German Antisemitism Czar says “Ban Jewish Voice for A Just Peace”!
Sid Shniad
German Antisemitism Czar says “Ban Jewish Voice for A Just Peace”!
The idea of banning a Jewish organisation for antisemitism should be astonishing but given how Germany has acted towards those opposing the genocide in Gaza, it is par for the course but it cannot be accepted. As well as declaring that defence of, and support for, Israel as Germany’s “Staatsraison”, its stated determination to stamp out antisemitism has led to establishing roles in most German States and organisations focused on combatting antisemitism. As an indication of how ludicrous this is, the far right Alternative für Deutschland has one. Is this a way to learn from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust and that regime’s terrible murders of so many of Europe’s Jews?
The majority of these “antisemitism Czars” are not Jewish yet still have no hesitation in attacking antizionist Jews for antisemitism and some might claim to be more Jewish than Jews like us. This is because Germany’s Jewish Voice does not equate Judaism with Zionism or Israel nor antizionism with antisemitism. The result is not only unjust but also counterproductive and antisemitic. Even more importantly these attacks on antizionist Jews and our organisations deflect time and attention away from campaigning against the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and amplifying their voices. But this is our struggle and part of our contribution to the movement, which is, presumably why there is so much hostility.
This is the statement from our partner organisation, Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East).
German Antisemitism Commissioner Calls for Banning of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East
On 30 January 2026, Uwe Becker, the antisemitism commissioner for the federal State of Hesse and a Conservative Party politician, published a press statement on the website of the State Chancellery in which he called for the Jewish Voice to be banned “as soon as possible”. There is a certain irony in the fact that someone whose job is to “protect Jewish life” and “combat anti-Semitism” wants to ban a Jewish organization. Becker accuses us of “antisemitic incitement” at the same time that he, a German Christian, is attacking a Jewish group. We consider this not only a grotesque and authoritarian demand, but also an antisemitic one.
This behaviour is not especially surprising coming from Becker, a fanatical supporter of Israel and former president of the German-Israeli Society (the largest Israel lobby organization in Germany). For years, he has been calling for a ban on every major Palestine event in Frankfurt. In August 2025, he embarrassed the city twice by persuading it to ban the United4Gaza mass demonstration on the basis of a completely unfounded risk assessment. Two courts overturned the ban and reprimanded the city of Frankfurt for disregarding democratic principles.
Becker has defended the genocide in Palestine on countless occasions. We have written elsewhere about how, in September 2024, he honoured returning soldiers who had served in Gaza with a trophy in the shape of Greater Israel. He also called for the dissolution of UNRWA and supported the further starvation of Gaza’s already malnourished population.
In May 2023, the Frankfurt Administrative Court ruled that Becker, during his tenure as deputy mayor in 2019, had violated his obligation to objectivity by demanding the cancellation of the discussion event “Freedom of Expression Instead of Censorship”. He had violated not only the freedom of expression of the participants, but also the public’s right to form their own opinions freely (here too, the event’s title adds a certain irony). One of the speakers at this event on Palestine was Judith Bernstein, who died in November 2025, a member of the Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group in Munich and a former chairwoman of our association, whose parents had been expelled from Germany by the Nazis in 1935. She supported the BDS movement, which is why Becker had written in the press release that was found to be unlawful: “Anyone who offers these people a platform is promoting antisemitism in our country.” It is nothing new, then, that Becker, as a German non-Jew, slanders Jews as antisemites, including many whose family histories have been marked by the Holocaust.
Considering that Becker inappropriately wears a kippah at many public appearances, one has the impression that he not only wants to determine who is allowed to speak as a Jew; he also presents himself as a Jew. In doing so, he assumes the role of victim in his dangerous agitation against traitors to Germany’s pro-Israel “reason of state” and positions himself as more “Jewish” than the Jews he persecutes. Jewish groups in particular can undermine the ideological foundation on which this policy is based, which makes them a particular thorn in the side of so-called antisemitism commissioners like Becker. He embodies antisemitic Christian Zionism along with zealous German philosemitism, which confers a sense of moral superiority based on a supposed compensation and purification. Such people want to marginalise us and ultimately replace our identity with one that is loyal to the state; but, to quote the famous Yiddish resistance song: “Mir veln zey iberlevn!” (We will outlive them)