Germany adds a new controversy to the series of cancellations of intellectuals and artists who have dared to criticize the Israeli military response in Gaza to the October 7 Hamas attacks and the situation of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The northern German city-state of Bremen and the Green Party-affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation have suspended the awarding of the Hannah Arendt Prize for political thought, which was awarded months ago to the Russian writer and journalist Masha Gessen.
Gessen was supposed to receive the award this Friday in Bremen, but the publication over the weekend of a long article in the “New Yorker” magazine about the war in Gaza did not please the authorities of the Hanseatic city, who announced a few days ago that this would be the ceremony was cancelled. The Foundation subsequently described Gessen's comparison in the text between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe as “unacceptable” and also withdrew from the submission.
The text, entitled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust,” reflects on the way Germany regulates its relations with the State of Israel, whose security is considered a “reason of state,” and criticizes the ban on the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. , which advocates for the boycott of Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories. The German Bundestag called him an anti-Semite in 2019 and since then anyone even remotely associated with the organization, even for signing one of its manifestos, has been the subject of criticism and rejections.
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The passage that has raised eyebrows in Germany is the one in which Gaza is spoken of in the following words: “For the last 17 years, Gaza has been a walled, impoverished and overpopulated area in which only a small part of the population has had rights “to leave the country,” even if it was only for a short time; in other words, a ghetto. Not like the Jewish ghetto of Venice or an urban ghetto in the United States, but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany.” The German-Israeli Society of Bremen called for the prize to be canceled immediately after the article appeared.
“Red line”
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The authorities of the port city justified their refusal to award the prize to Gessen, herself Jewish, by saying that she had “written an indescribable comparison that crosses a red line.” The Hannah Arendt Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, is awarded to people who contribute to political thought and action in the tradition of the German philosopher. The Heinrich Böll Foundation itself explains on its website that the prize, awarded by an independent international jury, is given to people who “are not afraid to appear in public and express their opinions in controversial political debates.”
After calling Gessen's article “unacceptable,” Heinrich Böll explained the reason for his withdrawal from the handover ceremony. “We would like to make it clear that this withdrawal does not mean that we are distancing ourselves from Gessen, that we want to withdraw the award from her or that we no longer value Gessen’s work,” say Imme Scholz and Jan Philipp Albrecht, co-presidents of the foundation, in a statement emailed to EL PAÍS. “We will try to organize a different type of event with Masha Gessen, an event that allows for a nuanced dialogue, since this dialogue is more important now than ever,” they add.
Critics of the decision by both institutions emphasize the paradox of suspending a prize given in memory of Arendt, a German-Jewish thinker who was exiled to the United States while fleeing the Nazis and who spoke about totalitarianism, the absolute evil of dictatorships and ” the banality of evil” theorized. of those who worked for them. Samantha Rose Hill, author of a book about Arendt and editor of her poems, called it an “affront to the memory of Hannah Arendt.” In your X account (formerly Twitter) adds: “If they follow their own logic, the Heinrich Böll Foundation must cancel the Hannah Arendt Prize completely.”
Gessen told the newspaper Die Zeit, which she interviewed a few days before the cancellation of the handover ceremony was announced, that Arendt was one of the first to criticize Israel and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine that excluded the Arab population. “I am aware that such comparisons, especially in Germany, are quickly perceived as relativizing the Holocaust. That's why it's so important to me that a thinker as differentiated and intelligent as Arendt doesn't shy away from this comparison,” the author explained to the newspaper.
Gessen's case joins a long list of authors who have been described as anti-Semitic and excluded from awards or other acts because they did not adhere to the rigid line that characterizes the protection of the Jewish people in Germany. In most cases, this is understood as an uncritical defense of the State of Israel and its right to self-defense. Defending Israel is seen as a “reason of state” in the country where criticism of Netanyahu’s government is virtually absent from public debate and where statements in favor of Palestinian human rights are censored.
The first controversial case occurred at the Frankfurt Book Fair, when the award ceremony for the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli, who was accused of being in favor of boycotting Israel, was suspended. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek was booed at the opening of the mass when he recalled the suffering of civilians in the Gaza Strip. A few weeks ago, an exhibition by the South African artist of Jewish origin Candice Breitz was canceled because of her “controversial statements” on the Gaza war, as was the awarding of a prize in November to the British-German writer Sharon Dodua Otoo, who was awarded the Order of Merit last year State of Berlin, awarded by the city of Bochum.
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