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Contribution short abstract:

Students across Germany have protested against their institutions’ ideological and material support of the genocide in Gaza and Israeli military escalations in the West Bank. I aim to explain lessons we learned from the past year of organising, situating students’ actions within a broader framework.

Contribution long abstract:

Over the last year, students across Germany have protested against their institutions’ ideological and material support of the genocide in Gaza and escalations by the Israeli military in the West Bank. They have tried a range of tactics from occupations and sit-ins to reading groups and fundraisers for Gaza. Many of these forms of protest were met with defamation in German media, police violence and shrinking room for pro-Palestine students to hold events on their campuses.

This input will proceed in two parts: an analysis of how student organising in Berlin has changed over the last year under repressive conditions; and how we can continue pressuring universities to end complicit ties with Israeli universities. I will begin by presenting an analysis of the liberal German university as an institution that is complicit in the genocide in Gaza, illegal occupation and apartheid in the West Bank, and in many cases also acts as a key contributor to weapons and surveillance technology that is used by Israel for ethnic cleansing. I will then trace students’ approach to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and the various methods employed for accomplishing them. Through this, I aim to explain some lessons we’ve learned from the past year of organising, situating students’ actions within a broader political and strategic framework.