By Gatestone Institute | Created at 2025-01-21 10:26:05 | Updated at 2025-01-21 14:08:05
4 hours ago
Klaus Biesenbach, director of Berlin's National Gallery, was recently shouted down when he attempted to distance himself from anti-Israel statements made at his institution in a speech by American photographer and political activist Nan Goldin. Pictured: Biesenbach speaks in Berlin on February 9, 2024. (Photo by Stefanie Loos/AFP via Getty Images)
On November 22, 2024, at the National Gallery of Berlin, the American photographer and political activist Nan Goldin asked, "Why can't I speak, Germany?" With apparently no sense of irony, she spoke at a lectern in front of a large audience, with numerous phones pointing at her, at the opening of her retrospective, titled "This will not end well." The subject of her talk was not her artistic portfolio but rather her political agenda on Israel.
An enthusiastic audience applauded her outrage and indignation over the "genocide" in Gaza and Lebanon, and her immoral equivalence between the Palestinian population after the October 7 atrocities with pogroms against Jews under the Russian Empire. Goldin's false claim that "antizionism has nothing to do with antisemitism" was followed by loud chants of appreciation and applause.
The one person who could not speak was the National Gallery's Director, Klaus Biesenbach, who was shouted down when he attempted to distance himself from her statement, while adding the obligatory and obvious defense of Goldin's right to express herself.
The "Nan Goldin incident" was widely covered in prominent media platforms, including the New York Times and German press, as well as in social media, almost everywhere repeating her false accusations regarding the ostensible silencing of Israel's critics. Goldin is one of a number of examples (another is Judith Butler) in which Jewish anti-Israel activists are used by Germans as fig-leaves to claim that their agendas should not be labeled as antisemitic.
These events took place against the backdrop of and in response to a resolution the German parliament (Bundestag) adopted on November 7, and supported by all of the major parties, which sought "to ensure that no organizations or projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel's right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement receive financial support." Diverting attention from the issue of taxpayer funding, the attacks from the far left repeated the "assault on free speech" meme. The alleged "cultural crackdown" and "silencing of critical voices" are fictions, manipulated to create the false image of victimhood.
This battle over state support for anti-Israel propaganda and Holocaust inversion under the facade of supporting culture and free speech is not new. The November text reiterates and strengthens a May 2019 Bundestag resolution that labeled BDS as antisemitism and explicitly referenced the working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). At that time, a vocal group of German artists and activists aligned with the far left launched a highly publicized and well financed campaign, under the grandiose heading of "Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit" (open-worldness). They declared:
"The application of the parliamentary BDS resolution by the Bundestag is cause for great concern... By invoking this resolution, accusations of antisemitism are being misused to push aside important voices and to distort critical positions."
Behind the thin facades of false antisemitism and "silencing," the goal of this campaign is to end German military and diplomatic support for Israel. While much of the German elite continues to acknowledge the nation's post-Holocaust responsibility towards Israel and the Jewish people, this consensus is opposed by the ex-Communist far left, including many involved in arts and culture, and who are primarily supported by institutions funded by the German Federal government.
These frameworks are frequently exploited for promoting virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic events and exhibits, such as the infamous 2023 Documenta festival of contemporary art, which was widely condemned both inside and outside of Germany. Indeed, the Bundestag resolutions calling for an end to public funding for such events are direct responses to this abuse.
In the 15 months since the October 7, 2023 atrocities and the Israeli military response, German cities, as elsewhere, have been the sites of violent "pro-Palestinian" mob actions, including attacks on pro-Israel and visibly Jewish targets and against the police. Jews are routinely intimidated, Jewish life in Germany is under threat, and Israeli academics are often excluded from scholarly exchanges. The leaders of these discriminatory and blatantly antisemitic actions attempt to justify their behavior by repeating the false allegations of "genocide" and similar labels.
Fringe activists and their "positions of moral outrage" continue to be funded by the German government, with high visibility platforms to promote their blatant anti-Israel and antisemitic campaigns.
In the face of poisonous propaganda, the Bundestag resolutions calling for an end to German government funding to "organizations or projects that spread antisemitism [or] question Israel's right to exist" are important. Implementing them and stopping the support via cultural and academic institutions will not "silence" the voices of hate, but at least the German state will no longer be providing them with resources or legitimacy.
Dr. Gerald M. Steinberg is the President of NGO Monitor. Follow him on Twitter/X: @GeraldNGOM
