- MPS employees criticize support for Israel over Palestine
- Demand MPS balance support, fund Gaza’s scientific community
- Urge MPS to address and rethink Israel-Palestine stance
Our letter serves as a collective expression of our strong dissent towards the stance adopted by the Max Planck Society (MPS), the preeminent research organisation in Germany, regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. We, representing a diverse group of employees at the MPS, demand an urgent reorientation of the discourse surrounding this issue, both within the MPS and throughout Germany.
“A statement on the terror attacks against Israel” was issued by MPS on October 11. It commenced with an unequivocal denunciation of “the abhorrent assaults orchestrated by Hamas against Israel.”
It further conveyed condolences to the families, friends, and loved ones impacted, as well as solidarity with Israel and sorrow for Hebrew and other lives lost. It reaffirmed its dedication to maintaining “close scientific and personal ties” with research institutions in Israel and “extend support whenever possible” through those connections, lamenting that university and research institution employees, young scholars, and students would be “called up as reservists.”
The sole mentioned sentence ascribed accountability to Hamas rather than Israel or the Israeli army for the “indescribable suffering” endured by the Palestinians.
As with subsequent statements and actions of the MPS over the past half-year, the statement failed to settle well with many employees.
While visiting Israel and the Weizmann Institute of Science in November, MPS President Patrick Cramer endorsed Israeli researchers but refrained from criticising the Israeli army’s actions in Gaza. The MPS declared a one-million-euro ($1.1 million) investment in German-Israeli research collaboration in December. “Aid in stabilising Israel’s preeminent scientific community amidst the current crisis” is the institute’s objective.
The programming approach presented to the public is indicative of the MPS leadership’s belief that only one victim requires assistance: the Israeli research community, which purportedly endures significant hardships due to the “Hamas attack on Israel.” This implies that the ceaseless conflict waged by Israel against Gaza affects only the Israeli research community. It is beyond our comprehension why funds donated by German taxpayers would be used to stabilise a research community affected by its own government’s actions.
Conversely, the scientific communities residing in Gaza and the West Bank, which have been the principal targets of Israel’s violent occupation and war policies, have not received a single cent, not even a single word, of assistance. The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has issued the following statement: “As part of its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has murdered 94 university professors, in addition to hundreds of instructors and thousands of students.”
A distinguished Lebanese-Australian scholar, Ghassan Hage, employed at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, an organisation affiliated with the MPS, was subject to criticism in a February article published in the German newspaper Die Welt. The MPS terminated his employment within a few days, citing his “incompatible views with the core values of the Max Planck Society” as the reason for the dismissal. Hage’s online statements had been disparaging of Israel.
Hage’s dismissal prompted the dissemination of an open letter penned by Max Planck researchers, wherein they prayed for the decision to be reversed. In addition to endorsing the letter, we support a previous statement authored by our colleagues and published on December 17 that criticised the MPS’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict and urged it to reassess its unwavering backing of Israel and its academic institutions in its totality.
Such a reconsideration is unequivocally required, as the past few months’ events have concluded. Notably, as MPS members, we ought to abstain from endorsing the indiscriminate killing of civilians, the extensive devastation of civilian infrastructure, and the near-total denial of Gaza’s Palestinians’ humanitarian conditions.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) sentenced Israel to protect civilian life in Gaza, ensure the provision of essential services and adequate humanitarian aid, and prevent incitement to acts of genocide in its January 26 declaration. Israel was obligated to take every feasible measure to achieve these objectives. Up until now, none of this has occurred. Conversely, Israel flagrantly persists in its abhorrent campaign of destruction in Gaza.
The scientists of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society obligate our unity against all crimes against humanity and the potential for genocide. This organisation preceded the MPS, who were involved in the Holocaust. Therefore, “Never again” must be translated as “Never again now.” Regarding the MPS’s stance on Israel-Palestine, as heirs to this legacy, we have four unambiguous demands for an immediate shift:
Our utmost concern is that the MPS immediately and unconditionally declare a truce to comply with the ICJ’s mandate to safeguard civilians in Gaza.
Our stance is unequivocally opposed to the protracted Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as its brutal treatment of the Palestinian people, and the MPS is obligated to adopt this position publicly.
Our firm requests that the MPS direct an equivalent amount, which is currently designated for the Israel Programme, towards restoring scientific institutions in Gaza. Since every university in Gaza has been destroyed, this becomes even more critical.
Ultimately, we require the MPS to declare publicly its involvement and the nature of dual-use research with academic collaborators in Israel. Dual-use research refers to investigations that have the potential to yield military benefits in addition to peaceful ones.
The MPS and all of its members would be rendered implicated in the atrocities perpetrated by Israel in Gaza should its unashamed and unidirectional support for Israeli academic institutions continue. This is rejected categorically.
Furthermore, as scholars of the MPS, we aim to bring forth some urgent and valuable inquiries of political and academic significance in addition to these immediate concerns about morality, law, and justice:
In terms of the MPS’s articulation of its historical relationship with the State of Israel, what are the consequences of excluding Palestinians?
In what ways has the exclusion of Palestinian scientists from scientific collaboration with Israeli counterparts impacted the substance and structure of the information generated?
Concerning the formulation of structural violence against Palestinians in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, how does this collaboration become entangled?
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Could the MPS not consider it a responsibility to promote and actively encourage a critical and open dialogue on the Palestine-Israel conflict, both within the organisation and, more significantly, in the broader German public sphere, in a climate of public censorship and vilification of dissenting opinions in Germany, which prompted us to abstain from signing this letter with our names?
In pursuit of fostering a more harmonious and equitable future, how can we, a sizable assemblage of researchers hailing from various parts of the world and residing in Germany, contribute to the construction of bridges not only between Germany and the State of Israel but also with Palestine?
Suppose future heinous outbreaks of violence and our complicity in them are to be averted. In that case, these and other pertinent issues must be discussed immediately, impartially, and critically, not only within the MPS but also among the academic community at large in Germany and around the globe.
