Australian academics in Germany are facing censorship for speaking out in support of Palestine, as Europe’s leader grapples with its dark Holocaust legacy.

With provocatively titled books such as White Nation and Is Racism an Environmental Threat?, renowned Australian-Lebanese anthropologist Ghassan Hage is no stranger to ruffling feathers with his critical writing.

But questions from the conservative German newspaper Die Welt accusing Professor Hage of anti-Semitism in a series of social media posts set off a chain reaction that got him fired.

Germany in recent months has cracked down on critics of Israel, including Prof Hage.

Israel began pummelling the blockaded enclave of Gaza following an October 7 attack by Hamas that killed 1200 people and captured dozens of hostages.

Its retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians including more than 13,000 children, according to the United Nations.

Tweet from @anthroprofhage

Prof Hage’s employer, the prestigious Max Planck Institute, fired him from his visiting fellowship in February days after the controversial newspaper article was published.

“I’m not the sort of person who just uses my academic position to support this politics or that politics,” he told told AAP in his first interview with Australian media since his sacking.

“People involved in politics, when they hear me, I like them to hear something they’re not accustomed to.

“I am not into making people comfortable – whatever side.”

Celebrated internationally as a guru on migration, multiculturalism and anti-racism with his satirical yet complex works, Prof Hage built his reputation in Australia writing several popular academic books and hundreds of articles.

“I felt it was beyond ridiculous that towards the end of my career at the age of 67, after having suddenly 35 years of being celebrated as an intellectual of anti-racism around the world, some German punk comes and tells me I am anti-Semite,” he said.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have lambasted German authorities arresting pro-Palestine activists and cultural bodies withdrawing funding and cancelling prizes from authors as going overboard.

Back in Australia, where he is a professor at the University of Melbourne, Prof Hage has launched legal action against the institute in a German court.

In a February statement, the institute said it ended its “working relationship” with Prof Hage because his social media posts were “incompatible” with its core values.

“Researchers abuse their civil liberties when they undermine the credibility of science with publicly disseminated statements, thereby damaging the reputation and trust in the institutions that uphold it,” the statement said.

Prof Hage has not been the only high-profile victim of hostility toward their opinions in Germany.

In November, University of Sydney political theorist John Keane quit the well-regarded WZB Berlin Social Science Centre after the institution accused him of being a “secret supporter” of Hamas.

The research centre said he was liable to criminal prosecution under German law for being sympathetic to a designated terrorist group for a series of social media posts on October 7.

Hamas is also listed as a terrorist group by the Australian government.

In December, German police arrested university students attending one of his seminars titled “Universities in troubled times”.

Footage of the arrests went viral on social media.

Prof Hage has been heartened by the outpouring of support he has received from academics around the world, including in Israel and from scholars at the Max Planck Institute.

The academic said he was not backing down despite conservative and right-wing lobby groups trampling academic freedoms and freedom of speech as the war dragged on.

“I follow a clear rule in life: when you are an intellectual who engages in public militancy, it’s a bit like fighting,” he said.

“They have managed to punch me but now I have to get up and keep on going.”

—AAP