On 13 November 2023, following the terrible attack by Hamas on Israel, Jürgen Habermas and three other prominent German academics released a statement condemning the rise of antisemitism in Germany. They also criticised the use of the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s response.
Israel’s military retaliation was “justified in principle”, they argued, and despite
all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population […], the standards of judgement slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel’s actions.