by At first Lobna Shammout was only vaguely aware of the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, as she was celebrating her 40th birthday. “The latest news was crashing my phone, I thought ‘please, not today’,” said the Palestinian-German. “When I finally checked … each news flash was worse than the one before.”
In the weeks that followed, as Israel launched an all-out assault on Gaza over the attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed, Shammout anxiously awaited news from her relatives and friends in Gaza. Some were killed, among the estimated 15,000 Palestinians the Hamas-run health ministry says have lost their lives.
At the same time, Shammout, who runs a care home for the elderly in Lügde, western Germany, has become a conduit of information sought by her friends and colleagues who want to understand the conflict. (She says she gives them “the five minute version”).
And she, like many Muslims, is watching with growing frustration as Germany emerges as one of Europe’s most unreserved supporters of Israel’s strategy. The country’s political leaders spoke repeatedly without seeming hesitation about German affairs Staatsräson, or the cause of statehood, a principle that places support for Israel at the heart of national identity.
The vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, said in a video message: “The phrase ‘Israel’s security is part of Germany’s security. Staatsräson‘ was never an empty phrase and it should never be an empty phrase. It means that the security of Israel is essential for us as a country,” adding that Germany had a “historical responsibility” as the perpetrator of the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were killed.
“It was my grandparents’ generation that wanted to end Jewish life in Germany and Europe. After the Holocaust, the creation of Israel was the promise of protection for the Jewish people – and Germany is obliged to ensure that this promise can be fulfilled. This is a historic foundation for our republic,” Habeck said.
Shamout understands this. But she also feels it leaves little room for critics of Israel’s response to speak out or feel represented by the German government.
“I respect German history,” Shammout said. “I really understand the support for Israel as a state, as a safe place for Jews, and the saying ‘never again’ if the Holocaust can happen. It’s part of being German. But when this historical responsibility is used as an excuse to justify massive violations of human rights, to break international law, it makes me sad and angry and I do not accept this so called. Staatsräson.”
Since the attacks of Hamas, Germany is in a state of heightened tension. While pro-Palestinian marches are banned in many towns and cities, others have been allowed to proceed, with strict guidelines. (The federal commissioner for human rights, Luise Amtsberg, said: “Terrorism must be celebrated. We have banned demonstrations when they intend to incite anti-Semitism, and freedom of speech should not be abused to spread hatred.)
Meanwhile there has been a sharp increase in reports of anti-Semitic attacks targeting the country’s estimated 200,000 Jewish population. The Rias group, which tracks anti-Semitism, said it recorded 994 incidents between October 7 and November 9, a 320% increase compared to the same period in 2022.
Last month, ahead of an annual two-day conference bringing together politicians, Muslim groups and representatives of the Christian and Jewish communities, the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, called on Muslim groups to unequivocally condemn Hamas attacks and to separate himself from anti-Semitism.
“I hope that Muslim organizations will put themselves in a clear position and stand up to their responsibilities in society,” she told German TV. They should condemn the Hamas attack, “and not just with ‘yes, but’,” she said. “It must be clear that we are standing on the side of Israel.”
But many Muslims, part of Germany’s second largest religious group with 5.5 million people, say they are being unfairly targeted. There has also been a large increase in registered Islamophobic attacks, and it is suspected that many more have gone unreported.
Scharjil Ahmad Khalid, an Islamic imam and theologian, said extra security was in place at his Khadija mosque in Pankow, north of Berlin. “Just as anti-Semitic attacks have increased, so has the hatred of Muslims,” he said.
Many attacks have been reported on mosques, including the deposition of burnt Qur’an, pig cadavers and excrement on their grounds or in their mailboxes. In Magdeburg, Muslim graves were smeared with swastikas.
“Hateful messages are regularly posted into our letterboxes, which say, commonly, ‘you are not part of Germany’, ‘Islam is not part of Germany, go back home’, ‘you are responsible for the anti – Importing antisemitism. poisoning our country’. They increased in proportion to negative media reporting … attributing anti-Semitism to Muslims alone,” Khalid said. “We all have a lot of doubts.”
Khalid wrote an op-ed in the Berliner Zeitung arguing that the far right, in Germany in particular in the form of the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), was far more likely to be behind anti-Semitic attacks than the usual Muslims. The piece led to an uproar on social media: why an imam was asked to speak on the issue, whether it surprised people, and how someone with an Arabic name could speak for the German?
“I was born and raised in Germany,” Khalid said. “This is racist and extremely offensive.”
Other commentators, such as Berlin-based German-American Jewish author Deborah Feldmann, have raised the suspicion that the far right, including the AfD, is using the conflict as an excuse. “to finally be able to say out loud” away. with those immigrants ‘… and it scares me because it brings back memories of this time when my grandparents were forced to flee,’ Feldmann told broadcaster DLF.
Habeck, in his speech, addressed the societal divisions, saying that right-wing extremists were “holding back for tactical reasons only” from anti-Semitic attacks “so that they can fight Muslims”.
For Derviş Hızarcı, chairman of Kiga, a non-profit organization set up to fight anti-Semitism but also dealing more with Islamophobia, the widely circulated speech was “good and helpful. But I want to hear him ask more questions and offer more suggestions. Like, let’s think critically about things we might have overlooked, and our mistakes.”
The rise of the far right and the continued growth of support for the AfD caused the Germans to question “are we as good as it is. Draft account as we thought we were,” said Hızarcı, referring to the process of coming to grips with the past that was one of the main pillars of post-war German society.
“If people think that it is the Shoah above all and our response to it that gives us our societal identity, perhaps this identity is too weak if we do not have an understanding of ourselves and our responsibility towards everyone,” said Hızarcı, the son of a Turk. Gastarbeiter (guest worker) parents who came to Germany in 1969.
In November, before a fragile cease-fire was introduced in Gaza, participants in a pro-Palestinian demonstration gathered outside the chancellery in Berlin to demand an immediate ceasefire, a call rejected by the chancellor, Olaf Scholz. (“That would ultimately mean that Israel would leave Hamas with the possibility of acquiring and acquiring new missiles,” he said on November 12, calling for “humanitarian pauses” instead).
Nazan, 48, a nurse born in Germany to Turkish parents, said she considered giving up her German passport because of the government’s stance. “I don’t feel at home here anymore,” she said.
Shammout, who has a Palestinian father and a German mother, and whose grandfather was forced to flee his home during the Nakba of 1948, seems to know this well. “It hurts both sides of me, the Palestinian side and the German side,” she said.
Shammout has attended two pro-Palestine demonstrations in recent weeks and feels that there are clear limits to her freedom of speech. “We are not allowed … to say we want a free homeland. The police restrict us to only use a certain number of flags,” she said.
“I do not support Hamas, and I fully condemn the attacks, but I reserve my right to protest, to mourn our dead.”
Shammout said friends stopped on the street and told them theirs keffiyeh. She knows a Palestinian student who was informed by police that she risked being charged and losing her right to residency if she failed to remove the Palestinian flag from her balcony.
“I have always been proud to be a German with Palestinian roots,” she said. “Now I doubt my identity, as a teenager.”
