Germany refuses citizenship to migrant who denied Israel’s right to exist

The Palestinian-born man had denied the Jewish state’s right to exist, stating to authorities that ‘there is no Israel.’

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A German court has ruled that a stateless Syrian could not become a citizen of Germany due to his anti-Israel views, according to court records publicized last week.

Recognized as a refugee in 2016, the man applied for naturalization in 2022 and successfully passed a citizenship test.

At the time, the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution raised doubts due to his regular attendance at a Salafist mosque and extremely anti-Israel statements, and he was called in for an interview.

Two months before Hamas’s invasion of Israel last year that sparked the ongoing war, he was asked forthrightly whether he recognized Israel as an independent state. His answer, according to the records, was, “There is no Israel. There are Jews, but Israel is not a country.”

When the official asked again, “You do not recognize the international agreement to create the State of Israel?” he immediately replied, “No.”

He later asked to revise his answers, claiming that he hadn’t understood the questions or that his answers had been misinterpreted. He wrote that he had “no problem with Jewish people,” that it was alright for Jews to live in Israel, and that “I also recognize the State of Israel after the Oslo peace process.”

His intention, he insisted, had only been to criticize Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian land.

The Office rejected the correction on the basis that his new statement was made as a tactical move to gain naturalization. An administrative court agreed and upheld the ban.

The applicant appealed, stating that his rejection of Israel’s right to exist was motivated by anti-Zionism and not by antisemitism.

The Regensburg court in Bavaria ruled on October 7, 2024, that his comments showed “deep-seated anti-Zionist antisemitism,” that his subsequent statements about accepting post-Oslo Israel were disingenuous, and that a new emendation to the country’s Citizenship Act made it clear that he could not be naturalized.

The June emendation requires that prospective citizens declare a commitment to Germany’s “historical responsibility” for Nazi crimes and their consequences and to “protect Jewish life,” as well as to democracy and the peaceful coexistence of peoples.

The court ruled that a commitment to Israel’s right to exist is included in this general formulation, as Germany’s responsibility is “inevitably” linked to Israel as a homeland and sanctuary for the Jewish people.

“To obtain a German passport, individuals must accept Germany’s moral obligations, including the recognition of Israel’s existence,” the judge wrote.

In addition, even though the naturalization decision predated the emendation, German law had already held that anyone who was antisemitic could not truthfully declare that he was committed to the German democratic order.

AntisemitismCitizenship LawGermanyIsrael-Germany relations