Anti-Israel protests: When radical Palestine supporters insult a Green

Once he was back outside on the street, Volker Beck said that things were “quite peaceful and friendly” inside. “Together with colleagues, I spoke calmly and objectively about Berlin’s holiday law,” said the former Green Party member of the Bundestag and current president of the German-Israeli Society.

He had previously spent almost an hour on Monday afternoon in the library of the Technical University (TU) and the University of the Arts in Berlin discussing a legal question: Should followers of the respective religions in Berlin be given the opportunity to take time off from work or school or university on non-Christian holidays, such as Jewish holidays?

But this expert discussion, which was not open to the public and not accessible to journalists, was part of a two-day summer academy of the research network on anti-Semitism at the TU and had to be protected outside by the police. Radical anti-Israel groups with names such as “Not in Our Name”, “Students for Palestine” and “Student Coalition Berlin” had called for actions against the Greens’ appearance. “No place for racists on campus!” read one call, “No place for Volker Beck at the TU Berlin!”

Those groups justified their demand for Beck, a lawyer with a background in religious law, to be excluded from the legal discussion by arguing that Beck refused to describe Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip as “genocide.” This was enough for one woman to shout out to Beck on the street after his appearance in the library that he was a “genocide supporter.”

There were no major attacks until early evening

Meanwhile, around 150 like-minded people were chanting “Intifada, revolution,” “Viva, viva Palestine,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on the other side of the street. The police shielded Beck and a small group of pro-Israeli demonstrators on the other side of the street from them.

Three people from the pro-Palestinian bloc were taken away after they refused to stop approaching the Israel supporters, shouting (“Shame on you”) and raising their middle fingers, despite repeated requests. However, there were no major attacks until early evening. Beck was able to leave the scene unchallenged.

It also ended differently than last Thursday. Berlin’s Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (CDU) had to leave an event in Moabit early under police protection. He had previously been harassed by so-called activists, who had set off pyrotechnics and thrown a microphone stand in Chialo’s direction.

The fact that less happened on Monday may also have been due to the fact that Beck had put pressure on the TU in advance and demanded that “the university management take a clear and public position,” as Beck wrote on Sunday on the website of the Tikvah Institute for the Curbing of Anti-Semitism, which he heads.

TU President Geraldine Rauch had already been criticized before, among other things for liking anti-Semitic social media posts after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. In Beck’s case, the university administration condemned the call for his exclusion and declared that protecting the summer academy had “the highest priority”. Personal attacks were firmly rejected by the organizers and the president.

The police presence on Monday was correspondingly large, ensuring that an invited participant in a seminar expressly supported by the university could leave the library unmolested. Beck said before the event that the demonstration against his appearance was about “anti-Israeli agitation” that was ultimately always directed against Jewish life. At the same time, he defended the right to demonstrate, which “also applies to fools.”

The radical anti-Israel demonstrators received support on Monday from passing cars. Several powerful cars were shouted at them from the windows, honking their horns loudly in victory and also giving a “wolf salute”. The demonstrators behind their “Stop the Genocide” signs responded with cheers.