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The Free University of Berlin succumbed to German-Israeli pressure and canceled a lecture by Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories. The Italian lawyer is a harsh critic of Israel and has been accused of antisemitism. This is the third time in recent weeks that lectures by Albanese have been canceled, after Maximilian Ludwig University in Munich and the Dutch parliament also canceled her lectures.
The university's president, Gunther Ziegler, proposed holding the lecture online, but his proposal was rejected by the Academic Senate. The lecture was scheduled for February 19, under the title "Conditions of Life Calculated to Destroy. Legal and Forensic Perspectives on the Ongoing Gaza Genocide."
Albanese is known for her extreme views against Israel, even among staunch opponents of Israel. She previously claimed that "a Jewish lobby controls the United States" and later apologized. She has also compared the Holocaust to the Nakba, supported claims that Israel is an apartheid state, and spoke at a conference of Hamas and Islamic Jihad via video call. At those conferences, she encouraged attendees to continue their uprising against Israel.
In February 2024, she claimed that the victims of the terrorist attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7 were not murdered because they were Jewish, but in response to Israeli oppression. Following this statement, she was banned from entering Israel. A few months later, Albanese wrote: "This is precisely what I was thinking today" about a post on X that compared Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, a strong supporter of Israel, called for the lecture to be canceled, as did Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to Germany. Albanese is relativizing the Holocaust by drawing "absurd comparisons with Israel," the ambassador wrote, and she is undermining the right of the Jewish state to exist.
In his email, Prosor explains that he is increasingly noticing "violence against Jewish students" and occupied lecture halls "in which terror propaganda is spread" at the Free University.
The university said it made its decision because it could not adequately secure the event and maintain the safety of all participants. The Free University, like all major campuses in Berlin, is a source of unrest for violent anti-Israel protests with blatant antisemitic elements.
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A pro-Palestinian demonstration organized by a far-left student group called 'Young Struggle Berlin'
(Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
The organizers of the lectures, such as the one by Albanese, are mainly pro-Palestinian organizations at universities that use the guest lectures to fan the flames against Israel, and directly against Jewish students at universities. Jewish students, for their part, complain about an atmosphere of terror and fear on campuses, and some are even taking their exams on Zoom due to concerns for their safety at on the university campuses. The organizers themselves deny these claims and say that the cancelations constitute a threat to freedom of speech and institutional censorship of criticism of Israel.
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This is not the first cancellation of an event at the university, as the previous canceled event was pro-Jewish. In December, the Free University in Berlin canceled the British National Holocaust Museum's "Vicious Circle" exhibition about antisemitic pogroms suffered by Jews over the years. The university at the time justified the cancellation of the exhibition by saying that it could create strong emotional reactions among visitors and trigger intense debates at the venue.