The President of the Technical University of Berlin (TU), Geraldine Rauch, has apparently ‘liked’ several anti-Semitic posts on the X online platform. Her profile, which has since been deleted, placed a ‘like’ on a photo of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be seen on a poster featuring swastikas. Another post, which Rauch apparently liked, accused the state of Israel of ‘genocide in Gaza’.
The author Noam Petri, who made the matter public, then accused Rauch of relativising National Socialism. ‘You don’t have to be a supporter of Netanyahu.’ But marking a picture with ‘I like’ that depicts Netanyahu covered in swastikas is unworthy of a Berlin university president. ‘It also relativises National Socialism. The gaffe also represents a disinhibition that also makes political discourse impossible,’ Petri told the Bild newspaper.
The German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, also sharply criticised Rauch. Jewish students have been suffering ‘a completely unacceptable situation since October 7. They have to fear for their safety at many universities because of organised anti-Semitic incitement,’ he told the newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine. With regard to Rauch’s online conduct, Klein emphasised that he could not imagine Jewish students ‘trusting a university president to protect them from hatred and incitement when she publicly endorses statements that reproduce the very anti-Semitic narratives’.
The former member of the Bundestag and current president of the German-Israeli Society, Volker Beck, also criticised the behaviour of the TU president. When he saw the contributions, he was ‘initially speechless’. The posts were ‘one-sided, delegitimising Israel, like an anti-Israel activist account’, Beck told the Jüdische Allgemeine.
Neither the TU Berlin nor Rauch himself have yet commented on the allegations.
Antisemitismus-Vorwürfe gegen Präsidentin der TU Berlin (jungefreiheit.de)