Growing strength of AfD party and influx of Arab refugees fuel anxiety about intolerance
Protesters against Donald Trump's recognition of Jersusalem as Israeli capital. Demonstrations were also held in a number of other German cities.
The Holocaust, says Bader, is “why I love Hitler”.
A 33-year-old Palestinian, he is one of a number of voices quoted in a study released this week which identified “widespread anti-Semitism” among Arab refugees to Germany.
Others cited in the report, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, include Gamal, from the Syrian town of Idlib: the former headmaster boasts of owning two copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious Tsarist-era forgery alleging a Jewish plot to rule the world.
“The Germans killed the Jews because they were seen as traitors who delivered weapons to the enemies,” he is quoted as saying.
The AJC study was released at a time of mounting fears that the long-banished spectre of German anti-Semitism is beginning to re-emerge — revived by the influx of more than a million mainly Muslim refugees in 2015-16 and the rise of the Alternative for Germany, the country’s most successful far-right party since 1945.
“There’s a concern about what direction German identity might be taking,” said Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, in an interview.
The latest bout of soul-searching came in the aftermath of President Trump’s decision earlier this month to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that prompted vehement protests across the Arab world.
Demonstrations were held in a number of German cities, too, and in Berlin, protesters set fire to an Israeli flag. Such a gesture is routine in anti-Israel demonstrations the world over. But in Germany, still labouring under the burden of its Nazi past, the sight of a burning Star of David just a stone’s throw away from Berlin’s Holocaust memorial hit a nerve.
“It is something to be ashamed of when anti-Semitism is so openly displayed on the streets of German cities,” said Steffen Seibert, Angela Merkel’s spokesman.
Others stressed there was a big difference between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel. “The Middle East conflict must be separated from the dialogue and peaceful coexistence between Jews and Muslims,” Aiman Mazyek, head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
Others said the issue of anti-Semitism among Germany’s Muslims was overblown and distracted from a much more serious problem — the wide prevalence of xenophobic attacks against refugees. Authorities revealed last month that migrant hostels are targeted on an almost daily basis in Germany, mainly by rightwing radicals. Twelve were set on fire this year and two hit by explosions.
However some in the Muslim community, including Sawsan Chebli, a senior official in Berlin’s city government who is the daughter of Palestinian refugees, say that is precisely why there should be more solidarity with Jewish victims of anti-Semitism.
“Just as Muslims as a minority expect others to stick up for them when they’re discriminated against or attacked, so we have to speak up much more loudly when Jews are threatened in our country,” she said.
Even before the latest demonstrations, many of Germany’s 100,000 Jews were feeling uncomfortable. There were 470 anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin alone last year, a 16 per cent increase on 2015. The seriousness of the problem was exemplified by the story of a Jewish teenager, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, who was forced to quit his Berlin school earlier this year after being repeatedly beaten and abused by Arab and Turkish classmates.
But it is not just Arab immigrants who are fuelling fears about anti-Semitism. Another significant factor is the growing strength of the AfD, whose rhetoric has grown increasingly nationalistic in recent months.
Alexander Gauland, the party’s leader, triggered an outcry in September when he said that Germans had the right to “be proud of what [their] soldiers achieved in two world wars”. In a notorious speech in January, AfD official Björn Höcke called the Berlin tribute to the murdered Jews of Europe a “memorial of shame”.
“Such statements don’t go down well with the Jewish community,” said Mr Issacharoff. “The AfD represents a line of thinking that no Jew or Israeli can simply brush off.”
The ambassador makes a clear distinction between the AfD and the German political establishment, which condemns anti-Semitism in no uncertain terms. Politicians such as Angela Merkel have also insisted that Germany’s new Muslim immigrants must take on German democratic values — and also its strong awareness, and remembrance, of the Nazi past.
The ambassador makes a clear distinction between the AfD and the German political establishment, which condemns anti-Semitism in no uncertain terms. Politicians such as Angela Merkel have also insisted that Germany’s new Muslim immigrants must take on German democratic values — and also its strong awareness, and remembrance, of the Nazi past.
The refugees interviewed in the AJC report are by no means all rabid anti-Semites: most are consumed with more day-to-day issues, such as the safety of relatives left behind in Syria and Iraq. “We really don’t talk about Jews, it’s not an issue for us,” says Inas from Damascus.
And Günther Jikeli, the report’s author, said the anti-Jewish sentiment he encountered was a “problem, but also a chance”. “These people come from dictatorships, they feel very unsure about everything,” he said. “You get the feeling they really want to fit in, to learn what our values are, and to adapt to them.”
Protesters against Donald Trump's recognition of Jersusalem as Israeli capital. Demonstrations were also held in a number of other German cities.
The Holocaust, says Bader, is “why I love Hitler”.
A 33-year-old Palestinian, he is one of a number of voices quoted in a study released this week which identified “widespread anti-Semitism” among Arab refugees to Germany.
Others cited in the report, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, include Gamal, from the Syrian town of Idlib: the former headmaster boasts of owning two copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious Tsarist-era forgery alleging a Jewish plot to rule the world.
“The Germans killed the Jews because they were seen as traitors who delivered weapons to the enemies,” he is quoted as saying.
The AJC study was released at a time of mounting fears that the long-banished spectre of German anti-Semitism is beginning to re-emerge — revived by the influx of more than a million mainly Muslim refugees in 2015-16 and the rise of the Alternative for Germany, the country’s most successful far-right party since 1945.
“There’s a concern about what direction German identity might be taking,” said Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, in an interview.
The latest bout of soul-searching came in the aftermath of President Trump’s decision earlier this month to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that prompted vehement protests across the Arab world.
Demonstrations were held in a number of German cities, too, and in Berlin, protesters set fire to an Israeli flag. Such a gesture is routine in anti-Israel demonstrations the world over. But in Germany, still labouring under the burden of its Nazi past, the sight of a burning Star of David just a stone’s throw away from Berlin’s Holocaust memorial hit a nerve.
“It is something to be ashamed of when anti-Semitism is so openly displayed on the streets of German cities,” said Steffen Seibert, Angela Merkel’s spokesman.
Others stressed there was a big difference between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel. “The Middle East conflict must be separated from the dialogue and peaceful coexistence between Jews and Muslims,” Aiman Mazyek, head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
Others said the issue of anti-Semitism among Germany’s Muslims was overblown and distracted from a much more serious problem — the wide prevalence of xenophobic attacks against refugees. Authorities revealed last month that migrant hostels are targeted on an almost daily basis in Germany, mainly by rightwing radicals. Twelve were set on fire this year and two hit by explosions.
However some in the Muslim community, including Sawsan Chebli, a senior official in Berlin’s city government who is the daughter of Palestinian refugees, say that is precisely why there should be more solidarity with Jewish victims of anti-Semitism.
“Just as Muslims as a minority expect others to stick up for them when they’re discriminated against or attacked, so we have to speak up much more loudly when Jews are threatened in our country,” she said.
Even before the latest demonstrations, many of Germany’s 100,000 Jews were feeling uncomfortable. There were 470 anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin alone last year, a 16 per cent increase on 2015. The seriousness of the problem was exemplified by the story of a Jewish teenager, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, who was forced to quit his Berlin school earlier this year after being repeatedly beaten and abused by Arab and Turkish classmates.
But it is not just Arab immigrants who are fuelling fears about anti-Semitism. Another significant factor is the growing strength of the AfD, whose rhetoric has grown increasingly nationalistic in recent months.
Alexander Gauland, the party’s leader, triggered an outcry in September when he said that Germans had the right to “be proud of what [their] soldiers achieved in two world wars”. In a notorious speech in January, AfD official Björn Höcke called the Berlin tribute to the murdered Jews of Europe a “memorial of shame”.
“Such statements don’t go down well with the Jewish community,” said Mr Issacharoff. “The AfD represents a line of thinking that no Jew or Israeli can simply brush off.”
The ambassador makes a clear distinction between the AfD and the German political establishment, which condemns anti-Semitism in no uncertain terms. Politicians such as Angela Merkel have also insisted that Germany’s new Muslim immigrants must take on German democratic values — and also its strong awareness, and remembrance, of the Nazi past.
The ambassador makes a clear distinction between the AfD and the German political establishment, which condemns anti-Semitism in no uncertain terms. Politicians such as Angela Merkel have also insisted that Germany’s new Muslim immigrants must take on German democratic values — and also its strong awareness, and remembrance, of the Nazi past.
The refugees interviewed in the AJC report are by no means all rabid anti-Semites: most are consumed with more day-to-day issues, such as the safety of relatives left behind in Syria and Iraq. “We really don’t talk about Jews, it’s not an issue for us,” says Inas from Damascus.
And Günther Jikeli, the report’s author, said the anti-Jewish sentiment he encountered was a “problem, but also a chance”. “These people come from dictatorships, they feel very unsure about everything,” he said. “You get the feeling they really want to fit in, to learn what our values are, and to adapt to them.”