Germany: Why are Germans so quick to remove Israeli flags?

Benjamin Weinthal writes @ The Jerusalem Post:

The police removal of an Israeli flag unfurled at a soccer match in Berlin last week to preempt Palestinian anger is part of a longstanding practice of shunning the Jewish state’s flag in Germany.

The pattern typically unfolds in three acts.  Act 1 involves German Muslims and leftists protesting against Israel for defending its territory against Hamas rocket attacks or other self-defense measures to blunt Islamic terrorism. Act 2 unfolds with the police seizing Israeli flags at solidarity protests to placate anti-Israeli activists. Act 3 results in the authorities issuing an apology for outlawing Israel’s flag from demonstrations.

[...] According to a 2009 article in the Frankfurter Rundschau, Thilo Henke, a spokesman for the group Antifacism-AG Mainz, the police “view only the Israel solidarity people as the problem.”

The complaint that the authorities align themselves with anti-Israel activists weaves itself through the scores of examples where there is a crackdown on Israeli flags. Anti-Israel bias is not happening in a vacuum.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the head of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, told The Jerusalem Post, “The campaign to make the Israeli flag disappear from public events in Germany is another stage in the demonization of the Jewish state. With many nongovernmental organizations, including those receiving government money, as well as powerful church groups such as Misereor, spreading anti-Israel propaganda through false claims of war crimes, the hate and intolerance of Israel in Germany, particularly among the Muslim population, is growing.” [...] 

Steinberg said, “A few days ago, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung held a public event in Berlin on Israel, in which they promised ‘critical solidarity.’ The critical dimension, not only for this organization, but many other German groups, is clear, but the solidarity exists only in words. The Israeli flag issue is an obvious example – the German mainstream political groups that promote values such as democracy and freedom of speech, and oppose antisemitism, only take the easy cases. Instead of silence, all of the Stiftungen, which have major operations in Israel, should unite and oppose this trend of demonizing Israel.”

Dr. Charles Asher Small, the director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, told the Post that it is “shocking that Germans have not learned from their history. They need to confront it.”  More.