The institutional structures in Germany that contain sizeable numbers of pro-Israel people are disorganized and largely stuck in a pre-October 7 world, not having internalized how to secure power.
The stakes are high: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is involved in plots within Germany to assassinate Jewish and pro-Israel figures and to attack synagogues.
This obvious conflict of interest means the organizations, wittingly and unwittingly, support at times Berlin’s anti-Israel and pro-Iran regime policies as custodians of the perilous status quo.
The two main organizations—the Central Council of Jews in Germany with its roughly 100,000 members and the German-Israel Friendship Association (DIG) with its over 9,000 members—are full of potential for a movement to secure a ban of the IRGC, strengthen German-Israel relations and serve as a bulwark against the revolutionary antisemitism spreading through the Federal Republic.
The main obstacle stopping the leadership of the Central Council and DIG from advancing the interests of their members is that they are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the German government. Both the Jewish community and DIG are dependent on the federal government for subsidies. This obvious conflict of interest means the organizations, wittingly and unwittingly, support at times Berlin’s anti-Israel and pro-Iran regime policies as custodians of the perilous status quo.
The partially anti-Zionist president of the DIG, Green party politician Volker Beck, was caught on a recording admitting, “We are under observation by the Foreign Ministry” to justify the DIG’s rejection of a Zionist Israeli speaker.
In the post-Oct. 7 world, the Central Council and DIG need to reject their government subsidies and establish independent, confrontational organizations that are willing to pick winnable fights against German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s anti-Jewish and anti-Israel government policies and the growing number of Bundestag deputies who stoke hatred of Jews and Israel.
The most pressing target for a high-intensity campaign is a ban on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Germany. The IRGC has sought to assassinate pro-Israel and pro-Jewish figures in Germany and France and firebomb a synagogue in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, in November 2022. The legal basis for a ban on the IRGC in Germany has been met. It is only a question of political will.
Merz could wake up tomorrow and unilaterally outlaw the IRGC. Canada and the U.S. have sanctioned the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul might be the least supportive of Israel among those who have held the post since West Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1965.
Merz’s failure to act stems from the lack of pressure from the more than 100,000 members of the Central Council and DIG, along with their allies in the German Christian and German-Iranian communities. A multi-track campaign against Merz’s coalition government—demonstrations and media, religious, political, legal and regulatory pressure—would change his recalcitrant behavior.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul might be the least supportive of Israel among those who have held the post since West Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1965. He has shown no appetite to ban the IRGC.
Wadephul was on the advisory board of the German-Palestinian Society, a pro-BDS group that embraces the destruction of Israel. Wadephul has decried the Federal Republic’s “forced solidarity” with Israel.
But Wadephul’s so-called “forced solidarity” is a fiction. Germany stopped weapons deliveries to Israel during its seven-front war against Iranian-backed terrorist entities. Of course, voluntary solidarity is the ideal. But if that cannot be brought about, the DIG and Central Council must work to ensure that the German government’s solidarity with Israel and the Jewish community is expressed through concrete actions.
The IRGC is a danger to the entire German society. Required reading for the leaders and members of both groups should be American community activist and political theorist Saul Alinsky’s 1971 magnum opus, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.
The guiding ethos of the DIG and Central Council should be that set forth by the abolitionist and journalist Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
Power should not be viewed as inherently evil. The Central Council and DIG’s impotence is constantly on display. On July 9, Roland Rixecker—Saarland’s commissioner for Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism, as well as president of the state’s Constitutional Court—moderated an antisemitic Amnesty International conference at Saarland University, where speakers charged Israel with “genocide” and creating an “apartheid system” against the Palestinians.
The guiding ethos of the DIG and Central Council should be that set forth by the abolitionist and journalist Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
The Central Council, DIG and the Values Initiative NGO could not bring themselves to demand the swift dismissal of Rixecker.
The endless lectures, press releases, social media posts and criticism of Germany’s one-sided media coverage of Israel levelled by an impotent potpourri of German government groups designed to combat antisemitism and safeguard Jewish life will not alter the balance of power in Germany.
If the DIG, Central Council and the myriad number of pro-Israel groups on paper wish to enter the post-Oct. 7 world in defense of their own interests and the security of Israel, they need to embrace an organizing model of confrontation with the German establishment.
Published originally on July 26, 2025.
