Germany: The antisemitic side of the weekly "Peace protests"

Over the past few months, every week, there are protests across Germany. The protests, which do not attract large crowds, are defined as 'peace protests'.  The speakers mostly rail against war, the media and the financial system.  But they also bring up conspiracy theories against the Federal Reserve or the Rothschild family.

The protests are called the "Monday protests", though they are sometimes held on Sundays.

I had read some blog articles about the protests a few months ago, but was not sure how to present the topic.  The protests themselves are not directly antisemitic, but they are led by anti-Semites, attended by anti-Semites, and are very conspiracy-oriented.

So what we've got is protests against the media and financial systems, by people who believe the Jews control the media and the financial systems.  The antisemitic overtones are there.

Let's start with some of the people involved:

The movement was founded by Lars Mährholz, a professional skydiver. He started off the protests by posting this on his Facebook.

One of the movement's speakers is former DJ Ken Jebsen.  Jebsen was fired in 2011 after he sent an email saying "I know who invented the Holocaust as PR".  That's after ten years of hosting a youth program on public radio RBB and spreading his conspiracy theories, anti-Israel hatred and anti-Semitic connotations.   He has said that there should be a Yad Vashem "in Palestine" to "commemorate the Palestinian victims who were murdered through Israel’s occupation", and that the world was subservient to the interests of "radical Zionists."   see here for a subtitled clip of Jebsen at the protests.

Another speaker is Jürgen Elsässer.  As the Jerusalem Post notes, he exemplifies the new fusion extreme right-wing Nazi-style thinking and radical leftism in Germany.  He founded a “people’s front against financial capitalism” in which a mixture of right and left-wing conspiracy theorists and anti- Semites flourish, and he encouraged people to attend the Iran founded al-Quds day.

Jüdische Allgemeine reports that a recent study by sociologists from the University of Berlin found that the protesters were very antisemitic.  Almost half (47%) believe that politicians, the stock market and the media dance to the Zionist tune.  24.7% believe that Jews turn to dirty tricks to get what they wanted, more than other people.  13.2% at least partially agree that National Socialism had its good points.

Antifa Koblenz reports an antisemitic incident during the June 9th protest in Koblenz.  One of the organizers, Oliver Keil, stood up to read from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He introduced the book saying it was a 'forbidden' and 'antisemitic' book.  According to Antifa Koblenz, the reading was received with approval from those present.  Keil says he wanted to discuss how a small group can dominate the world, and he wasn't talking about Jews as a people.