Renowned scholar slams German academic censorship after being fired for criticizing Israel

BERLIN

Ghassan Hage, an internationally renowned scholar, slammed German academic institutions for suppressing criticism of Israel, after he was abruptly fired over allegations of antisemitic social media posts.

“What to me is a fair, intellectual critique of Israel, for them is antisemitism according to the law in Germany,” he said in a statement late Thursday.

“I find the German’s pseudo philosemitism self-serving, and at times racist, instrumentalised to racialize the Palestinian and more generally the Arab and Muslim community in Germany,” he stressed.

The Lebanese-Australian scientist was fired by The Max Planck Society, a leading German research institution, after local media published various controversial reports, accusing him of disseminating antisemitic propaganda.

Hage strongly rejected the allegations and said he has always defended the peaceful coexistence of Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and criticized both Israelis and Palestinians who work against this goal.

“I have a political ideal that I have always struggled for regarding Israel/Palestine. It is the ideal of a multi-religious society made from Christians, Muslims and Jews living together on that land,” the scholar said.

“If Israel has copped and continues to cop the biggest criticism it is because its colonial ethno-nationalist project is by far the biggest obstacle towards achieving such aim. This is also true of my social media posts,” he added.

The scholar said the right-wing media started a campaign against him by taking some of his social media posts out of their context. He said the reports against him were like a “fascistic ideological assassination” job.

Expressing his sadness over the Max Planck Society’s decision, Hage also said there was nothing surprising about what happened, as such incidents have become common recently in the German academic and intellectual landscape.

He criticized the managers of the Max Planck Society for failing to defend scholars and academic freedom.

“The fact that this intellectual world I was part of can be destroyed so easily and that the managers of academic institutions run scared and let it happen rather than defend the vitality of the academic space under their management is a real tragedy,” he said.

The Max Planck Society said in a statement on Wednesday that they have parted ways with scholar Ghassan Hage following his recent comments about Israel and Gaza.

"Many of the views recently disseminated by Ghassan Hage via social media are incompatible with the fundamental values of the Max Planck Society. The Max Planck Society has therefore parted ways with him in agreement with the Institute," the society said.

Hage had been working as a visiting professor at the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology in Halle since April 2023.