Ferat Koçak is as popular as he is visible in Berlin’s Neukolln district.
After making a name for himself in Berlin state politics, the straight-talking Koçak took 30 per cent of the vote for the Linke (Left Party) and secured a Bundestag seat in February’s federal election.
A grandson of Kurdish immigrants, the 45-year-old describes his politics as “nonconformist, anti-racist and anti-fascist”. For him the planned expulsion from Germany of four pro-Palestinian activists – including two Irish citizens – is part of a wider, worrying trend here against dissent. Since October 7th, 2023, he says, critics of Israel and those who show solidarity with Palestinians “are labelled political extremists”.
“This is part of a systemic strategy to push particular positions from the public square, something that affects in particular people with international biographies, migrant background or those without secure residential status,” he said. “Whoever expresses politically unpopular views is to be silenced or deported.”
Berlin authorities dispute this and say they are acting against people who threaten the public order with slogans and actions that challenge the existence of Israel and endanger Jewish life in Germany.
Since 2007 defending these positions has been referred to as German “Staatsräson” or reason of state, a stance welcomed by many official Jewish communities. But there are critical Jewish voices, such as Iris Hefets, a Berlin-based Israeli psychoanalyst. A regular attendee at pro-Palestine marches, she views post-Holocaust Germany’s stance to Jews as paternalistic, “a bit like saying ‘save our bees’”.
“They have metaphorically swallowed ‘the Jews’ who are now sitting in the belly of the German nation and part of Germany again, which makes Germany good again,” said Hefets. “The conflict here arises because the illusion is collapsing. We are not the ideal Jews that Germany thought it had swallowed. The state of Israel, that Germany identifies with `Jews`, is not perfect. We are separate, autonomous, complex. They cannot control us expressing that and they flip out.”
The growing conflict in Berlin, with state politicians and police facing off against pro-Gaza protesters, is seeping slowly into German federal politics, too.
Just-completed coalition talks between the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) were filled with post-October 7th tensions, according to participants.
The final document reiterates Staatsräson and, with an eye on recent protests in Berlin and elsewhere, vows to tackle “hostility to Israel” in schools and universities.
Asked where criticism of Israel ends and hostility to Israel begins, a SPD federal spokesman said “we understand hostility to Israel as statements and actions that deny Israel’s right to exist”.
On expulsions of Irish activists, the SPD said any proceedings against member state citizens to revoke their EU freedom of movement “must meet the legal requirements”.
The CDU – along with its Bavarian CSU allies – are more outspoken about Israel-critical protest and the four people facing expulsion.
CDU/CSU politicians, at state and federal level, have described the four repeatedly as “criminals”, despite ongoing police investigations and no previous convictions.
“The likely new coalition intends to combat decisively anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel at our universities,” said Daniela Ludwig, spokeswoman for Jewish life in Germany and relations with the state of Israel, in the CDU/CSU Bundestag parliamentary party.
During coalition talks in Berlin, senior sources report that SPD negotiators had to push the CDU to accept a reference to a “two-state solution”, previously a given in such coalition documents.
The SPD also reportedly watered down CDU language to defund the United Nations Unrwa aid agency, banned by Israel, with a final text that makes future German funding “dependent on far-reaching reform”.
Political observers expect a more openly pro-Israel line from CDU chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz. The 69-year-old is likely to make a visit to Jerusalem a political priority after his swearing-in next month.
Last February, a day after Merz’s election victory, the office of the Israeli prime minister said in a statement that the CDU leader had invited Binyamin Netanyahu to Germany “as an open challenge to the scandalous decision of the International Criminal Court to label the prime minister a war criminal”.
A CDU spokesman said the two had merely discussed a meeting. Should Netanyahu plan a trip to Germany, the spokesman said, Merz “promised him that we will find ways and means to ensure that he can visit and leave Germany without being arrested”.
Merz has described as “completely absurd” the idea of an Israeli prime minister avoiding Germany for fear of arrest, triggering alarm bells with his future coalition partner.
Many SPD figures fear a Netanyahu visit would set Germany on a damaging collision course between its postwar commitments to international law – and those to Israel.
Senior SPD parliamentarian Ralf Mützenich has warned that ignoring the arrest warrant would damage Germany’s reputation for recognising, developing and enforcing international criminal law.
With an eye on Netanyahu’s recent visit to Hungary, Mützenich added: “We must not allow representatives of our state to be put on an equal footing with Viktor Orban.”
Senior SPD figures, who under Olaf Scholz refused to restart bilateral government consultations with Israel that were paused during the pandemic, fear the CDU plans to do just that. Further tensions are likely on Germany’s on-again, off-again arms exports to Israel. The official position on Israeli settlements remains as unclear, not mentioned in the coalition agreement, as Berlin’s future stance on Gaza or Israel-occupied “security zones” there.
Outgoing Green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock was a regular visitor to the Middle East and became a vocal critic of Israel’s military tactics in Gaza and its extended aid blockades to the region. The prospect of Germany’s first CDU foreign minister in 60 years – no candidate has been named yet – has many senior diplomats on edge. Some fear a CDU-led ministry will dial down criticism of Jerusalem while others think a rendezvous with the drastic realities of the region might change even a right-wing ministerial mind.
For long-time analysts of German-Israeli relations, the credibility of the future Merz administration hinges on “learning to differentiate” on Israel.
“It is imperative to distinguish between the state of Israel and the current government,” wrote Meron Mendel, a social scientist and director of the Anne Frank Centre in Frankfurt, to Der Spiegel. “Although this government came to power democratically, it has been trying to undermine Israeli democracy since the beginning of its term – following the example of Erdogan and Orban.”
For Koçak, “nothing can justify the terror” of the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel that left at least 1,200 dead. But he says Israel’s response has been “completely disproportionate” given the reported death toll of 50,000 and rising.
In his Neukölln constituency office he describes civil disobedience as a legitimate form of protest but draws a line at violent behaviour – from protesters, but also police.
Listening to Koçak, it’s clear he fears Germany is on a road to authoritarian hell, paved with good intentions to protect certain minorities by leaning on others’ freedoms: of opinion, assembly and speech. Already he fears a precedent is being set for the future.
“Where will it end? The far-right AfD comes to power and other activists that aren’t liked – anti-fascists for instance – are deported?” he asks. “Our democracy lives from contradiction and we have to defend that. Things are heading in a direction that leave me very worried.”
