CDU and SPD Advocate for Use of Brochures Distorting the Nakba to High School Students in Neukölln.

On February 21, 2024, the Neukölln district council (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung) passed a motion by CDU directing Neukölln high schools to use a brochure entitled The Myth of Israel 1948 (Mythos Israel#1948). The utilization of the brochure at schools was encouraged, though not required. The brochure had been written by an organization called Masiyot, which describes itself as an “association of Jews and non-Jews with and without a migration background.” On its website, Masiyot states that among its goals, its primary aim is to raise awareness of authoritarian ideologies.

The document contains five essays, each arguing that the existing claims about Israel are false. The brochure states, for example, that the claim that Israel is a settler colony, and a product of Western imperialism is a myth. It declares instead that Israel is anti-racist, anti-colonial, and an anti-fascist entity. Another of the contained essays refutes any claim that Israel was established on stolen Palestinian land: “So if an Arab landowner sold to the Zionists, the previous Arab tenants lost their right to the land, but they were not robbed. The map can therefore only provide information about Jewish property at that time.”

One essay argues that Israel’s culpability in the Nakba is a myth. The author of the essay, Shany Mor, states that the UN distorts the word’s meaning and labels the UN’s assessment as “one-sided.” Mor concludes: “The Arabs' rejection of partition and the subsequent wars against Israel and ultimately the entire region was the real catastrophe for the Palestinians.” Furthermore, the brochure adopts the definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and not the definition of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism recommended by international scholars.

According to rbb (Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg), the vote to promote the document, which occurred during a public meeting of the Neukölln district council, was met with immediate and vocal disapproval from multiple members of the attending public. These individuals were promptly banned from the premises.

The left-wing parliamentary group of Neukölln urged Berlin’s Center for Political Education (Berliner Landeszentrale für politische Bildung) to stop promoting the project and filed for an amendment of the motion, asking the district office to prevent the circulation of the brochure in Neukölln's schools. This amendment was rejected.