a statement applauding the announcement.

“For the first time, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution names the anti-Israeli boycott movement BDS as a suspected extremist case in its annual report,” stressing, “This supports the assessment of the German Bundestag in its ‘confront the BDS-Movement Resolutely – Fighting Antisemitism’ resolution in 2019.”

According to Beck, “All forms of antisemitism must be fought equally – consistently. The trivialization of or even sympathy by some cultural institutions with [the] BDS must finally stop.”

“We welcome the recent bans on associations issued by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, which weakened the infrastructure of significant extremist-antisemitic organizations. We call for this course to be consistently continued,” she concluded.

This comes only days after more than 2,000 German academics signed a letter calling for the resignation of the country’s Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger criticizing her efforts to penalize scholars supporting pro-Palestinian students.

The scholars emphasized in a statement that “academics in Germany are experiencing an unprecedented attack on their fundamental rights, on the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law.”

They emphasized that Stark-Watzinger’s recent actions have made her position “untenable”.

“The withdrawal of funding ad personam on the basis of political statements made by researchers is contrary to the Basic Law: teaching and research are free. The internal order to examine such political sanctions is a sign of constitutional ignorance and political abuse of power,” the statement pointed out.