Dear Colleagues, Alumni/ae and Friends of the Institute,

At this point in its history, the Orient-Institut Beirut faces unprecedented challenges from various sides. My wife and I summarized the situation at the OIB in early October in an article for the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Therefore, since 1 October 2024, our institute has temporally been closed. Sadly, the situation has since worsened. Dozens of villages in southern Lebanon have been destroyed, as have the southern suburbs of Beirut. Early on 23 November four or five rockets levelled, without warning, a multi-story building in neighbouring Basta Fawqa killing at least twenty residents and injuring over sixty. The explosions were so big, the institute shook, and some debris landed on our roof.

It is high time that the international consensus on a ceasefire in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip was implemented through diplomatic channels. However, it can no longer be ruled out that Israel will have reoccupied and settled parts of Lebanon, and Gaza, by then.

Enormous challenges and certain dangers also lie in wait for us in Germany, too. Although no universities are being bombed or professors and students killed here, those of us who point out these facts are systematically silenced or ‘antisemitized.’ The ‘Orwellian’-sounding Bundestag resolutions, “Protecting, Preserving and Strengthening Jewish Life in Germany” of 5 November 2024 and “Determined Action Against Antisemitism and Hostility to Israel in Schools and Universities” tabled on 12 November 2024, will constitute a breach of the German constitution if applied; and they give cause for concern about state-imposed censorship of research on the history of Palestine and its international legal basis.

The domestic political pressure to support Israel ever more unconditionally is also being felt in Germany’s traditionally more mediatory Middle East policy. A short excerpt from  a speech in the Bundestag by Foreign Minister Baerbock on 10 October 2024, which quickly went ‘viral,’ has done great damage to Germany’s reputation and that of German foundations abroad, particularly in the Middle East. She asserted that “Self-defense means not only attacking terrorists, but destroying them. ... When Hamas terrorists hide behind people or in schools, ... then civilian places can also lose their protected status. That is Germany’s position and for us, that means Israel’s security.” In this quote, civilians are declared outlaws, whether they stay at home or flee; whether they are in hospital or work in a pharmacy. Even the German government itself had recognized the distinction between combatants and civilians shortly after the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, when it sharply curtailed arms exports to Israel, precisely out of concern for the devastating consequences for the civilian population. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The German government has to decide whether it abides by international law as enshrined in Article 25 of the Constitution (Grundgesetz) or follows its policy of unconditional support of the state of Israel.

In a nutshell, the OIB is caught between a rock and a hard place at the moment. In recent weeks, many of you have asked me how the OIB, its staff and researchers are doing under these circumstances – whether we might even have to move, as in 1987. We are working to grow our Cairo Office. To this end, an OIB delegation will travel there on December 5, 2024. We will discuss joint projects with Egyptian colleagues from the philosophical and historical societies, as well as with representatives from Cairo University, Al-Azhar University and the American University in Cairo. But moving our base from Beirut to Cairo would only serve to let the Bundestag’s censorship resolutions be outsourced to the Egyptian state. It should be clear to all of us that, for all the pitfalls and imponderables, the critical humanities are still best placed in Lebanon. There is no alternative to Beirut.


Prof. Jens Hanssen, OIB Director
Berlin, 25 November 2024

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