Translation of Samuli Schielke's 'Censorship through intimation: Preliminary report from the Ghassan Hage case against the Max Planck Society'

Anyone who expected that a German labor court would not be a place for courtroom dramas was proven wrong last Tuesday. The Halle Labor Court met for almost five hours on December 10, 2024 to discuss the lawsuit brought by Ghassan Hage against the Max Planck Society because of his immediate, alternative, ordinary dismissal in February 2024. The decision was not in his favour. The court only agreed with him formally, but not in substance. The following are my notes from the verdict, which are not identical in wording to the verdict. The exact wording of the reasons for the judgment will be announced later in writing.

“- The employment relationship was not terminated by an extraordinary termination, but by an ordinary termination, issued on February 7, 2024 and with effect from March 31, 2024.

- The plaintiff and the defendant share the costs 50:50.

- The plaintiff (i.e. Ghassan Hage) has through his October 7 posts, published on November 7th and 16th, 2023, seriously violated his duties, so significantly that a warning would have been of no use: this was due to the lack of compassion (towards the Israeli victims of Hamas’ murders– GH) in his post on October 7th, and because in his post from November 16, Israel is referred to as a 'project,' which denies Israel's existence under international law. The Chamber is not convinced that the defendant (i.e. the Max Planck Society) made this decision out of the blue. Therefore, for formal reasons, the termination without notice was ineffective. We (i.e. the court) deliberately are not talking about anti-Semitism. The (challenging of the) constitutional statehood of Israel is sufficient ground (for dismissal) and the plaintiff should be aware of this.”

The press office of the labor court published the following statement on the day after the verdict:

“The director of the Halle Labor Court and his chamber came to the conclusion that the extraordinary termination was ineffective for formal reasons due to non-compliance with the exclusion period of § 626 BGB, but that the alternative, ordinary, termination ended the employment relationship at the end of March 31, 2024.

In the verdict that followed the chamber hearing, the director of the Halle Labor Court emphasized that the plaintiff, in particular with his posts from October 7, 2023 and November 16, 2023 and by questioning the established statehood of Israel, had violated his existing employment contractual obligations so severely that the ordinary termination did not require a prior warning.”

An amicable agreement that had almost been reached had previously failed. After long negotiations, the parties had agreed on a text in which Hage declared that he accepts that his publicly expressed views were incompatible with the interests of the Max Planck Society, and the MPG made it clear that the last paragraph of its press release of February 7th (that mentions anti-semitism – GH) does not refer to Ghassan Hage, but represents a general statement. In addition, Hage's inaugural lecture should be put online again. MPG's lawyer presented this draft to the MPG board, which rejected this clarification. The judge nevertheless repeatedly and repeatedly pushed for an agreement in which both parties declare that they have no differences of opinion, but Hage did not accept this because it did not resolve the reputational damage caused by the termination and the associated allegations.

After the hearing, I asked Hage for a statement. He commented as follows: “I am disappointed, but a part of me is not disappointed.”

I asked him what part of him isn't disappointed. He replied:
“There was a strange comfort in hitting a brick wall at the court. It’s a bit like you realise that what you are facing is a natural disaster, not a social disaster. It has at least some element of a natural disaster. Like, the unthinkingness of what I heard was, wow!”

In a Facebook post that same evening I announced a report with more details. Here it is. A longer report looking at the background and consequences of the affair will hopefully appear in Zenith Magazine next year.

 

What has happened so far

 

On February 4, 2024, with cleverly compiled passages from various posts on social media, Welt am Sonntag accused Ghassan Hage of “inhumane cynicism” and spoke of an “anti-Semitism scandal.” The text aimed to provoke a negative emotional reaction from readers towards Hage and made it clear that he was an incorrigible anti-Semite. But nowhere in the text did it explicitly say that Hage was anti-Semitic or that his statements were anti-Semitic. This omission is important, as we will soon see.

The accusation was picked up by many German media outlets, while Hage received more international support, including from colleagues in Israel. After examining the contributions, I came to the conclusion that the accusation of anti-Semitism against Hage is demonstrably false. Hage is a staunch opponent of Israel and angry about its extreme methods of warfare in the ongoing war in Gaza. He has also mourned the Israeli victims of October 7, 2023, but his sympathies are firmly on the Palestinian side. He finds resistance to Israel fundamentally legitimate, but has not advocated extreme violence against civilians. He certainly supports a one-state solution in which Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and others live in a democratic state with equal rights. You can accuse him of idealism, but not anti-Semitism. But his positions on the question of opposition or support towards Israel are certainly incompatible with those of the Max Planck Society. The MPG has resolutely shown solidarity for Israel and mourning for the Israelis who were killed. It has shown no solidarity for Palestine and Palestinians. In a statement on October 11, 2023, the MPG spoke of “unspeakable suffering among the Palestinian civilian population,” but attributed this suffering exclusively to Hamas’s murderous initiative; as if the government of Israel had had no choice in the use of the extremely murderous means it has used in its war of retaliation ever since. Most recently, the MPG expanded its institutional presence in Israel. In early December 2024 it opened an office in West Jerusalem. It is not expected that Hage and the Max Planck Society will agree on this.

 

On leave from his professorship in Sydney, Hage came to the Max Planck Institute for Ethnology in Halle as a full-time visiting professor in 2023. The position was extended to a half-time position for 2024 with a rating of 15/6 according to the public service collective agreement, with a gross monthly salary of 3,572 euros - a bargain price for a world-famous researcher. On February 7, 2024, he received a notice of dismissal without notice, or alternatively, ordinary notice. (“As an alternative, ordinary” means that if the termination without notice is revoked, an ordinary termination will instead take place on the next legally permitted date, in this case March 31, 2024.) He went to court against this.

 

Accusation by intimation

The Max Planck Society published the following statement on Hage's termination on February 7, 2024:

“The Lebanese-Australian scientist Ghassan Hage, who is well-known and respected in the specialist community, has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology since April 2023. Among the views he has recently shared on social media, many are incompatible with the core values of the Max Planck Society. The Max Planck Society therefore separated from him in agreement with the Institute.

The freedom rights guaranteed by the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany for 75 years are an inestimably valuable asset for the Max Planck Society. They come with great responsibility. Researchers abuse their civil rights when they undermine the credibility of science with publicly disseminated statements and thereby damage the reputation and trust in the institutions that support them. The fundamental right to freedom of expression finds its limit in the mutual obligations of consideration and loyalty in the employment relationship.

 

Racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, discrimination, hatred and agitation have no place in the Max Planck Society.”

The first paragraph is in bold, followed by a green bar, and the remaining two paragraphs are formatted in a smaller font size. This creates visual and semantic ambiguity. Is the last paragraph an accusation that Hage is guilty of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, discrimination, hatred and incitement? Which of his views are incompatible with which basic values of the Max Planck Society? Thanks to the ambiguous wording and the separation of the paragraphs, the MPG's lawyer was able to deny during the hearing that his client had harmed Hage through a false accusation of anti-Semitism. However, the general public clearly understood this as an accusation of anti-Semitism. Hage also referred to this during the trial. He argued that his main concern was to repair the damage to his reputation:

That's exactly how it happened. The MPG had Hage in its press release dated February 7th. not directly accused of anti-Semitism. But the company's board of directors refused to reach an amicable settlement negotiated by its own lawyer, in which the MPG would make it clear that it did not accuse him of anti-Semitism. An explicit accusation can be proven false. Due to the enormous damage to reputation, an injunction or defamation lawsuit would have a chance of success. That's probably why both Welt am Sonntag and the Max Planck Society were careful not to make the accusation explicit. But because the MPG refused to provide clarification, the accusation remained – albeit unassailable because it was implicit. The Halle news portal interpreted the implicit suggestion clearly. It reported the day after the verdict was announced: “Halle Labor Court: Expulsion of a scientist from the Max Planck Institute because of anti-Semitic statements and HAMAS sympathies confirmed.”

In a statement on the day of the verdict, the MPG refrained from claiming one thing or the other, only stating:

“In February 2024, the Max Planck Institute for Anthropological Research in Halle separated from the Lebanese-Australian guest scientist Ghassan Hage in agreement with the management of the Max Planck Society. The background was Hage's views on the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, which were widespread on social media and were incompatible with the basic values of the Max Planck Society. Ghassan Hage had sued the labor court in Halle against his dismissal. At its meeting today, the labor court dismissed the lawsuit and thereby confirmed the position of the Max Planck Society.”

https://www.mpg.de/21510533/stellungnahme-ghassan-hage

The head of the communications department at MPG refused to provide further explanations when I spoke on December 12th. asked for an interview in an email: “We see the verdict as confirming the position we published on February 7th. From our point of view, there is nothing more to say about it.” I wanted to ask the following question:

“In the press release and on Tuesday in court, the MPG carefully avoided explicitly accusing Hage of anti-Semitism. The verdict also reflected that. Nevertheless, the MPG has rejected an agreement in which it would state that it did not accuse him of anti-Semitism. Why?"

In the absence of a response from the MPG, I'll try to explain.

 

Tendency Bearers, Project, Moral Feeling

It is nothing new for scientists to hold views that their institutions are unwilling to support. The same Max Planck Institute for Anthropological Research in Halle from which Hage was fired also has Chris Hann, a prominent supporter of Vladimir Putin's policies and critic of Ukraine's Western orientation, in its ranks. Some of his arguments in his publications read as a veiled denial of Ukraine's legitimacy as a nation state - Hann doesn't say it himself, but allows others to say it. His views are well-known and controversial among experts. Nevertheless, the homepage of the MPI in Halle lists him as active director emeritus - and that's how it should be. Science thrives on dissent and criticism, including questionable and problematic views. Without confronting them, our analyzes and decisions are blind, a mere reflection of our own tendencies.

And that was essentially what was at issue before the Halle Labor Court: what kind of dissent and difference are scientists allowed, and to what extent are they, as “tendency bearers,” obliged to support the official line of their institution? For example, priests of a church tend to be believers and should not make public anti-religious statements. The word tendency bearer was not mentioned by the presiding judge in the oral verdict. But during the hearing he pointed out that in April 2024 (file number 5 Sa 894/23) the Berlin State Labor Court had confirmed the immediate termination of a Deutsche Welle employee because of his anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements on social media and did not allow an appeal. That employee had written, among other things, that a supposed Jewish lobby had German politics under its control. So, he really made anti-Semitic comments. Hage did not do this. What was decisive here was not the facts of the case, but rather the reasons given by the Berlin State Labor Court, according to which “the plaintiff, as a tendency bearer, was obliged not to violate the tendency, i.e. the fundamental objectives, of Deutsche Welle, both in his work performance and in areas outside of the company.”

https://www.berlin.de/gerichte/arbeitsgericht/presse/pressemitteilungen/2024/pressemitteilung.1455787.php

From the extensive evidence, the presiding judge focused his judgment on two posts that the MPG had submitted to the works council (consultation with the works council is a legal condition for termination without notice). The first post is a poem published on the afternoon of October 7th, 2023 - at a time when it was not yet known how brutal the attack was and how many people were killed. At that point, many observers were still under the impression that it was a military rather than a terrorist operation. In the poem, Hage is impressed by the Palestinians' ability to resist. The text is a romanticization of armed struggle versus Israel's warfare, but there is no glorification or justification of the extreme violence perpetrated by Hamas and its allies. Secondly, the presiding judge referred to an essay from November 16, 2023, where the expression “Zionist ethno-nationalist project” occurs. The judge pointed out that in his statements Hage described the entire territory of Palestine as occupied. However, the word “project” was central to his justification. Describing Israel as a project is a negation of Israel's existence under international law because a project means something unstable and temporary.

The word “project” only appears in one sentence in that essay, this one:

“There are, of course, those among us who, despite our opposition to the Zionist ethno-nationalist project and from the comfort of our social and geographical locations, and because of our diverse ties, have been able to mourn the victims of Hamas' murders.”

In this passage, Hage in no way denies Israel's state existence, but does identify himself as an opponent of the political project of Zionism. He also expresses explicit sadness for the Israeli victims of October 7th. The presiding judge had found Hage lacking in compassion. But here compassion is written in black and white. This was not taken into account in the judgment.

In his ruling, the presiding judge expressly refrained from discussing the question of whether these statements were anti-Semitic or not. There was a lot of talk about anti-Semitism during the trial. With reference to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, the MPG's lawyer insisted that statements on social media could be anti-Semitic due to their effect on the audience even if Hage, who is married to a Jew, is not himself an anti-Semite. Hage's lawyer had in turn insisted on checking whether there was any anti-Semitic content at all, taking into account the surrounding circumstances, as provided for in the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and that of the Jerusalem Declaration.

If the MPG had explicitly fired Hage because of anti-Semitism, his lawyer would have been able to prove that the accusation was untrue. But by neither explicitly making nor withdrawing the allegation, the MPG gave the court the opportunity to find other reasons for the verdict.

My impression was that the presiding judge based his judgment on his own moral and political sensibilities. During the trial he said that he did not want to hear Dresden and Nazi comparisons (he was referring to a mention of Dresden in the quotes from Hage collected by the WaS), and that when one says about a recognized state that it is an occupation and a project is that the defendant (i.e. the MPG) cannot accept this. The tone and choice of words made it clear that the judge was not concerned that the views of Hage and MPG were incompatible - that was not up for debate. Rather, he seemed convinced that Hage was morally and politically wrong.

 

What the verdict means for science in Germany

The fact that the word “project” was made the decisive reason for the judgment is remarkable. After all, the word project does not have a generally negative connotation, and staunch supporters of Israel have also described Israel as a project. A political project is not characterized by the fact that it is temporary, but rather that it is unfinished, in motion. The word project applies well to Israel's statehood, because the State of Israel was first expressed as an idea and only later conquered as a territory; and its area is characterized by unfinished borders that constantly change due to wars and settlement policies, expansions and retreats. In the end, however, the judge's choice to address this word is not decisive. He could also have found another justification, and the MPG's statement on the day of the judgment only cites the poem dated October 7, 2023 as justification for its position. Three points are crucial for the impact of the judgment on science in Germany.

- The ambiguity of the accusation enabled the MPG to accuse Hage of anti-Semitism, but not to have to prove the allegation as an allegation.

- The presiding judge relied on his moral and political sensibilities and viewed Hage's position as substantively incorrect, even if the termination itself was formally incorrect.

- Due to the ambiguity of the accusation and the role of moral feeling in the verdict, the crucial question remained unclear as to which principles and guidelines of the MPG Hage's breach of duty was directed against. Accordingly, it remains vague and unclear to what extent scientific institutions are allowed to prohibit and dictate political positions to their employees.

If this interpretation becomes common practice, those working in science in Germany will in future have to expect that their institutions will prescribe and prohibit them from taking political positions. But this is the less serious part of the judgment. Many of my colleagues in Germany already have this expectation of forced political loyalty. What is more serious is the way in which the accusation of anti-Semitism repeatedly came to the fore over the course of the affair, was not openly expressed - but was not withdrawn either.

In general, a lot of things were not expressed openly, and this was also reflected in the unwillingness of employees at the Max Planck Institute in Halle to speak to the public. My first attempts to find interviewees there were unsuccessful. People found it problematic to express themselves even anonymously because their choice of words and arguments would still make them recognizable. But what exactly were they afraid of? That was also unclear. A colleague from the institute finally shared his experience with me in an informal conversation.

He said that the WaS report and Hage's dismissal were followed by great uncertainty among MPI employees in Halle. The fragments of his posts quoted in the WaS were perceived differently. International employees often found them less problematic. German colleagues expressed different views. He said that it was easier for the latter to understand why the statements met rejection from the General public than for their international colleagues. Nevertheless, almost the entire staff at the institute was against Hage's dismissal and was dismayed by the sudden and non-transparent decision. Since then, there has been concern and uncertainty among colleagues. Are employees’ social media checked now? What is allowed and what is not? The management of the institute tried to calm the employees. However, they were unable to eliminate the feeling of insecurity. In a town hall meeting with employees where the previously published statement of February 7, 2024 was discussed, MPG President Patrick Cramer avoided accusing Hage of anti-Semitism. Referring to the statement, he said that the last paragraph was a general position of the MPG. A clarification was requested, but the President saw no reason for it.

The picture I got in conversation with him corresponds to the general impression from informal conversations with colleagues: strong but unclear and non-transparent decisions create a depressed, uncomfortable silence. An extraordinary termination is controversial and risky and often creates more conflicts than solutions. It is much easier not to extend contracts and to withdraw support for funding applications. Such censorship by innuendo is much more powerful than official red lines that can either be aligned or acted upon if one is willing to accept the consequences.

 

Afterword, with comments from the author

 

For a while I too felt like I was part of an oppressive silence. When the war began, I kept a low profile for a long time because I rejected both the mass murderous warmongering in Germany on the part of Israel and the justification of a massacre in the name of resistance and decolonization. Here and there I felt the impossibility of a conversation that would go beyond an annoyed exchange of incompatible assertions. Hage must have felt something similar when, after the verdict, he spoke of the “strange comfort” of “coming up against a brick wall in court.” He described it as the “unthinkingness” of the other side, which could perhaps be translated as “determination not to think.” lets. The presiding judge had clearly given this some thought. But his thoughts and Hage's thoughts could not meet. A solid wall of incomprehension separated them from each other, both in and of themselves coherent and complete.

Science offers humanity a critical polyphony that enables better thinking and better actions. During this war, this critical polyphony has been replaced to a dangerous extent by a brick wall of loudly expressed incomprehension and by a depressing silence of censorship through suggestion. I have left my cover and am following the case of Ghassan Hage against the Max Planck Society for two reasons: firstly, because this depressed silence threatens me and my colleagues more than the open lack of understanding; and secondly, because Hage and I share the conviction that there should be other options in this war that has been going on for decades than the subjugation or destruction of one side by the other. (At present, Israel has the means and increasingly the will not only to subjugate the Palestinian side but also to destroy it in parts or in whole. On the Palestinian side there is also no lack of will to destroy the other side, but there is certainly a lack of means. In one In other world political constellations in the future, the resources may be distributed differently. With the nuclear arsenal that Israel has as a weapon of last resort, the destruction can then extend far beyond the Palestine-Israel region I have less faith than Ghassan Hage in idealistic goals and revolutions. Where he thinks a democratic one-state solution is realistic, I think that a possible negotiated peace can only be bad and unfair, but at least it would be better than more war. Such differences of views are important. They deserve to be encouraged and promoted, not crushed and dismissed.