Tomorrow the German Bundestag will vote on a draft law that could make the naturalization of residents dependent on supporting Israel’s right to exist. Here is what you should know and why you should be concerned.
Tomorrow, Friday November 17, the German Bundestag will vote on a draft law that could decide that naturalization for residents would be dependent on a commitment to Israel’s right to exist.
The bill, which includes a law that would change the criminal code, was submitted by the Christian Democratic Party’s (CDU) parliamentary group.
It would impact individuals seeking residency, asylum, and naturalization, and its intent is to “provide better protection against the further entrenchment and spread of antisemitism that has “immigrated from abroad.”
“Since the day of the attack,” the law states in its introduction, “disgusting rallies and demonstrations have also taken place on German streets, expressing unconcealed joy at the deaths of Jews and revealing an alarming level of antisemitism.”
A majority of protests across Germany have not only been peaceful but have only called for the German government to back a ceasefire to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people.
I attended multiple demonstrations across Germany, and the only visible threat to public safety has been from the police. In fact, I was a witness to one demonstration in Frankfurt where the police banned it from taking place mere minutes before it was about to begin. Hundreds of people were met with water cannons, extreme levels of police presence, and kettling by law enforcement that led to the detainment of over 300 people.
In another I attended in Mannheim, the only act of antisemitism committed was a man on the sidelines of our protest raising his hand in a Nazi salute to antagonize and intimidate pro-Palestinian demonstrators. He was arrested soon after, and local publications reported he was, in fact, not a part of our planned demonstration.
In 2022, over 80 percent of all antisemitic crimes in Germany were committed by the German far right, according to the federal police. However, the new draft bill does not include these statistics. Instead, it attributes violent antisemitism with sympathy with “Hamas terrorism,” which they claim is “cheered and propagated on German streets and schoolyards.”
The bill clearly singles out Arabs and migrants, claiming antisemitism in Germany is now only “imported.”
“A significant portion of those are obviously immigrants from countries in North Africa and the Middle East, where antisemitism and hostility towards Israel have a particular breeding ground,” the draft law states, backed by no concrete evidence for such remarkable claims.
It continues: “as well as their descendants, the instruments of residence, asylum and citizenship law must be used more consistently than before- in addition to general means such as criminal law- in order to combat antisemitism in Germany more effectively.”
In summary, the law not only creates a prerequisite where a citizenship application will only be granted if the individual declares a commitment to Israel’s right to exist and swears that they did not pursue any endeavors directed against Israel, but it can also strip the residency status and the citizenship of dual nationals who have been convicted of an antisemitic crime. This would also include a prison sentence of at least one year.
“Maintaining the legal status quo is not an option,” the draft law says, “as the current legal situation is clearly not suitable for effectively combating the specific antisemitism that is widespread among some foreigners in Germany.”
In Germany, what constitutes an “antisemitic crime” is extremely ambiguous. In 2017, the federal government officially adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. Advocates, scholars, and legal experts at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) as well as other organizations for example, have long criticized the IHRA definition, arguing it redefines antisemitism by wrongly conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish racism.
According to a report conducted by ELSC and published earlier this year, the invocation of the definition almost exclusively targets Palestinian rights advocacy, harming Palestinian and Jewish activists in particular.
Now that Germany has specifically labeled the protests as examples of antisemitism that should be criminalized, there is much cause for concern for pro-Palestinian activists. Already, there have been examples such as the stripping of refugee status from a Palestinian activist from Syria and denying residency to Palestinian doctors who have only been a part of a Palestinian cultural group.
Lawmakers and parliamentary representatives are using the war on Gaza to clamp down on dissent and enact extremely repressive anti-migrant laws. Already, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his German Cabinet approved legislation intended to ease deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers. The draft legislation, which would need parliamentary approval to take effect, increases the maximum length of pre-deportation custody from 10 days to 28 and specifically facilitates the deportation of people who are members of a criminal organization.
It also would authorize residential searches for documentation that enables officials to firmly establish a person’s identity, as well as remove authorities’ obligation to give advance notice of deportations in some cases.
The draft laws set to be voted on tomorrow were not written without a legal basis. Already in August of this year, a draft law amending citizenship law was passed, which was already aiming to restrict the naturalization of people convicted of antisemitic crimes. However, many legal experts told me at the time the law was too vague to pose a material threat to pro-Palestinian activists.
One anonymous lawyer from a migration human rights organization told me that the concept of criminal acts motivated by antisemitism or racism was already introduced in the Citizenship Act in 2019. “As was predictable, there have so far been no cases reported where this new rule was applied. The new bill of 2023 makes only technical changes by introducing a new procedure to make sure that the citizenship authorities learn about all relevant convictions.”
At the time, the lawyer said that there was no “indication in the draft or in the explanatory report how antisemitism shall be interpreted” and that it was “hard to predict what practical impact the new changes might have in the future.”
Now, however, it is different. The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent brutal retaliation that is considered a genocide by international bodies and lawyers will show a drastic rolling back of civil liberties that impacts the most vulnerable in Germany.
The blurred lines of what is considered antisemitic would be muddied even further. Is attending a pro-Palestinian march considered antisemitic and violent? CDU politicians who introduced this bill sure seem to think so. Even protections of the right to demonstrate are questioned.
“Violent excesses at demonstrations- such as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in October 2023- must be appropriately sanctioned. However, the increasing abuse of the right to demonstrate can often not be adequately punished,” the draft law says. “The regulation of breach of the peace is too narrow.
We have already witnessed banned demonstrations in cities and violent police arrests detaining people only carrying flags and wearing keffiyehs or simply holding anti-war signs. In Berlin, home to one of the largest Palestinian diasporas in Europe, there have been regular police presence and clear examples of racial profiling, and harassment against anyone who might “look” like they are attending a previously banned demonstration.
The majority of these people are calling for an end to violence after 11,000 Palestinians were murdered in Gaza, 5,000 of them children. Instead of government officials and their own representatives simply listening to their pleas, they want to punish them with every tool at their disposal.
A version of this article first appeared in Hebh Jamal’s Substack newsletter, The Diaspora Journal, and is republished here with permission. Subscribe to The Diaspora Journal here.