Israel’s embassy in Berlin on Friday accused a Berlin arts college of stoking antisemitism against the Jewish state by supporting a program titled “School for Unlearning Zionism” that denies the existence of the state of Israel.
The embassy wrote in a series of three tweets that the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin’s “hosting a workshop whose title already negates Israel’s existence is an embrace of antisemitism.”
The tweet continued that “The IHRA [The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] working definition for antisemitism adopted by the [German] federal government cites as an example the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. This series of events falls under this definition and should be recognized for what it is: anti-Zionist and antisemitic.”
The embassy added that “There should be no tolerance for the delegitimization of Israel and antisemitism in Germany today.”
The anti-Israel project at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin was organized by activists affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel. The Bundestag passed a resolution last year labeling BDS an antisemitic movement that has parallels with the Nazi movement’s “Don’t buy from Jews!” program during the 1930’s.
The Academy of Art scrubbed the allegedly antisemitic program “School for Unlearning Zionism” from its website on the weekend.
The Berliner Zeitung reported on Sunday that “Funding for the program was withdrawn from the organizers” of the anti-Israel course.
The anti-BDS resolution, though nonbinding, encourages publicly funded institutions not to support BDS activities. Weissensee Academy of Art Berlin, which was founded in 1946, receives public funding.
Three German MPs have appeared to defy the anti-BDS Bundestag resolution. The Green Party’s Omid Nouripour, the Left Party’s Christine Ann Buchholz, and Aydan Ozoguz from the Social Democratic Party are all on the advisory board of a pro-BDS entity – The German-Palestinian Society – that has called for the abolition of the Jewish state in an art exhibit unrelated to the Weissensee academy.
Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Munich Jewish community and a Holocaust survivor, said that the MPs should resign from the pro-BDS groups. The three MPs declined to comment as to whether they authorized the antisemitic art exhibit.
HD Editors Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
Throughout history, there has been an unrelenting, irrational hatred of the Jewish people. This hatred is what we know today as ‘Antisemitism.’
There are many “reasons” why people choose to hate Jewish people. The fact is their antipathy has nothing to do with their reasoning; the truth is their hearts are already predisposed to hate Jews.
The actual reason is the Jewish people are the “Chosen People of God.” God hand-selected the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be the line of the savior that will bless the world and defeat Satan. The devil has tried to foil God’s plan by attempting and failing to wipe out the Jewish people for thousands of years. He will try again through the Anti-Christ, where he will yet again fail. (See Revelation 12)
In Genesis 12:3, God not only calls all the nations of the world to bless Israel, but it also presents a warning to those nations and people that choose to curse them: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
The Bible also says God will ultimately judge nations by how they treated the Jewish State of Israel (Joel 3:2).
