Holland: Anne Frank museum banned Orthodox Jewish employee from wearing his skullcap at work

Via The Daily Mail:

A Jewish employee at Anne Frank House could not believe his ears when his bosses banned him from wearing a skullcap at work.

Barry Vingerling turned up for work on his first day at the museum in Amsterdam and was told to take off his 'yarmulke'.

Anne Frank House is a writer's house and museum dedicated to a famous Jewish teenager who wrote a diary as she hid from the Nazis in World War II.

The 25-year-old was told wearing the skullcap might endanger the neutrality of the foundation which runs the museum and 'influence its work combating antisemitism'.

Mr Vingerling did not don a skullcap for his interview but hoped to wear it at work to meet his requirement as an Orthodox Jew to keep his head covered.

The Dutchman was told the brimless cap, also known as a kippah, was banned by the Anne Frank House as employees were not allowed to wear Jewish symbols.

The museum told Mr Vingerling he had to apply for formal permission to wear a yarmulke at the Anne Frank Foundation. (...) The board of the Anne Frank Foundation finally concluded, after more than six months of discussions, that Mr Vingerling could wear his yarmulke.

He said he was happy to hear he could finally wear his skullcap but still did not understand why the Anne Frank Foundation had made an issue out of it for so long.

'I work in the house of Anne Frank, who had to hide because of her identity. In that same house I should hide my identity?' he said.

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Greece is looking to be a stronger security partner for Israel

Via the Hudson Institute:

Full Transcript: Dialogues on American Foreign Policy and World Affairs: Senator Chris Coons and Walter Russell Mead

(...) MEAD: Yeah. So how are they thinking in Greece about Erdogan’s Turkey and the U.S. relationship?

COONS: Well, first, thank you for the question. One of the challenges is, these are NATO allies. And at a strategic level, one of the most pressing discussions was about an F-16 upgrade package for Greece, which is expensive and complicated because we are selling F-35s to Turkey. And the idea that you’ve got one NATO ally and another NATO ally worried about each other’s jet-fighter sophistication and air superiority should be troubling. Erdogan has, as you all know, taken a quite different direction. Turkey was Israel’s first, closest, strongest Muslim ally. Turkey, under Ataturk and for a long time afterwards, was a key bastion of a sort of more moderate or liberalizing influence in the Muslim world. Erdogan, after an attempt at joining the EU and after strengthening, consolidating his power in early years, has really turned fairly hard to the east and become more of an Islamist leader. And after both the conflict with Israel over the blockade of Gaza and then the allegedly Gulenist attempt at a coup last year, it has enraged Erdogan. And he is quite agitated against the United States and against Greece.

And what we heard was reports of very regular interactions – encounters between naval and air forces between the Greeks and the Turks. The flood of refugees and how they’ve been handled and the navigation around that has created further tension. And just a lack of clarity about the relationship has put some severe pressure on it. Erdogan, though, to be clear, has visited Greece – the first head of Turkey to do so in decades. And the prime minister of Greece indicated an openness to trying to negotiate a way through this. Both parties see, I think, the United States as essential to helping pull them closer together rather than allowing, what may be unintended, accidents between naval forces or conflicts between – between aerial forces to create a flashpoint and drive them apart.

The broader reality is that Greece is looking to be a stronger security partner for Israel, a stronger security partner for the United States, and made clear to us, they know they’re in a tough neighborhood. To the north, to the west, to the east, to the south, they’ve got potentially combative forces. And we shared some pointed conversations about Libya, the consequences of the Libyan adventure and the fall of Gaddafi and then the really destabilizing influence that’s having on the whole region

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Belgium/Iceland physicians back outlawing circumcision

Via JTA:

Hundreds of physicians in Iceland and some of Belgium’s top doctors came out in support of a bill proposing to criminalize nonmedical circumcision of boys in the Scandinavian island nation.

The approximately 500 Icelandic physicians who backed the bill that was submitted last month to the parliament cited the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles.

“Potential complications should offset the benefits” of male circumcision, “which are few,” the Icelandic physicians wrote in a joint statement published Wednesday.

Advocates of male circumcision include many physicians who believe it reduces the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and genital infections.

In Belgium, several prominent physicians, including Guy T’Sjoen of Ghent University Hospital, told the De Morgen daily they also support a ban.

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Ukraine: Prohibition of book over passage detailing wartime murder of Jewish children by Ukrainian militia

Via The Guardian:

Leading British historian Antony Beevor has described a Ukrainian ban on his award-winning book Stalingrad as “utterly outrageous”. The bestselling history, winner of the 1999 Samuel Johnson prize, tells of the battle for the Russian city during the second world war. A Russian translation was one of 25 titles included on a banned list issued by Ukrainian authorities last week, alongside books by authors including Boris Akunin and Boris Sokolov.

In 2016, Ukraine passed a law that banned books imported from Russia if they contained “anti-Ukrainian” content, with an “expert council” assessing titles for such content. It is almost four years since Russian president Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, during which time around 10,000 people have died, and more than 1.7m have been displaced.

Serhiy Oliyinyk, head of the Ukrainian Committee for State TV and Radio Broadcasting’s licensing and distribution control department, told Radio Free Europe (RFE) that the ban was imposed because of a passage that details how 90 Jewish children were shot by Ukrainian militia “to save the feelings of the Sonderkommando”, the work units made up of the Nazis’ death camp prisoners.

“It’s a provocation,” he told RFE. “When we checked the sources he used, we found out he used reports of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. It was enough to discuss the issue at expert council and we are happy they supported us.” 

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Germany: In reversal, Düsseldorf will hold exhibition about Jewish dealer

Via The New York Times:

After intense criticism, the mayor of Düsseldorf has backtracked on his last-minute cancellation of an exhibition at the city’s Stadtmuseum about Max Stern, a Jewish art gallery owner who fled Nazi Germany in 1938.

The exhibition, originally due to open in February, will now go ahead in a “more complete and revised form” at a later date, the city said in a statement. Organized by the Stadtmuseum with partner museums in Canada and Israel, it was intended to honor the life and legacy of Mr. Stern, who settled in Montreal, where he once again ran a successful art gallery.

But Mayor Thomas Geisel abruptly scrapped the show in November, citing “current demands for information and restitution in German museums in connection with the Galerie Max Stern.”

His decision drew a barrage of criticism from the Jewish community in Düsseldorf, the World Jewish Congress, the partner museums in Israel and Canada, and the German government. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote to Mr. Geisel asking him to reconsider what he said was a perplexing move with an absurd justification.

The exhibition will now take place in the Stadtmuseum with an additional, yet-to-be-appointed curator and a “scholarly advisory board,” the city said. Mr. Geisel said by telephone that the target date is October 2018. The city also plans an international symposium on Mr. Stern to “offer a forum for research on the subject and to discuss possible forms of communicating and documenting it.” 

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Poland appoints ex-banker with Jewish roots as prime minister

Via Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A politician with Jewish roots who said that both of his aunts were rescued by non-Jews during the Holocaust was appointed the country’s prime minister amid a Cabinet reshuffle.

Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a former bank chairman in the Santander Group, was tapped Thursday to take charge of the Polish government as it gears up for parliamentary elections in 2019, the ruling Law and Justice party announced. He succeeds Beata Maria Szydło, also of the right-wing party, who has served in the post since 2015.

Morawiecki, 49, who was not even a member of Law and Justice two years ago, joined the government as minister for economic development in 2015 before adding the post of finance minister last year.

His Jewish roots were known in Poland. Morawiecki spoke about it in some detail earlier this year at a ceremony at the Warsaw Zoo honoring a former zoo director and his wife, Jan and Antonina Żabiński, who saved hundreds of Jews there, and other rescuers.

“Always at such ceremonies I begin reflecting on my family’s own story,” Morawiecki said. “My aunt Irena was a Jew, she survived the war and as a child of 10. Until she was 16, she stayed with a Polish family who rescued her” with help from a few dozen other non-Jewish Poles who risked their lives to hide her, he said.

Another aunt, named Roma, now lives in Israel, he said. She survived the Holocaust because she escaped eastward, Morawiecki said, presumably to Russian-held territories, while the rest of her family died.

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Germany: Why did Düsseldorf cancel an art show honoring a victim of the Nazis?

Via The New York Times:

The mayor of Düsseldorf is coming under intense fire for canceling an exhibition about the Jewish art dealer Max Stern, who was forced to liquidate his gallery there after the Nazis took power before World War II. 

Critics of the decision to cancel the show, which had been scheduled to open in February at the city’s Stadtmuseum, now include the German culture minister. 

The exhibition, organized by curators in this country and in Canada, had been designed to pay homage to the life and legacy of Mr. Stern, who fled Germany in 1938 and eventually settled in Montreal. But the Düsseldorf city government abruptly canceled the show after three years of preparation, citing “current demands for information and restitution in German museums in connection with the Galerie Max Stern.” 

Mayor Thomas Geisel has not explained his objections in detail, but his concern seemed focused on the listing, as part of the exhibition, of works that Stern’s estate is seeking to recover, some of which are held by German museums. Mr. Geisel said he wants a full, scholarly investigation into the history of these pieces before they are discussed publicly. 

Local Jewish groups and the exhibition’s co-organizers in Israel and Canada voiced dismay at the cancellation. 

“It is a frustrating decision,” said Nissim Tal, the director general of the Haifa Museums in Israel. “We believe that the Max Stern story should not be eliminated.” 

The show, “Max Stern — From Düsseldorf to Montreal,” was to travel to Haifa in September and to the McCord Museum in Montreal in 2019. Instead of the exhibition, the city said it plans to hold an international symposium on Mr. Stern next fall.

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Germany: Karl Lagerfeld says Germany 'cannot kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place"

Via The Daily Mail:

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has sparked outrage by evoking the Holocaust as he attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for opening the country's borders to migrants.

The 84-year-old German said his country 'cannot - even if there are decades between them - kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place'. He added while speaking on a French television show: 'I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said, "The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust"'.

Several hundred people lodged official complaints about Lagerfeld's comments, the French media regulator said Monday after he appeared on the 'Salut les terriens!' (Hello Earthlings!) talkshow on the C8 channel on Saturday.

The veteran Chanel designer, who was born in Hamburg just as Adolf Hitler came to power, had earlier lambasted Merkel for taking more than one million asylum seekers since the migrant crisis of 2015.  

'Merkel had already millions and millions (of immigrants) who are well integrated and who work and all is well... she had no need to take another million to improve her image as the wicked stepmother after the Greek crisis,' said Lagerfeld.

'Suddenly we see the pastor's daughter,' he said in reference to Merkel's father, who was a Protestant minister in the former East Germany.

Lagerfeld, who is rarely afraid of controversy, said he was going to 'say something horrific' before criticising the chancellor for the 'huge error' of accepting so many refugees from war-torn Syria and elsewhere.

'Look at France, the land of human rights, which has taken, I don't know, 10,000 or 20,000,' he added.

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Swiss MP: ‘Jews had a better chance of survival at Auschwitz than pigs in farms'

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Fricker’s alleged belittling of the Holocaust triggered outrage in Switzerland, causing him to resign on Saturday. 

Swiss Green Party MP Jonas Fricker said during a debate over animal protections in the National Council legislative body on Thursday that Jews deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp had a better chance of surviving than pigs sent to industrial livestock farming.

Fricker’s alleged belittling of the Holocaust triggered outrage in Switzerland, causing him to resign on Saturday.

He said on Thursday that “the people who were deported there [Nazi extermination camps] had a chance to survive. The pigs go to a certain death.”

“You know the photographs, the documentary films from Europe that show the unspeakable industry livestock farming – they are transported to a certain death,” Fricker continued, adding that the last time he recalled seeing a documentary about the transport of pigs, photographs of the mass deportation from Schindler’s List came to mind.

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Europe: EU is funding illegal projects in the West Bank

Via European Jewish Press:

The European Union is funding illegal projects by NGOs  in the West Bank. Such structures have been built without the necessary official permits. 

Israel demolished two Arab schools which were illegally constructed with money provided by the European Union. 

On Monday, a kindergarten structure in a Bedouin Arab community in the West Bank  was confiscated. Additionally, a small primary school was demolished. 

Solar panels used to power a third school were also removed. 

Children are due to return to school next Wednesday after the summer holidays. 

In a statement, the EU expressed "strong concern about the recent confiscations of Palestinian school structures undertaken by Israel in Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank."

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Related:
EU demands Israel rebuild illegal Palestinian school structures

German news agency DPA correction: Jerusalem in Israel, not Palestinian Territories

Via Camera:

CAMERA's Israel office yesterday prompted correction of a DPA (Deusche Presse-Agentur) photo caption which erroneously placed Jerusalem, Israel's capital, in the Palestinian territories. As noted yesterday on CAMERA's Snapshots blog, the English caption of the German news agency had stated:

Gilad Grossman, spokesman of the human rights organisation Jesch Din, in Jerusalem, Palestinian Territories, 26 June 2017. 

The Israeli government has approved the first state-sanctioned settlement in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the Oslo peace process. The settlements are widely regarded as illegal under international law. Jesch Din is one of the organisations contesting the move. Photo by: Stefanie J'rkel

The erroneous captions were also distributed on the photo sites of leading news agencies AP and AFP. Following communication from CAMERA staff, DPA editors noted that the misinformation was a translation error, and that the original German was correct. Editors commendably corrected the English captions (see below), which now refer to Jerusalem, Israel. The corrected corrections now appear at AP and AFP.

CAMERA had also notified DPA that a second caption was likewise incorrect. It refers to a future Israeli settlement to be built in "Palestinian territories." The land slated for the future settlement of Amichai is in disputed West Bank land, Area C, not under Palestinian control, and is therefore not part of the "Palestinian territories." The final status of this land is to be determined in negotiations, and has not yet been resolved.

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Europe: Israelis don’t care about being welcomed in Europe and don’t seek European approval

Via The Jerusalem Post (Seth Frantzman):

‘Only when Israelis begin to feel that they are no longer welcomed in Europe as equals because of the occupation will it become the main election issue,” wrote an Israeli professor recently. Another commentator at an Israeli newspaper recently claimed that “no other Western democracy holds millions of foreigners under military rule, no other enlightened nation....” 

This idea that Israel is a “Western” country whose people want to be “welcomed” in Europe is a sub-culture in Israeli society, that was once more dominant in the leadership of the country and imagines that it is the majority today. Uri Avnery, famous Israeli activist whose life has spanned that of the state, wrote in 2015 that “growing numbers of well-educated, talented Israelis will emigrate to the US and Germany, leaving behind the less educated, more primitive, less productive population.” He noted that “almost all my friends have sons and daughters living abroad.” 

The demographic in Israel that sees the country as closely linked to Europe and frets over it becoming less “Western” and less European tend to be the same demographic that speaks of “returning” to Europe. What they have never internalized, and what many commentators on Israel abroad have never understood, is that Israel is not a Western country. It is not a European country. (...)

But the majority of Israelis today don’t care about being welcomed in Europe and don’t seek European approval. They don’t see themselves as primitives begging for acceptance in the halls of Paris or Berlin. They are proud of their society, and they don’t think that they need to beg acceptance from the grandchildren of Nazis. 

At the same time this Israeli rejection of Europe does not end the judgment that Israel is held to “higher standards” because it is seen as a Western democracy. 

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Germany: Don't trust Germany to stay democratic if economy takes a downturn, warns Nazi governor's son

Via The Independent

Hans Frank

"There's still something in the German people which makes me fear them" 

The son of a Nazi governor has spoken of his fears over the possible break-up of the European Union and warned that Germany could return to authoritarianism if its economy hit the skids. 

Niklas Frank, whose father was Hans Frank, the governor of Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War, pointed to the recent hardening in attitudes toward refugees in Germany when he warned: “Don’t trust us”. 

“As long as our economy is great and we make money, everything is very democratic, but if we have five to ten years of heavy economic problems, the swamp is a lake, and is a sea, and will swallow again, everything,” he said.  (...)

Mr Frank made his comments in an interview with the BBC, saying he “despises” his father, who he describes as a “coward” for the atrocities he committed as governor-general of Poland from 1939 to 1945. 

He was directly appointed by Hitler and was involved in the murder of millions of people. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946.  (...) 

He said because of his background, he has always been interested in what turns a society into a dictatorship. And he explained he had “a growing wish” to talk about this because of what he called “the silence in Germany, the families of my friends, everybody was silent and they didn’t talk about the past… “I always wanted to know how a society behaves if it changes to a dictatorship, and always [had] a feeling that Germany is still prepared to do this. “And I found out that still there’s something in the German people which makes me fear them.”

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Holland: Amsterdam residents demand removal of Holocaust memorial plaque

Only a very tiny minority of descendants of Holocaust victims wish their loved ones be remembered by cobblestones.  So far, only 50,000 cobblestones have been laid in 18 countries in Europe.  Six million Jewish perished in the Holocaust.

Via JTA:

City workers dislodged and relocated a postcard-sized memorial plaque from the entrance to the former home in Amsterdam of a Holocaust victim following complaints by residents. 

The plaque — a brass cobblestone bearing the name of Joachim Elte that in 2014 was embedded into the sidewalk of 3 Nicolass Maes Street — was moved to a location “as far away as possible from the door” of the two residents, who have recently sued the city to have the plaque removed altogether, Sebastiaan Capel, the mayor of Amsterdam’s South district told Het Parool daily on Friday. 

The two residents, who were not named, recently filed with a preliminary relief judge a motion for an injunction ordering the memorial cobblestone’s removal because Capel has ignored their demands that it be removed from aywhere in front of their residence, the daily reported. 

In their motion, the two residents said they found it too confrontational to have to constantly be reminded, because of the memorial cobblestone, of the deportation and murder of Elte, a 51-year-old accountant who died at a Nazi concentration camp in 1945. They also argued it “compromises the atmosphere” of their upscale neighborhood and their privacy and that of their children because it attracts onlookers. 

The judge who reviewed the motion did not issue an injunction but ruled it merits judicial review by an administrational court.

Amsterdam has 400 memorial cobblestones, which have been placed in front of the former homes of Holocaust victims as part of a commemoration project that a German artist began in Berlin in 1996. To date, more than 50,000 of the cobblestones have been laid in 18 countries in Europe. 

The district in which the complainants live does not require the consent of residents for the installation of memorial cobblestones. 

The City of Amsterdam has received two complaints in the past over memorial cobblestones: One by a Holocaust survivor who said it brought back bad memories and another by a hotel whose owners said it is bad for business. Following the survivor’s request, the cobblestone was moved elsewhere on the same street. The second objection was ignored, Paul de Haan, a municipal worker whose responsibilities include issuing permits for memorial cobblestones, told Het Parool.

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France: For 83% of the French judaism is compatible with the values of France

A survey carried out by Ipsos and published this month reveals that 83% of the French people view Judaism as being compatible with the values of French society, with only 17% believing it is not.

Catholicism comes top with 93% positive views.  Only 39% of the French view Islam as compatible with French values - a massive 61% think it is not.

Norway: Amid growing concerns about antisemitism, learning about Judaism is taken off school curriculum and replaced with Islam

Via Norway, Israel and the Jews:

The Norwegian Government prides itself on being one of the first nations to have an action plan against antisemitism in Norway. A central strategy to rid us of this scourge is to have more education about Judaism and antisemitism in school, as well as dedicating more funds towards research on the subjects. It is therefore highly ironic that the national syllabus on Religious Education in secondary school does not mention Judaism even in an parenthesis.

lifted from utrop.no (google translate) 

Judaism made invisible in school textbooks  

Judaism’s space in textbooks has become as small as the period before the 1970s. With growing anti-Semitism in society, this is unfortunate, according to a researcher.  

Ouarda Jannaouni (06.02.2017)  

Christianity and Islam have very large place in the textbooks, which makes Judaism a little dot in relation to the other religions, says Suzanne Thobro.
Thobro (36) is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø (UiT). She has researched books on religion course for high school and have seen the development right from 1935 and until today.  

She says it’s striking that Judaism’s space in textbooks has become increasingly smaller, and she considers it a setback for Judaism’s place in the study of religion.

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France: 230,000 French Jews live in Israel

Via i24news:

An estimated 230,000 French Jews live in Israel, while around 200,00 more, (phrase uncomplete)

In 2012, the total French Jewish population in Israel was estimated at 200,000.

Connected:
- Europe: Jewish population figures are a shadow of what they used to be prior to the Holocaust
- Europe: Sharp decline of Jewish population in Europe 
- Europe: 600,000 Jews have left Europe in last 25 years

Poland: President Duda says Jews are safer in Poland than in Western Europe, denies responsibility for Holocaust crimes

Read also Professor Deborah Lipstadt's article on the subject of Poland v. German antisemitism: An enduring myth: "The Poles were worse than the Nazis"

Via European Jewish Press:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and his wife, Sara, host Polish President Andrzej Duda (second from right) and his wife, Agata Kornhauser, at the president's residence in Jerusalem. Picture from GPO

Jews are safer in Poland than in Western Europe. Unlike in France or other parts of Western Europe, Jews can freely walk around openly wearing religious garb, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Thursday in Jerusalem where he was on a state visit to Israel. 

He spoke at a forum in Jerusalem jointly organized by the Israel Council on Foreign Relations (ICFR), which operates under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress, and the Polish Institute of International Affairs. 

Duda said: “I say it loud and clear here and in Poland: We also have painful memories but it was not we who invaded Poland in 1939, it was not we who planned the Holocaust, and it was not we who built the death camps on our own territory.” At the same time, Duda denied his country’s collective guilt for the atrocities of the Holocaust, saying Poles also suffered under the Nazi regime. 

Asked by ICFR Board member and distinguished Israeli scholar Shlomo Avineri whether Poland was not resorting to legislative measures to stifle academic discourse, particularly where research on Poland's wartime history was concerned, the president answered: 

"Historical truth is as it is. It is not always pleasant, and that is true for the Polish nation as well."We do not want to prosecute those who are conducting scholarly research but rather those who, in the wider world, promulgate lies defaming my country, my compatriots and me," he added, referring to a bill currently under discussion in Poland. He said no final decision about the law had been taken yet. 

President Duda defended recently passed legislation that criminalizes the use of the phrase “Polish death camps” in reference to Nazi extermination camps in occupied Poland. He said the world should not refer to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór or Chełmno as Polish concentration camps. 

“They were not Polish camps. This absurd name refers only to geography,” he said. 

“How would you feel if a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv was called ‘an Israeli attack’? How would the Japanese feel if the Hiroshima atomic bomb was referred to as ‘a Japanese nuclear attack’? It is a historical distortion.”

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France: Jewish presidential candidate compares Nazi persecurion of Jews and current situation of Muslim

Trivializing the Holocaust for electoral purposes...  and in so doing Mr Peillon insulted the French people by suggesting that Muslims are being treated like the Vichy régime treated Jews.  Mr Peillon publicized the fact that he is Jewish when he signed an anti-Israel petition put out by the JCALL group (European Jewish Call for Reason (now more or less moribund)), the European counterpart of the US J Street, together with other Jewish lefties like Bernard Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut.

Via EJP:

CRIF, the representative body of French Jews, has denounced a comparison made by a presidential candidate, Vincent Peillon, between the Nazi persecution of Jews and the present situation of Muslims in France. 

Peillon, who is running in the Socialist Party primaries ahead of the May presidential election, made the comparison in an interview with France 2 television channel. 

A former (education) minister and a member of the European Parliament who has Jewish origins, he was commenting on a question about France’s strict separation between state and religion, known in France as “laicite” (secularity). “If some want to use laicite, as has been done in the past, against certain populations … Forty years ago it was the Jews who put on yellow stars. Today, some of our Muslim countrymen are often portrayed as radical Islamists. It is intolerable.” 

In a statement Wednesday, CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, accused Peillon of making “statements that only serve those trying to rewrite history,’’ as the group demanded “clarification and immediate correction’’ on his part. “The history concerning the deportation of more than 75,000 Jews from France to concentration camps and death and the looting of their property as well as discriminatory laws such as the one about wearing yellow stars, should not be instrumentalized to create a false equivalence of suffering,” it said. 

Peillon neither retracted his remark nor apologized in a statement published Wednesday on his website, but said he would wanted to elaborate on what he meant in light of the controversy it provoked and to “refine my view, which may have been misrepresented because of brevity.”

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Vincent Peillon's remarks were much criticized, among others, by Régis de Castelnau @ Causeur and Benoît Rayski @ Atlantico.

Germany indicts alleged Iranian spy accused of targeting Israel group

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Iran has a vast espionage infrastructure in Germany that coordinates with its embassy in Berlin.

The federal prosecutor in Germany announced on Monday the indictment of a Pakistani man allegedly commissioned by Iran’s regime to spy on the head of the German-Israel friendship society, as well as economic entities.  

The indictment of the 31-year-old citizen of Pakistan, Syed Mustufa H, said he is suspected of intelligence activity from July 2015 to July 2016 on behalf of Iran's regime. The federal prosecutor alleged that Syed Mustufa H spied on "institutions and persons."

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