Gaza How German Media Failed Gaza A new German book uses extensive data to show how Germany’s Gaza coverage tracked state doctrine and a compliant media system. Jan Altaner • 9 min read
Police at the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) on May 7, 2024, cordon off students as they demonstrate against Israel's war in Gaza and the university dismantles their protest tent camp in a campus courtyard. Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images The Palestine Test for German Universities In February 2025, Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) cancelled a planned lecture by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The university cited polarization and security risks after intense political pressure from Berlin’s governing mayor and several pro-Israel advocacy groups. Jannis Julien Grimm, Lilian Mauthofer • 14 min read
MER Article Iraq's Military Power: The German Connection Even before the current confrontation in the Gulf, Iraq was an extremely militarized country, preoccupied with internal and external “security threats. ” When I traveled to Iraq in early 1990, I was struck by the extent of militarization in parts of the country. The whole of Iraqi Kurdistan was cove Jochen Hippler • 14 min read
MER Article Turkey's Other NATO Link Ostensibly multilateral, NATO is often merely the framework for bilateral relations in which the United States is the commanding partner. Nowhere is this more the case than with Turkey, separated geographically from the other NATO allies by its main adversary, Greece, and heavily dependent on the US Diana Johnstone • 4 min read
MER Article Germany's Greens and Israel The German Greens are having a hard time defining a Middle East policy. No wonder. Besides the usual difficulties of the whole European left, they are German. How hard it could be was brought home with a thud by the six Greens who toured Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the occupied territories i Diana Johnstone • 7 min read
West German Ties with Iran and Iraq In July 1984, West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher visited Tehran, the highest-level Western official to do so in the five years since the Iranian revolution. Genscher reported that his hosts expressed strong interest in refurbishing Iran’s ties with Europe and Japan. Germany’s own tr Konrad Ege • 2 min read
