In a Berlin high school in October 2023, a 15-year-old student raised a Palestinian flag in the schoolyard. What followed was not a lesson in civic dialogue or freedom of expression, but a violent altercation with a teacher, police intervention, and a national media storm that framed the student as an aggressor. This incident was not an anomaly. It was a symptom of a deepening, state-sanctioned campaign to erase Palestine from Germany’s educational landscape.
An academic article by researchers Anna Younes and Hanna Al-Taher, titled Erasing Palestine in Germany’s Educational System: The Racial Frontiers of Liberal Freedom, exposes how Germany’s proclaimed “unconditional solidarity” with Israel has morphed into a “reason of state” (Staatsraison) that actively dismantles Palestinian narratives in schools and universities. Through the analysis of police bulletins, ministerial decrees, court cases, and student testimonies, the research reveals an educational environment where Palestinian identity is criminalized, dissent is policed, and the very concept of liberal freedom is weaponized against racialized minorities.
The “Unacceptable Free Speech” Paradigm
The crackdown is systematic and top-down. In the days following October 7, 2023, German educational authorities issued a flurry of directives that effectively outlawed pro-Palestine expression.
*Table 1: State Directives Criminalizing Pro-Palestine Expression in Schools (2023)*
| Issuing Authority | Key Directive / Action | Examples of Prohibited Acts |
|---|---|---|
| Berlin Senator for Education | “Guidelines for Schools” (Oct 13, 2023) | Wearing a keffiyeh, displaying Palestinian flag colors, chanting “Free Palestine,” possessing “Free Palestine” stickers. |
| Police, North Rhine-Westphalia | “Information Brochure for Schools” (Dec 2023) | Statements affirming “Palestine’s right to resistance,” comparing Israeli actions to genocide, using the slogan “From the river to the sea…” |
| Conference of Ministers of Culture | “Action Plan against Antisemitism” (Dec 7, 2023) | Calls for universities to “actively combat disinformation” and align curricula with state solidarity with Israel. |
These documents create what the authors term an “unacceptable free speech” paradigm. Within this framework, liberal freedoms of expression and academic inquiry are presented as universal values, but their boundaries are redrawn to exclude Palestinian perspectives and their allies. A police brochure from North Rhine-Westphalia explicitly states that “statements that reject the concept of terrorism in this context and speak of Palestine’s right to resistance may be punishable by law.”
“The guiding principle should be to protect pupils from terrorist propaganda,” declared Berlin’s Senator for Education, framing any Palestinian solidarity as an inherent threat to “peace at school.” This logic, the researchers argue, inverts liberal ideals: the freedom and safety of the (white, European) majority are secured through the non-freedom and criminalization of racialized others.
The Schoolyard as a Frontier: Policing and “Unchilding”
The enforcement of these policies transforms schools into sites of surveillance and punishment. The Berlin flag incident is a prime example. While police and media narratives depicted a student violently attacking a teacher, multiple student witnesses and their lawyer presented a starkly different account: a teacher aggressively demanding the “fucking flag” be taken down, pursuing the student, and initiating physical contact.
This incident exemplifies a process scholars connect to the work of Palestinian researcher Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian: “unchilding.” This refers to the systemic eviction of Palestinian children from the protected social category of “childhood.” They are denied the innocence and rights granted to other children and are instead treated as quasi-adults, political threats, and legitimate targets for discipline and criminalization.
Table 2: Manifestations of “Unchilding” & Repression in German Education
| Context | Incident / Policy | Underlying Logic |
|---|---|---|
| Schools | Forced removal of Palestinian flag t-shirts, confiscation of phones with pro-Palestine stickers, physical altercations initiated by staff. | Palestinian symbols and solidarity are security threats, not political expression. Children displaying them are agents of disruption. |
| Universities | Banning of Palestinian scholars (e.g., Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta), cancellation of lecture series on Palestine, disruption of student vigils for dead peers. | Palestinian knowledge and grief are politicized hazards that must be excluded to protect the “academic environment” and state ideology. |
| Legal/State Level | New Berlin law allowing political exmatriculation, surveillance of scholars (e.g., Dr. Anna Younes), police “tips” equating student activism with support for terrorism. | The state positions itself as the arbiter of acceptable history and politics, using legal and administrative tools to purge dissent. |
In another stark example, the University of Kassel shut down a student-led vigil for a Gazan student killed with his family in Israeli bombardment. The university administration had approved the event on the condition it not be “politicized.” When speakers named the war in Gaza as the cause of death, the president stopped the speeches and terminated the gathering. Mourning, when connected to Palestine, became a political crime.
The University: A Pillar of State-Building, Not Free Inquiry
The repression extends seamlessly into higher education. University rectors’ conferences have issued statements of unwavering solidarity with Israeli institutions, while remaining silent on the destruction of Palestinian educational infrastructure in Gaza. Funding and research partnerships with Israeli universities are intensified, even as scholars like Maya Wind have documented how these institutions are complicit in the oppression of Palestinian students and academics.
The instrumentalization of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism—which often conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism—has become a key tool. It is used to justify censorship, event cancellations, and the creation of a chilling atmosphere where students and faculty fear professional and legal repercussions for speaking about Palestine.
“Academia has failed them, criminalized them, policed them, or miseducated them,” the authors write, noting that many pro-Palestine student activists they interviewed now refuse to engage with academic research, seeing it as part of the system that stabilizes their oppression.
Resistance and the “School-to-University Trajectory”
Despite this intense repression, the educational sphere has also become a crucial site of resistance. The student-led protest encampments that swept across German universities in 2024 are a testament to this. Led largely by students of color, these movements represent the most radical spaces contesting Germany’s Staatsraison.
The researchers identify a “school-to-university educational state trajectory.” This is a continuum of institutional power that, from childhood to graduate studies, seeks to assimilate, punish, and exclude those who deviate from the state-enforced narrative on Israel and Palestine. In Gaza, this takes the form of the literal destruction of schools and universities. In Germany, it takes the form of symbolic erasure from curricula, exclusion from campuses, and the rewriting of Palestinian history and activism for a German public.
Conclusion: The Colonial Foundations of Liberal Freedom
Younes and Al-Taher’s analysis is ultimately a profound critique of liberal democracy itself, building on scholar Lisa Lowe’s work. They argue that the “liberal freedom” championed by Germany is historically and fundamentally colonial. It was built, and continues to operate, through the discursive and material erasure of populations deemed Other.
Germany’s commitment to “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (coming to terms with the past) regarding its own Holocaust history has been tragically redirected. It has been forged into a sword against another people, used to justify the silencing of Palestinian voices and the suppression of their history in the name of fighting antisemitism. This process, the authors conclude, uncovers the racial frontiers of German liberalism: freedom is a privilege reserved for those who align with state ideology, and education is its foremost enforcement tool.
As the genocide in Gaza continues, the battle over narratives in German classrooms and lecture halls becomes ever more urgent. It is a struggle not just about Palestine, but about the very soul of education: Will it be a space for critical thought, historical truth, and universal human empathy, or will it remain a guarded fortress for state propaganda and selective memory?
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