On 7 October 2023, the terrorist organisation Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel. At over 1,400, the number of victims of anti-Semitic terror within one day was higher than at any time since the Shoah. Over 240 women, men, children and elderly people were taken hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip - most of them are still waiting to be rescued.

The 7th of October "did not happen in a vacuum", as the UN Secretary-General stated, albeit for the wrong reasons but quite correctly. Since its foundation on 14 May 1948, 75 years ago, the State of Israel, as the realisation of the Zionist idea of Jewish political sovereignty, has faced a variety of threats in the face of global anti-Semitism. Not only did the founding itself come up against the defence of the Arab environment, which responded to the founding of the state with a war of aggression. The decades following the first Arab-Israeli war were characterised by a state structure that was constantly confronted with a threat situation that led to a further military conflict with the neighbouring Arab states in 1967. The consequences of the so-called Six-Day War are still with us today: Palestinian terrorism against Israel has not abated to this day, but opened a new chapter with the horrific massacre on 7 October. 

The pogrom of 7 October marks a caesura in the history of Israel and antisemitism that will shape the Middle East and the Jewish diaspora for years to come. The significance of this pogrom and its historical and ideological background will be analysed in Jörg Rensmann's lecture and the resulting consequences for Germany will be discussed. To this end, the history of Israel will first be traced and the Palestinian national narrative and associated strategies of political actors analysed, which are still relevant today if one wants to understand Israel's internal and external policies. 

Jörg Rensmann is a political scientist, member of the board of the Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin and of the presidium of the DIG. Since October 2021, he has been head of the Research and Information Centre on Anti-Semitism NRW - RIAS NRW.

The lecture and subsequent discussion will take place on 11 December at 7 pm in seminar room F3 in the Fürstenberghaus at Münster University, Domplatz 20-22.