Controversy has erupted in Germany after two major universities cancelled events featuring the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, following pressure from state governments. Several academics and organizations have condemned the decision as a violation of academic freedom.

Francesca Albanese was due to speak at the Free University (FU) in Berlin on February 19 along with Eyal Weizman, the British-Israeli director of the research agency Forensic Architecture. But university authorities decided to cancel the public event after what FU President Günter M. Ziegler described as "massive criticism of the two guests from different directions."

Another lecture by Albanese, at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, had already been canceled a few days before.

The criticism in Berlin included statements from the Israeli ambassador to Germany and the city's conservative Mayor Kai Wegner, who told the Bild tabloid newspaper earlier this month: "I expect the FU to cancel the event immediately and take a clear stand against antisemitism."

Albanese has previously been condemned by the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for using what it calls antisemitic tropes. The ADL particularly objected to posts on social media platform X in which Albanese drew historical parallels between Israel's military actions in Gaza and the Nazi era, in which she wrote: "Our collective obliviousness to what led, 100 years ago, to the Third Reich’s expansionism and the genocide of people not in conformity with the 'pure race' is asinine. And it is leading to the commission of yet another genocide..."

The ADL also condemned a post by Albanese in which she denied that the Hamas attack was motivated by antisemitism, in a response to a statement by French President Emmanuel Macron: "The greatest antisemitic massacre of our century? No, @EmmanuelMacron. The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel's oppression."

There has also been anger over an X post in which Albanese appeared to respond approvingly to a post that set images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Adolf Hitler next to each other. Albanese later clarified that her comment was about how a person who commits crimes against humanity is sometimes received with honors by the public.

Eyal Weizman's Forensic Architecture, meanwhile, has attracted criticism from Israel's supporters........

© Deutsche Welle