Room cancellations, political bans, and accusations bordering on the absurd: Israeli Apartheid Week 2026 has barely begun, yet universities across Germany are already moving to shut it down. But instead of silencing the movement, repression is accelerating coordination—linking dozens of campus groups into a nationwide infrastructure of resistance, research, and boycott organizing. In this interview, Sabine Broeck talks with activists from the Academic Boycott Campaign Germany (ABC DE) about censorship, strategy, and why international solidarity has become their “lifeline.”
etos.media: Could you tell us what the goal of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is?
ABC DE: Israeli Apartheid Week 2026 is the first coordinated, nationwide week of action by the Academic Boycott Campaign Germany (ABC DE). It exposes German academia’s complicity in Israel’s crimes and establishes ABC DE as a long-term boycott infrastructure across universities. Our goals are threefold: first, to show how German universities are structurally entangled with Israeli institutions linked to occupation and apartheid; second, to build organized power among students and staff for an academic boycott; and third, to assert that Palestine solidarity and BDS are protected forms of political speech that universities must not suppress.
We are pursuing this through a dense program of events in 23 cities, including lectures, panel discussions, public teach-ins, film screenings, and campus-based actions that document institutional collaborations and open them to public debate. The week thus serves both as a space for political education and as a practical organizing platform to consolidate the 45 student and academic collectives that have joined ABC DE so far.
etos.media: Could you tell us about the cases of repression that have already occurred ahead of IAW, and the threats the campaign has received?
ABC DE: Even before the week began, universities moved to shut it down. Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) cancelled room bookings for an entire series of IAW events, citing the German state’s classification of BDS as antisemitic and claiming that our criticism of Israel has “no scientific basis” as justification for censorship. This is particularly striking because the first planned IAW event at RUB was a public discussion of Amnesty International’s report on Israel’s infrastructure of apartheid.
This reflects a broader pattern in Germany, where events related to Palestine are pre-emptively banned, venues or rooms are withdrawn at the last minute, and organizers are criminalized under vague accusations of “extremism.” In the case of IAW, we have documented such incidents in Bochum, Aachen, Münster, Bielefeld, and Göttingen. In some instances, universities may also be acting to protect their applications for “Excellence Status,” as review teams are expected on campuses this month for final decisions.
Universities must be compelled to examine their reactionary assumptions about BDS. German courts and UN experts have repeatedly affirmed that restrictions on BDS and Palestine solidarity violate fundamental rights: UN Special Rapporteurs have warned that classifying BDS as “extremist” unjustifiably interferes with freedoms of opinion, expression, association, and assembly. Administrative courts, such as in Cologne, have overturned bans on BDS-related events as unconstitutional. Student collectives should not have to fundraise for legal fees or obtain court orders to access campus spaces. If that becomes the norm, the legitimacy of German higher education itself must be called into question.
etos.media: Would you care to put this in context with the overall situation in Germany, and in academia in particular, which has shown such unparalleled loyalty to German Staatsräson at almost institutional and political levels—apart from the growing radical student movement?
ABC DE: What we are witnessing is a tightening regime of Germany’s Zionist “Staatsräson,” in which loyalty to the Israeli state is elevated to a quasi-constitutional principle that effectively overrides fundamental rights and international law—especially when Palestinians and their allies speak out. Despite invoking Germany’s supposed constitutionality, state authorities are increasingly bypassing them in order to enforce this policy.
Since 2023, as documented by legal aid centers and research initiatives, the German state has built what can be described as a repressive infrastructure of silence. This infrastructure criminalizes many effective forms of Palestine solidarity through protest bans, police violence, funding cuts, and professional sanctions.
Universities have become key laboratories for this policy. They eagerly adopt expansive and politically instrumentalized definitions of antisemitism, treat a non-binding Bundestag resolution against BDS as if it were law, and marginalize critical scholarship that challenges German foreign policy—while paradoxically invoking academic freedom to justify such restrictions. Through exchange programs in Occupied Palestine, expanding partnerships with Israeli institutions and hosting research initiatives such as Decoding Antisemitism, German universities have become revolving doors that recycle state propaganda and genocidal technologies as scientific achievements.
So far, the only real counterforce has come from a growing student movement that insists on universal principles: that real academic freedom must include Palestine; that we have the right to refuse complicity in apartheid; and that Staatsräson cannot override Hochschulautonomie (university autonomy).
etos.media: Dear students, I have been very impressed by the high level of research and determined activism you have built over the past two years. Would you care to describe the major components of this organizational and political build-up?
ABC DE: This campaign did not emerge overnight; it is the result of two years of cumulative work by dozens of campus groups that refused to accept the marginalization and silencing of Palestine. One central pillar has been research. Students and staff have compiled detailed reports on their universities’ ties to Israeli institutions, EU programs such as Horizon Europe, and collaborations with the defense industry—making academic complicity empirically undeniable.
A second pillar has been resilient coalition-building: connecting local Palestine groups with trade unions, anti-racist and anti-militarist initiatives such as Inter Bündnis Berlin, academic networks like KriSol and PJA, and international networks such as PACBI. Finally, we have invested heavily in political education and media work, conferences like Academic Boycott Now!, public reports, media training, and now IAW 2026. These efforts aim to enable the movement to articulate a coherent and principled case for an academic boycott, even under conditions of sustained repression.
etos.media: How do you think, at this point—amid increasingly vile and sometimes downright crazy attacks on Palestine solidarity in Germany—international solidarity can help build support?
ABC DE: International solidarity is our lifeline. Even institutional observers, such as the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, increasingly admonish Germany as one of the most repressive environments in Europe for Palestine organizing. This makes transnational witnesses, partnerships, and pressure all the more urgent. When scholars, trade unions, and student organizations abroad support ABC DE and closely monitor developments in German higher education, they not only reinforce the Palestinian-led BDS call, they also offer a degree of protection to activists here by increasing the political cost for institutions to continue their crackdown.
Moreover, academic boycott is inherently international: it targets transnational research alliances, exchange programs, and funding structures that that sustain apartheid, occupation and genocide. Coordinated campaigns between German campuses and institutions abroad allow us to move beyond symbolic gestures toward material leverage—for example, when partner universities begin to question or suspend collaborations with German universities that suppress Palestine solidarity.
etos.media: Do you have a pitch for readers in other countries, or any request for making contact?
ABC DE: Our message is simple: if you are part of a university or research institution anywhere in the world, you are already connected to the system we are challenging—and thus, you are capable of evoking an urgently needed change. We invite you to get in touch with ABC DE to exchange information about your institution’s ties to Israeli universities and to coordinate academic boycott campaigns that can exert pressure on both sides of these partnerships.
We especially welcome contact from student unions, faculty associations, research collectives, and professional bodies that are considering adopting BDS-aligned resolutions or campaigning against their own institutions’ complicity. Our demand is this: do not treat Germany as an exceptional case that cannot be criticized. Treat it as a central arena in the broader struggle to defend universal rights and to end academic support for apartheid.
etos.media: Could you tell us what happened during the first two days of IAW? Which of the many planned events were able to take place? In which universities did student activists face repression? Who were the agents of these measures—and how did “Students for Palestine” groups respond? Were they able to resist, and did they gain new allies?
ABC DE: We look back on a dynamic first two days marked by both actions and repression—both of which underline why the Academic Boycott Campaign is necessary. Our events attracted hundreds of participants across the country, many of whom spoke of their fear, disillusionment, and desire for change.
Successful events took place in Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Würzburg, Hannover, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bremen, Bonn, and Marburg. Despite last-minute room cancellations, collectives in Aachen and Bochum were able to secure alternative venues. Collectives in Münster and Göttingen faced room cancellations which could not be remedied in time. In the cases of Münster, Bochum, and Aachen, university administrations openly admitted to making a political judgement in order to ban events. In some instances, they even insinuated a connection between the timing of IAW and Adolf Hitler’s birthday—an outrageous and insidious accusation. In Göttingen, administrators simply lied, claiming non-existent “technical issues” with a room to rescind it.
Through the nationwide campaign, these otherwise isolated local collectives have been able to draw on a deep network of legal and academic supporters who are working around the clock to recover room bookings, shore up support from faculty and struggle for the right to free discourse on campuses.
etos.media: Are you going to take some of these cases of repression to court?
ABC DE: We will challenge every baseless accusation and every abuse of power directed against us—including through legal action. ABC DE is working closely with legal counsel, and further details will be made public in due course.
What is already clear, however, is that universities must understand that the era of arbitrary punitive measures against students who merely demand that international law be taken seriously is over. The record will show who is complicit in silencing, and administrators should be cautious not to give in to lobbyists who are asking them to breach fundamental rights.
etos.media: Could you give us examples of universities—I know of Bremen—where students have so far been able to hold their events without interference? Have you been in touch with those local groups to understand why? Could this reflect a shift, perhaps due to growing student interest in the issue—and/or in response to Israel’s ongoing massive escalation of annihilation in Lebanon and Iran?
ABC DE: Our lectures in Berlin and Mainz, both of which were livestreamed to audiences across the country, were able to proceed without interference. One recurring factor behind successful events—both now and in recent years—is the development of strong, cross-hierarchical ties between students and faculty staff. These ties allow for more spaces of dialogue and send an important signal to administrators. Another security measure lies in a certain degree of strategic discretion that must be maintained so as to make it more difficult for Zionist groups to denounce events ahead of time. We often see venues being attacked if addresses are published too early or broadly.
In Bremen, what appeared to have worked is that before making a public announcement, the student collective proactively wrote to the university administration with details of their planned events and a letter of support from several professors. They set the terms and political intent of their event before Zionist lobby groups or the university administrators could hijack and twist the narrative.
As for whether the expansion of Israel’s war of aggression in Lebanon and Iran has had a dampening effect on the level of repression in Germany, it does not appear that the German state or academic institutions are shifting toward a more conciliatory approach so far. It will take significantly more pressure—something we are building now—to achieve a change of course.
etos.media: And finally: how would you assess the “learning curve” of this campaign after these first two intensive days? Are you already seeing greater cohesion and strength? How has the campaign—both locally and nationally—contributed to building more durable structures of solidarity?
ABC DE: One of the campaign’s first successes is demonstrating that 45 collectives—despite very different resources and local conditions—can coordinate at this level. With each passing day, groups are interacting more closely: sharing resources, building on each other’s strategies, and supporting one another through legal and bureaucratic battles. This is what solidarity looks like in practice: it’s not about statements of support, but sustained interpersonal and material relationships grounded in trust, care, and shared convictions.
This is also what boycott looks like: an explosion of new connections and possibilities that show us that another university is possible. To protest collaborations that are complicit in egregious crimes against humanity is also to present an alternative vision for knowledge production, and the IAW has done just that. As set out in ABC DE’s founding resolution, the campaign is establishing a platform not only for an academic boycott but also for the coalescence of Palestine solidarity collectives on a national scale. We are in it for the long haul and are aiming for what we see as the inevitable horizon: a free Palestine.
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