Hannah Arendt Prize awarded despite criticism of Masha Gessen

The Hannah Arendt Prize for political thought was awarded to Masha Gessen despite massive criticism. The Bremen Senate and the Böll Foundation canceled participation in protest against Gessen’s statements on the Middle East conflict.

The controversial awarding of the Hannah Arendt Prize for political thought to Masha Gessen took place in Bremen in front of a good 50 guests. The event originally planned for Friday in the town hall was canceled after criticism of Gessen’s statements and has now been rescheduled on a smaller scale in an event room in the Steintorviertel.

With the relocation, the sponsoring association responded to the withdrawal of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Bremen Senate from the award ceremony. The trigger was Gessen’s statements in an article in the US magazine “The New Yorker” on December 9th. In it, Gessen is said to have compared the situation in Gaza with the Jewish ghettos in occupied Europe and insinuated that Israel’s goal was to liquidate Gaza like a Nazi ghetto.

“An unspeakable comparison

This is not an offer for open discussion and does not help to understand the conflict in the Middle East, said the Böll Foundation’s statement. “This statement is unacceptable to us and we reject it.” The German-Israeli Society (DIG) Bremen had previously expressed concerns and described the comparison as strange.

Bremen’s deputy prime minister Björn Fecker had also distanced himself: “This is an unspeakable comparison that crosses a red line,” said the Green politician after the criticism became known. He canceled the planned awards ceremony in the Upper Town Hall.

The jury’s decision in favor of Gessen had already been made in the summer. It was said that the decisive factor was the journalistic commitment to reporting on Russia. A member of the jury said on Thursday that there had been no reason at the time to “review her position on the Israel issue.” In the controversial article, Gessen also strives to “take a differentiated view of the conflict.” However, there is no classification of the terrorist organization Hamas. We now need to discuss this with Gessen.

Gessen was born in Moscow in 1967 and emigrated to the USA in 1981. Gessen lives in New York and writes about political trends and conflicts in US and Russian society.

The Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought was founded in 1994. This honors people who contribute to public political thought and action in the tradition of the Jewish German-American political scientist. The prize money of 10,000 euros is donated by the Böll Foundation and the city of Bremen.