At the end of November 2023 the Sachsen-Anhalt Ministry of the Interior appended a Hinweis (an administrative instruction/notice) to its existing Einbürgerungs-Erlass (naturalization directive) that asks the local authorities to obtain from naturalisation candidates a written declaration acknowledging the existence-right of the State of Israel and condemning efforts directed against that existence immediately before handing over the naturalisation certificate. The measure was announced after the October 2023 Hamas attacks and was presented by the state’s interior minister as reflecting what the ministry called “deutsche Staatsräson” (Germany’s state raison d’état) and the special responsibility to protect Jewish life. Several media/legal outlets reported the step in December 2023; in the following months other Länder discussed similar measures but most did not adopt a routine written-Israel-pledge.
Since the explicitly stated reason was the protection of Jewish life in Germany, it must not only be read in relation to the attacks by Hamas on the 7th of October 2023, but also in relation to Germany’s own past attempts to eradicate Jewish life from its territory, especially during the period of the Third Reich. In this sense, it functions not only as a legal therapeutic effort to manage the collective guilt associated with the Holocaust, but also as a means to sanction opposition to Zionism as de facto anti-Semitic. It is also obvious, that this is primarily directed at Muslims and migrants from Islamic countries, and thus to feed the apparently insatiable but to a large extent repressed and neurotic racist libidinal economy of European nationalism. The complete blindness to its own anti-islamic racism characterizes most western nationalist movements and not only those on the more extreme right flank.
The almost orgiastic demand for a declaration of support for Zionism cannot be divorced from both the lingering neurotic guilt of being a nation built on a genocide that was not accepted by other powerful nations as well as from the enjoyment of being able to still exercise racism against people who are deemed less worthy. The very fact that after the USA, Germany is the main provider of arms to Israel, with the full knowledge that this legitimates, enables and exacerbates the genocide in Gaza, cannot be understood without accepting the basic assumption that the German Staatsräson is based on the belief that Palestinians do not fully qualify as human beings. Their collective misery is the price worth paying for Israel’s alleged right to defend itself.
The racism runs deeper, however. When the allies occupied Germany at the end of the Second World War, it carved up Germany in two halves alongside a reallocation of territories to Poland and Czechoslovakia. The reterritorialization of Germany also involved the repatriation of many Germans from Eastern Europe. Given the completely open slate to recreate states in Central Europe, it would have been hypothetically possible to create a state of Israel on some part of Germany as well.
It so happens that the size of the territory of Sachsen-Anhalt is 20,452 km2, which – interestingly enough – is almost the same size as Israel (22,145 km2). Also, the non-Jewish citizens of Israel today (2,6 million) are roughly the population of Sachsen-Anhalt (2,2 million). This makes Sachsen-Anhalt an almost identical place to Israel, especially because it already insists that a declaration of a commitment to the State of Israel (which is not the same as its claim on territory in Palestine) is already a condition for obtaining citizenship. Given the fact that the inhabitants of that state had already voted for a government that insisted on this and given the fact that the neighbouring lands are also devout supporters of the Zionist cause, the question can be raised, why the allies did not choose Sachsen-Anhalt as the new home of a Jewish state after the collapse of the Third Reich? It would not only have made a much better and just material restitution of the unspeakable suffering that Germany had imposed on European Jews, it would also have enabled Germany to alleviate its collective guilt much better, as it had to pay the price for the Holocaust itself (rather than the Palestinians).
Of course, the very suggestion that the State of Israel should have been founded on former German soil is likely to invoke massive outrage. This is perhaps because the project of Zionism is founded on the myth that European Jews originate from West Asia, combined with religious claims about promises made by a Deity to particular representatives of Judaism (bearing in mind that Zionism was originally a completely secular movement). The main problem with this is that such religious claims and cultural myths have no legal standing in international law. We may have to accept the historically more accurate fact, that the Zionist claim on the lands known as Palestine was filled with cynical opportunism, as the advocates of Zionism were well aware of the deeply anti-Semitic roots of European nationalisms. By amplifying European anti-Semitism, they increased the chances of European imperial support for building a Jewish nation on imperially administered lands outside of Europe.
Thus, the anticipated outrage at the hypothetical question why the State of Israel could not have been founded on the soil of Sachsen-Anhalt is indeed steeped in residual anti-Semitism. The allies did not even consider the idea because they had already accepted the anti-Semitic assumption that European Jews do not belong in Europe.
Still, the very rationale of the requirement to declare the acknowledgement of the State of Israel necessary for the protection of Jewish life in Germany does suggest that instead of forcing Jews to emigrate to Israel, Germany should increase its efforts to persuade Jews from Israel to emigrate (back) to Germany. Otherwise it looks as if the protection of Jewish life in Germany presupposes that they must remain small in number. What do German supporters of Zionism expect to happen when the number of Jews in Germany increases by, say, 7 million?
Thus, if the hypothetical suggestion of moving the State of Israel to Sachsen-Anhalt causes such a moral outrage and indignation, why should we expect that the Palestinians, who had no role in the Holocaust, should be any different? Since most Jews in Israel are from European descent, it makes perfect sense for the State of Israel to be located in Europe. Israel would not need to perform a genocide to secure its right to exist, as barring a few exceptions (Russia in Ukraine, Serbia and Croatia in Bosnia) most European nations have not performed any genocides on their own or neighbouring soil since the collapse of the Third Reich. Israel is already part of UEFA and loves to participate in the Eurovision song contest. It makes perfect sense and would massively increase the chances of stability and peace in the Middle East.
Thus, by claiming that the hypothetical suggestion of moving the State of Israel to the European continent, more specifically to Sachsen-Anhalt is absurd or extremist, one betrays not only one’s racist, anti-Semitic desires but perhaps also the cynical opportunism of geopolitics. Israel is claimed to be a strategic partner in West Asia. This can only be understood in relation to its proximity to fossil fuels and perhaps the Suez Canal. Israel is thus an outpost and a stronghold of Western Imperialism. It is no coincidence that those who personally benefit most financially from Western imperialism are also the most vehement advocates of genocidal Zionism. By imposing a declaration of a commitment to the existence of the State of Israel and to Jewish life in Germany (without acknowledging that the two are in a contradictory relationship to each other), Sachsen-Anhalt has de facto inadvertently exposed that anti-Semitism is not related to Islam but instead to European nationalism. At the last general elections in Germany (2025), over 37% of the second votes (given to political parties) went to the AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt, which was the third-largest vote for that party in Germany. Again, one does not to be a genius to demonstrate that Zionism and right-wing politics are two cheeks of the same ass and how both love the sound of the crack of the anti-Semitism whip when it scourges the backs of those deemed “less worthy”.
Disaffected Sociology 
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