[ April 18, 2024 ]
Germany? Nah, can’t be.
Germany is accused of downplaying anti-Semitic attacks by Muslims
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA, June 14, 2019:
Despite attempts by organizers in recent years to suppress some expressions of anti-Semitism, the march by hundreds of participants features frequent calls about killing Israelis, Zionist conspiracies and chants of “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” Flags of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are on display, and imams regularly preach anti-Semitic verses from the Quran to the crowd in Farsi and Arabic.
Story continues below advertisement“Under the guise of ‘Israel criticism,’ they use classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, identifying Israel as having ‘Jewish characteristics’: ‘domineering,’ ‘greedy’ or a ‘child killer,’” sociologist Imke Kummer observed about the marchers.
(Iran launched al-Quds Day in 1979 to express support for the Palestinians and oppose Zionism and Israel, and international events of support have followed. Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.)
Such agitation is seen worldwide. To many, it’s especially troubling on streets where the persecution of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators was so brutal that it moved whole societies in Europe to vow “Never again.”
Curiously, however, some of the incidents documented at the Quds Day march in Berlin have been classified by authorities as forms of far-right anti-Semitism, independent watchdog groups have discovered.
Critics say the march example and other mislabeled incidents are facilitating attempts to politicize anti-Semitism and complicating the apparently losing battle to solve it.
“It means we can’t really use the official statistics on anti-Semitism in Germany,” Daniel Poensgen, a researcher at the Department for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism, or RIAS, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Germany’s Interior Ministry did not respond to JTA’s request for comment.
Doubts about the ministry’s methodology have become more pronounced as its data have increasingly diverged with information from across Western Europe — and from the perceptions of German Jews themselves.
Last month, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that supporters of far-right groups were responsible for about 90 percent of the 1,800 recorded anti-Semitic incidents recorded in Germany in 2018, a 20 percent increase over the previous year.
In France, by contrast, more than half of anti-Semitism incidents, and virtually all the violent ones, are perpetrated by immigrants from Muslim countries or their descendants, according to the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism.
In Britain, the Community Security Trust suggests that far-right perpetrators are responsible for 50-60 percent of the incidents where victims offered a physical description of their attackers. This happened in about 30 percent of 1,652 cases in 2018, a 19 percent hike from the previous year.
In the Netherlands, the previous director of CIDI, the country’s foremost watchdog on anti-Semitism, said that Muslims and Arabs are responsible for about 70 percent of all cases recorded in any given year.
In a 2016 survey of hundreds of German Jews who had experienced anti-Semitic incidents, 41 percent said the perpetrator was “someone with a Muslim extremist view” and another 16 percent said it was someone from the far left. Only 20 percent identified their aggressors as belonging to the far-right.
“There is clearly a mismatch here, and it speaks to the inaccuracy of the German official statistics,” the RIAS researcher Poensgen said.
Poensgen said his watchdog organization has talked to officials about the statistics problem.
“There was interest in our criticism, it was listened to and studied, but till now [there’s] severe reluctance on the federal level to change their category system,” Poensgen said.
Confidence in German authorities was undermined in 2014 when a German court ruled that anti-Semitism was not behind the attempt by three Palestinians to set fire to a synagogue in the city of Wuppertal. (A higher court affirmed the ruling in 2017.)
To some critics, there is a political dimension to the apparent reluctance of German authorities to blame anti-Semitism on Muslim immigrants. Surveys suggest that group is considerably more anti-Semitic than non-immigrants, or at least more open about it.
But “the new Muslim anti-Semitism is taboo, as addressing it would only strengthen opponents of immigration,” Krisztina Koenen, a journalist for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and der Welt, wrote in an analysis she published in March in the Hungarian-Jewish magazine Neokohn.
The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced considerable criticism, including that she is importing anti-Semitism, over her decision to let in more than 2 million immigrants from Syria and the Middle East since 2015.
Demonstrators carry a banner that reads “Against any kind of anti-Semitism” during a rally against the annual al-Quds Day march in Berlin, July 11, 2015. Anti-Israel rallies are held annually on the day. (Gregor Fischer/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Last year, a German federal entity went to some pains to refute the claim about importing anti-Semitism. The study by the Berlin-based EVZ foundation claims that there is no connection between anti-Semitism and immigration, despite claims by some Jews to the contrary.
The conclusion prompted scathing criticism by Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international affairs for the American Jewish Committee and the point man on anti-Semitism of the OSCE intergovernmental organization. He said the report’s authors “ignore the data, dismiss the problem, and blame the victims.”
Poensgen doubted that official German statistics are being deliberately mislabeled for political purposes.
“Most likely it’s the result of an out-of-date classification system, that for historical reasons is designed to monitor far-right anti-Semitism,” he said.
He cited one case in 2014 in which about 20 men shouted the Nazi slogan “Sieg heil” at an al-Quds Day march, an annual pro-Palestinian event where the mostly Muslim participants typically chant anti-Israel and anti-American slogans. The episode appears as a far-right incident in the Interior Ministry’s records.
Such mislabeling does, however, help the German far-right’s attempt to discredit the government, Poensgen said.
RIAS uses a more nuanced classification system than the government’s, he said. Last year, it indicated that the far-right was responsible for about 18 percent of anti-Semitic hate crimes where perpetrators could be affiliated with a population group or ideology. Islamists and anti-Israel activists accounted for about 11 percent of 1,083 cases last year in Berlin (RIAS limited its 2018 monitor report to that city). Other perpetrator categories included conspiracy theorists, the far left and centrists.
The political affiliation of about half of the cases were classified as unknown.
German authorities have made attempts to address Muslim anti-Semitism specifically. The top intelligence agency in Germany recently published a 40-page analysis of rising anti-Semitism by Islamist extremists that was welcomed by Jewish leaders.
But the government’s system for classifying anti-Semitic incidents is flawed, said Laszlo Bernat Veszpremy, who has researched anti-Semitism among recent immigrants to Europe in a paper published by the Budapest Migration Research Institute.
It has five categories: right-wing, left-wing, foreign ideology, religious ideology and unknown, which is rarely used.
“The problem is that Islam is not mentioned anywhere, so Islamist or ‘pro-Palestine’ attacks, which could motivate Muslim or Arab perpetrators, can go in at least three categories: right-wing (nationalist), foreign (secular) or religious,” Veszpremy told JTA.
“The de facto situation is that pretty much any anti-Semitic incident in Germany is automatically attributed to the far right because of how the classification system works.”
In France and Belgium, authorities are frequently accused of downplaying or sugarcoating left-wing and immigrant anti-Semitism.
“Today I no longer have full confidence that anti-Semitic hate crimes in France are handled properly,” Sammy Ghozlan, a former police commissioner and founder of France’s National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, recently told JTA. He cited a series of perceived failures in the murder trial of a Muslim man who killed his Jewish neighbor while shouting about Allah and calling her a demon.
The judge presiding over the case recently reopened the issue of the defendant’s sanity — on her own initiative — after he was found fit to stand trial in psychiatric evaluations following his arrest. Critics charge that the court appeared reluctant to say the attack was motivated by anti-Jewish animus.
In its annual report for 2016, the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, a government watchdog, wrote that a “significant part of the anti-Semitic acts (actions and threats) pertains to neo-Nazi ideology, whereas in most other cases the perpetrators’ motivations are difficult to ascertain.”
It did not mention attacks by Muslims, who BNVCA says are responsible for nearly all violent anti-Semitic incidents in France.
The report also questions the very existence of a “new anti-Semitism” generated by critics of Israel, saying that if this new anti-Semitism exists, “then it pertains to a minority” of the cases.
In Belgium, the lawyer for the country’s federal watchdog against racism, UNIA, in 2017 protested the hate speech conviction of a Palestinian man who shouted about killing Jews at an anti-Israel demonstration even though UNIA was among the initiators of his trial. The conviction was “distorted justice instead of true justice,” the UNIA lawyer wrote.
Joel Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, said the case showed that UNIA was “part of the problem, not the solution, of anti-Semitism.” The Flemish Forum of Jewish Organizations said in 2017 that it has “lost all confidence” in UNIA.
Belgian prosecutors recently dismissed a criminal complaint filed against a Turkish cafe owner who in 2014 placed a sign on his business saying dogs are welcome at his business near Liege, “but Jews are not.”
The prosecutor’s office explained its decision not to prosecute the cafe owner by saying he had promised to write a letter apologizing to the Jewish community. The letter has yet to be seen.
In reaction, Rubinfeld invoked one of Belgium’s best-known surrealist painters.
“This,” he said, “is something out of the world of Rene Magritte.”
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25 Comments
4 years ago
Germany and antisemitism are synonymous. The difference between Germany’s antisemitism today than during the 1930 to 1945 Nazi endeavor to eradicate European Jewry, and the eventuality of worldwide Jewry,
Fuhrer Merkel handed the contract to annihilate the Jews to the Muslims.
Merkel and others of this Fascist regime’s, in tandem with the EU, to downplay the antisemitism, the never-ending murder, maiming and persecution of Jews in this nation that designed and carried-out industrialized mass-murder, The Holocaust.
It is not merely Germany, and its EU comrades bent on the propagation of antisemitism. The West’s faux-Democracies have willingly signed the antisemitic, Jew-Hate and anti-Israel pact. Canada, Britain, and a myriad of other faux-Democracies have jumped on the bandwagon of Jew-Israel-Hatred. Germany, however, as it was in the 1930s and forward is the maestro of this antisemitic accord. It is they who did not complete the Final Solution; hence, Germany has handed the Muslims the task to finalize the Final Solution.
4 years ago
Reply to
Ziggy46
The muslums have, for all intents and purposes, made all their Mid-east muslum misery theme parks Judenfrei — and that fact had nothing to do w/nazis or Germans at all.
4 years ago
Reply to
MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
The Muslims were allied with Nazism; German war criminals found refuge in Middle Eastern countries. I am not say the Germans were a major influence that is found in the Qu’ran; they, Germans, did align with the grande mufti as their endeavors regarding the Jews were akin.
4 years ago
Reply to
Ziggy46
Muslum pogroms against Jews predate not only the existence of Germany itself but maybe even the German language. In Granada, in 1066, in Al Andalus the muslums went on a murderous rampage against Jews that took the lives of thousands of Jews:
4 years ago
Reply to
Ziggy46
“Germany and antisemitism are synonymous.”
The statement is disparaging and cannot be substantiated. For if this were the
truth, the German cultural area would not have become the home of Jewish in-
tellectuals, their emancipation and participation would not have originated there,
and they would not mostly bear names of German origin today. Moreover: those
who practise anti-Germanism should not be surprised about anti-Americanism.
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
It remains a fact Marc that when a regime whose leader was coached in the DDR introduces muslims by the million into Germany, that is a hostile act for all other people living there especially Jewish ones.
4 years ago
Reply to
Poppey
Poppeye, it misjudges certain facts that may be unknown to you, and I will therefore work
them out separately for you (takes some time). The madness didn’t start with Merkel, she
is the symptom of a much deeper disease, which, by the way, has afflicted the whole West.
It must also be remembered that especially leading Jews in Germany for decades
have shown no interest in the preservation of a nation-state; on the contrary, they
have done all they could to persuade the Germans to have a guilty conscience, on
the basis of which today they allow themselves to be abused like idiots for any stupi-
dity (“new trends”) because they fear being morally blackmailed or socially isolated.
Not to mention the fact that Ashkenazi Jews carry a high proportion of
German genetics, and Germans still carry a high proportion of Jewish
genetics, we should be careful not to put crude generalizations into the
world and to condemn peoples to whom the world owes more than many
want to admit. Which should not be visible, because this realization does
not serve the prevailing agenda. Even America would be another country.
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
I’m currently reading Van Creveld’s “The Privileged Sex”, which
represents the same thesis as Vilar’s “The Manipulated Man”.
This, too, is one reason for the state of the sick world today.
Anyone who believes that fascism was a pure male society is
mistaken and misjudges the outstanding approval of female
patrons & supporters who brought Hitler to power, including
the Jewish Princess zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst.
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
Apropos: further “exhibition”
about women in trash bags
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.artrmx.com%2Findex.php%2Fausstellungen%2Fmunaqabba
https://www.museumangewandtekunst.de/en/visit/exhibitions/contemporary-muslim-fashions/
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
“The Manipulated Man”
https://archive.org/details/TheManipulatedMan1971-EstherVilar
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
Jewish philosopher:
“Stop with this equality!”
https://www.rt.com/news/461241-france-womens-football-philosopher/
https://www.rt.com/news/461442-women-football-world-cup/
4 years ago
It remains a fact that the political orthodox elite and Merkel regime is now lurching so far to the Marxist hard left that anything required to deflect the blame for what her policies are responsible for is to be used.
The new Katy Hopkins documentary Homelands is worth watching because it speaks to the problems in our societies.
The rise of the “Green” vote and the stalling of the populist one bodes ill for Germany, whether it’s young food nazis checking on the “food miles” of produce in their mother’s fridge or the antics of the greenies in driving society back to the dark ages, the betting looks certain, Germany is heading for disaster.
When the urge to cover bad things up is stronger than the urge to correct them, you know things are getting worse there.
4 years ago
The Jew-haters wear a “democratic” mask now and
sceam: “Stop the thief, he has my knife in his back!”
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
The trick is to blame your enemies for what you do yourself.
These are totalitarian developments that are indeed strongly
reminiscent of the Third Reich. There it also began with the
boycott of literature. (“First comes calumny, then murder”.)
The MSM has largely been brought into line (“Gleichschaltung”).
They possess the financial and ideological market power to brain-
wash entire populations. Critical journalists are driven out of the
public, exposed to left-wing extremist attacks or forced into exile.
Today’s propaganda weapon is the accusation of “Islamophobia”.
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
The lies, which come from supposedly “serious sources”,
are only intended to distract from the actual developments.
The finger is pointed at the “bady guys” like Trump, Salvini,
Putin or Orban, so that the people continues to remain half
asleep and pays its taxes in the service of its own abolition.
“Bread & Circuses” is the always same principle to prevent the truth
from coming to light and the deceived don’t look behind the scenes.
The alleged “information societey” is an extensively uniformed socie-
ty, because most of the distraction is completely useless information.
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
Gleichschaltung can also be seen in the merger of a few news agencies,
from which all other MSM scribblers take over their identical contents. It is
not about facts and research, investigative journalism is a thorn in the side
of those in power. They work with insinuations and speculations, because
they find observation work too strenuous and make themselves the hench-
men of sectarian brainwashing. Enlighteners are denounced as evil so that
the non-awake readers shy away from them. The Lügenpresse is panicking
that others could steal their show, their sales figures sinking into basement.
4 years ago
Thank’s Angela!
4 years ago
Reply to
Roma Mikhasev
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
German Court
Lifts Burkini Ban
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/06/276106/german-court-burkini-ban/
4 years ago
Reply to
Marc
Why do left women always have to undress? Aren’t they
the ones who constantly fight against sexism? And why
they support muslims who hide women in trash bags?
It shows that being “liberal” means mentally disturbed.
4 years ago
To understand Muhammadist immigration & the European union adequately one has to know that Hitler criticized Charles Martel, a hero who has driven out Muhammadist armies out of France in Tours/Poitiers in 732.
Hitler lamented to an audience that would had Charles Martel not been successful the Germans would had converted to Islam which he loved & wouldn’t be Christian.
It also shows, Hitler was not a Christian. As he clearly promoted & favored Islam over Christianity. He also told Albert Speer, that the German temperament would fit Islam better.
The Nazis loved Islam. What they didn’t expect was that new scientists would question the existence of a deity.
A government is like a house we live in. We have to constantly look after & maintain it.
Just like we need a house, we also need a government to make life livable globally on the foundation of justice, truth, ecology, love, friendliness & imperialism.
4 years ago
There always have been Germans who are highly civilized, highly cultured, open-minded and cosmopolitan, intelligent and free from any anti-Semitism. This is the minority of a maximum of 15%..
Just to mention: the “Father” of the NASA Apollo Program Mr. Werner von Braun was none of them but nevertheless hired and admired in US.
Those who identify themselves in Germany as citizens with Jewish religion usually trigger reactions, most of them negative ones.
Anyone who believes and is spreading the opinion that the monstrously criminal Frau Merkel opened the borders for 4.000.000 (not 1.000.000 dear Pamela…) Islamic illegal invaders for humanitarian reasons is a jerk or a criminal hypocrite.
Merkel is accomplishing what Hitler did not succeed in: Germany without Jewish citizens = JUDENFREI.
Both chancellors were elected democratically by the vast majority of German people: Hitler as Reichskanzler, Merkel as Bundeskanzler.
4 years ago
Until the left admits that Islam has an anti-Semitism problem, this problem will never go away.
