Hungarian leaders say they keep Jews safe by keeping out Muslim immigrants

Via Times of Israel:

At a conference about anti-Semitism in Europe, senior Hungarian officials said the absence of violence against Jews in their country owed to its refusal to admit Muslim immigrants.

The assertion, which at least one Jewish expert on anti-Semitism disputed, came amid criticism of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government by other European leaders of his immigration policy, and a dispute between the Hungarian leader and some Jewish community leaders who accuse Orban of encouraging or tolerating anti-Semitic rhetoric.

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Whereas other European countries have seen jihadist terrorist attacks against Jews and others in recent years, “Hungary has been consistently able to protect its citizens and residents, its borders and its fundamental elements of statehood from mass immigration and international terrorism,” Minister of State for Security Policy István Mikola said Wednesday at an event in Budapest titled “Are Europe’s Jews Safe?” and organized by the Hungarian Jewry’s watchdog on anti-Semitism, the Action and Protection Foundation.

Csaba Latorkai, deputy state secretary for priority social affairs, noted the 2015 killing of a Jewish security guard in Denmark by an Islamist along with other attacks, including the murder of 137 people in Paris by other Islamists later that year.

“Taking security and administrative measures to prevent such acts, the Hungarian government acted, and so in the autumn of 2015 it decided to set up a border fence, introduced a legal closing of borders,” Latorkai said in his speech, adding it was “in order to protect citizens and make Hungary one of the most secure places in world. No one should be afraid that there may be attacks on our streets.”

(...)

The chairman of the Action and Protection Foundation, Daniel Bodnar, said at the conference that while ant-Semitic violence remains extremely rare in Hungary, the country has seen anti-Semitic rhetoric proliferating over the past decade, notably through the far-right Jobbik party and its affiliated media.

In 2016 and 2015, his foundation recorded 23 and 53 incidents in Hungary, which has approximately 100,000 Jews, with no physical assaults of individuals. It has initiated dozens of criminal cases since its establishment in 2012.

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Germany: Jews stop wearing Kippot due to Muslim attacks

Via Jerusalem Post:

Members of the small Jewish community in the West German city of Bochum announced that they will no longer wear kippot because of attacks on them by Muslim youths.

(...)

The news outlet Radio Bochum first reported that a representative of the community said members will stop wearing kippot in public because they are routinely faced with insults on public streets when they are recognized as Jews.

“Muslim youths attacked people of the Jewish faith,” the segment said.

Bochum is an industrial city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a population of nearly 365,000. Bochum’s Jewish community, which includes the towns of Herne and Hattingen, numbers over 1,000.

(...)

Bochum has been a hotspot for anti-Israel hatred. In 2014, some 120 activists marched to Bochum’s city hall chanting “Israel, child murderers” and “Allahu Akbar.” The anti-Israel demonstrators protested Israel’s war to stop the Islamic organization Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israeli territory. 

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Italy bars Palestinian terrorist and BDS advocate Leila Khaled

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Convicted Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled was barred from entering Italy on Wednesday on the grounds that she lacked a valid visa.

Olga Deutsch, Europe Desk director at the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday: "We applaud Italy's decision to deny entry to infamous terrorist Leila Khaled at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, the same place from which she once hijacked an airliner.  As a research institute, NGO Monitor documented Khaled's September 2017 speech at the European Parliament and alerted senior EU officials. We have long warned European governments that they have been funding radical, politicized NGOs, including those linked to the PFLP terror group and which were involved with Khaled's event."

She added, "We hope that Italy's move, coming on the heels of European Parliament President Tajani's decision to bar terror-linked individuals and organizations from EU premises, signals a new awareness among European leadership, and that it leads European Institutions and governments to reexamine policies that fund such NGOs".

Khaled, a member of the US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has conducted speaking tours across Europe over the years to promote the abolition of Israel and the spread of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

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UK: Pensioner sentenced over anti-Semitic slogans

Via Jewish News:

A 68-year-old pensioner from Altrincham has been sentenced for carrying out a spray-paint graffiti campaign which saw him scrawl slogans which included “BDS”, “Gaza Bleeds” and “ZioNazis”.

Timothy Rustige pleaded guilty to eight counts of criminal damage, which were carried out between September 2016 and August 2017, and saw the messages written on the River Bollin Aqueduct in Dunham Massey. 

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Germany: MP accused of making anti-Semitic, racist videos for far-right group

Via Politico:

A senior member of the Alternative for Germany party is accused of having produced anti-Semitic and racist videos for a radical far-right group.

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Peter Felser, a member of the Bundestag and one of the AfD’s parliamentary party deputies, is an owner of a production company called wk&f Kommunikation which, from 2001 to 2003, made campaign films for the extreme-right Republikaner (Republicans) party.

The Republikaner party has in the past been monitored by German intelligence services because of extreme views, FAZ reported.

The videos produced by Felser’s firm were banned. A German court found that one of the video clips was “endorsing, denying or downplaying the Holocaust,” Spiegel reported.

Felser told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he regretted the films, and agreed that “indeed, they could be understood as a denial of the Holocaust.”

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Russia: Bishop caims that Jews killed Czar in ritual murder

Via Haaretz:

Russia’s largest Jewish organization protested a local bishop’s claim, repeated by a justice ministry official, that the country’s last czar was murdered by Jews for ritual purposes.

Marina Molodtsova, a senior investigator for a special ministerial committee on the 1917 killing of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, said on Monday during a conference in Moscow that her committee will conduct “a psycho-historical examination” to find out whether the execution of the royal family was a ritual murder, the state-run Ria Novosti news agency reported.

At the same event, Father Tikhon Shevkunov, a Russian Orthodox Church bishop, said that, according to “the most rigorous approach to the version of ritual murder, a significant part of the church commission [on Nicholas II’s killing during the Russian revolution of 1917] has no doubt that this murder was ritual.”

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Europe: Historically, labelling Jews as such has significant, overwhelming and unambiguously anti-semitic cultural meaning

This comment (screen shot) was left @ Politico following an article about "the decision to label settlement goods" which "causes friction within the bloc and strains ties with a staunch ally".  

Clockmed: "We should exterminate all Jews everywhere"

Reader Sebastian makes some interesting points on the comments section.  They are worth noting:

After all, Israel’s arguments that it is being singled out for labelling solely because it is Jewish. This is exacerbated by the fact that historically, labelling Jews as such has significant, overwhelming and unambiguously anti-semitic cultural meaning from the perspective of virtually all Jews.

Personally, I would be happy if all occupied territories around the world were labelled as such, but the fact that the EU is “technically” now in a situation of apartheid by treating the Israeli people as second class citizens under the law, it is impossible for me to ever see this anger by Israel going away.

The EU seems to be calculating that they will take a bit of flack from Israel and things will get back to normal. I think they have massively massively underestimated the cultural significance and outright seriousness of their actions. I can’t see Israelis or any government they elect ever letting this one go.

Posted on 1/4/16 | 4:03 PM CET

The only difference is that neither Morroco nor Turkey are Jewish states and the Turks and Moroccans affected are not Jewish. That and that alone (directly or indirectly) is why Morroco and Turkey have never been threatened with labelling. You want more examples world wide. I believe there are about 200 of them.

Posted on 1/5/16 | 3:41 PM CET

Israel signed an FTA with the EU that makes a clear distinction between Israel and Israeli-occupied territories. Nobody forced it to. That is why Cyprus and the Sahara are totally irrelevant in this context. Turkey and Morocco are not violating the obligations they voluntarily undertook viz. the EU. Israel is.”

Livni did it because she was forced too. The EU has never attempted to force such terms on Morrocco or Turkey or China or anybody else exploiting disputed or occupied territories. [...] 

The difference now is that this discrimination has entered into EU law as it is actually implemented in practice, which now means the EU is technically in a state of apartheid.

Posted on 1/6/16 | 11:05 AM CET

Sadly someone left this comment:

German schoolbook publisher apologizes for anti-Semitic illustration

Via JTA:

A schoolbook publisher has apologized for using an anti-Semitic illustration in a text about the euro crisis and said it will send a substitute page to schools.

On Thursday, Berlin-based Klett-Verlag also said it was halting all further deliveries of the book, calling the error “serious.” The substitute page can be pasted in.

The book will not be removed from German schools’ bookshelves.

Klett-Verlag told Vice magazine blogger Philipp Frohn that the “regrettable mistake” would be corrected in a future edition, which will not come out for several years.

At issue is an image in the firm’s textbook about politics, called “Impulses 2.” It depicts the euro as a Pacman-like chomping mouth about to devour Europe superimposed over a symbol with the words “Rothschild Bank.”

The notion that the Jewish banking family is controlling the world for its own selfish purposes “is a classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that the Nazis made good use of,” Frohn wrote.

“The message to pupils … is clear: The driving force behind the whole nasty affair is a bank. A Jewish bank,” he added.

The book credits the notorious American illustrator David Dees, whose work the New York-based Anti-Defamation League called “anti-Semitic and conspiratorial” in a 2008 report. The ADL noted that Dees, on his own website, said he hoped his images would “wake others up about the onslaught of the elite’s power hungry world government plan of domination.”

His current illustrations include portrayals of Hillary Clinton as a zombie; Donald Trump chained around the neck by a golden fob bearing the words “The Fed” and a Star of David; and work suggesting that mass shootings in schools are a Jewish conspiracy against the NRA.

Frohn said the publisher reacted with surprise to his questions about how Dees’ illustration ended up in the textbook, which has been used in schools across Germany since 2012. The publisher responded after “internal discussions” to say that “the use of this caricature is in fact a regrettable mistake,” and promising to remove the image from its online version of the chapter “as soon as possible.” But it could take years before a new edition is published, a spokesperson added.

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Spain: First travelling Auschwitz exhibition hit by anti-Semitic hate campaign

Via Daily Telegraph:

Organisers of the first major off-site exhibition of objects and artefacts from Auschwitz have been targeted by virulent social media attacks leading up to the world premiere opening of the display in Madrid on December 1.

“People use the anonymity of social media to launch negationist and hate-filled messages. This shows us that there are still people who need to know this story,” Luis Ferreiro, the director of Spanish company Musealia, told the Daily Telegraph.

More than 100 messages have been reported to the Spanish authorities, including messages denying the Holocaust.

The exhibition features more than 600 objects from Auschwitz, including one of the freight wagons used to carry prisoners to the camp.

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Europe: 60 MEPs urge Federica Mogherini to marginalize financially and politically anti-Israel groups like BDS

This initiative comes shortly after, the European Parliament decided that terrorists like Leila Khaled would not be granted further access to the Parliament.

Via European Jewish Press:

In a letter, the cross party group of 60 [out of 751, less than 10 per cent, full list below] Members of the European Parliament urged Federica Mogherini to marginalize, both financially and politically organizations such as BDS that are increasingly becoming a virulent source in the spread of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism under the pretense of exercising freedom of speech and association. 

The move is spearheaded by representatives of the four major political groups, MEP Cristian Dan Preda, MEP Ioan Mircea Pascu (S&D, Romania) and a Vice-President of the  European Parliament, MEP Petras Austrevicius (ALDE, Lithuania), MEP Arne Gericke (ECR, Germany). 

It “calls upon ensuring that no public funds go to organizations calling for a boycott of the State of Israel, and to instruct agencies not to engage with companies, organizations or other entities involved with the BDS movement”. 

MEP Cristian Dan Preda, foreign affairs coordinator for the largest political group, the European People’s Party, and co-initiator of the letter underlined  his party’s  opposition to calls for the suspension of the bilateral agreements with Israel  as some of his extreme left wing colleagues echo directly from the BDS playbook.   “It’s in the interest of this House, and of our citizens, to see an upgrade in the partnership agreement with Israel. We should not allow the current stalemate in the peace process to dictate the terms of our relationship with Israel.” 

Swedish MEP and President of Europe Israel Public Affairs (EIPA) political Board Lars Adaktusson - a co- signatory - underlined that “the Union, and the Parliament, is in danger of being deemed irrelevant as a peace broker if it fails to address the incitement on its own soil against Israel.”  

Vice President of the European Parliament, Ioan Mircea Pascu indicated that boycotting strategic ties with Israel, a leader in the international intelligence and defence community, may prove counterproductive to the common security interests of both, EU and Israel. 

The 60 signatories, among which are Chair of Security and Defence, MEP Anna Fotyga (ECR, Poland), Vice-Preident Pavel Telicka (ALDE, Czech Republic), Dietmar Koster (S&D, Germany), Vice-Chair of Human Rights Beatriz Becerra (ALDE, Spain) urged their Foreign Affairs chief to “address the incitement to hatred and violence and discriminatory practice of calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel.”

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MEPs who signed the letter:
MEP Cristian Preda
MEP Ioan Mircea Pascu
MEP Lars Adaktusson
MEP Arne Gericke
MEP Petras Auštrevičius
MEP Fulvio Martusciello
MEP Niedermüller Péter
MEP Marijana Petir
MEP Ramon Tremosa Balcells
MEP Maria Grapini 
MEP Traian Ungureanu
MEP Beatriz Becerra
MEP Alojz Peterle
MEP Antonio López-Istúriz White
MEP Inese Vaidere
MEP Milan Zver
MEP Anna Fotyga - Biuro Poselskie
MEP Renate Weber
MEP Frédérique Ries
MEP Geoffrey Van Orden
MEP Ramona Manescu
MEP Hannu Takkula
MEP Tunne Kelam MEP
MEP Daciana Sârbu
MEP John Flack MEP
MEP Miltos Kyrkos
MEP Julia Pitera
MEP Artis Pabriks
MEP Iuliu Winkler
MEP Adina Ioana VALEAN
MEP Dietmar Köster
MEP Olga Sehnalová, oficiální stránka
MEP Anna Zaborska
MEP Christofer Fjellner 
MEP Heinz K. Becker
MEP Jan Zahradil - oficiální stránka lídra ODS pro volby do EP
MEP Patricia Lalonde
MEP Alberto Cirio
MEP José Inácio Faria
MEP Miroslav Mikolášik
MEP Elisabetta Gardini
MEP Salvo Pogliese
MEP Alessandra Mussolini
MEP BARBARA MATERA
MEP Massimiliano Salini
MEP Gunnar Hökmark
MEP Branislav Škripek
MEP Rupert Matthews MEP
MEP Stefano Maullu
MEP Aldo Patriciello
MEP Светослав Малинов / Svetoslav Malinov
MEP Pavel Telička
MEP Iveta Grigule
MEP Charles Goerens
MEP Laima Andrikienė
MEP György Hölvényi
MEP Monika Beňová
MEP Esteban González Pons
MEP Viorica Dancila
MEP Andi Cristea
Source: EIPA (Europe Israel Public Affairs) here and here

Poland: 'Entry forbidden to Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland,' reads sign at the entrance of guesthouse

Via European Jewish Press:

The World Jewish Congress says it was ‘’deeply disturbed and disappointed’’ by the Polish government’s apparent failure to intervene to remove a flagrantly anti-Semitic banner at the entrance to a guest house near the western city of Wroclaw, and to prosecute those responsible for posting it.

Against a red and white backdrop that are the colors of the Polish flag, the sign at the Dom Polski guest house in Cesarzowice declares "Entry forbidden to Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland."

WJC CEO Robert Singer said that the sign “conjures up memories of ghetto benches and other chilling manifestations of anti-Semitism in Poland in the late 1930s. Given Poland’s history, we would have expected the authorities to act forcefully and swiftly to put a stop to such activity, which is illegal and utterly contravenes the democratic norms Warsaw is committed to upholding.”

According to press reports, the guest house belongs to Piotr Rybak, who is known for a number of anti-Semitic actions including the burning of a Jew in effigy on the main market square in Wroclaw (for which he was sentenced to a jail term) and for publicly insulting first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda for her Jewish origins.

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Sweden: Antisemitism in Malmö leads to shrinking Jewish community

Via Arutz Sheva 7 (Manfred Gertenfeld):

The third-largest Swedish town Malmö is considered by many experts to be the capital of contemporary European anti-Semitism. A few of the many aspects that justify this characterization are exposed in part of a new German documentary titled “The eternal anti-Semite – the story of an unrequited love.” It was shown very early this morning –- on the occasion of the anniversary of Kristallnacht -- on Bavarian TV.

The film follows the German Jewish author, Henryk Broder, who travels in Germany, France and Sweden. He is often accompanied by Hamad abdel Samad, an Egyptian writer living in Germany. Several Egyptian Muslim theologians have issued a fatwa that abdel Samad must killed for heresy. In the film he is seen with police bodyguards. 

Before Broder and Abdel Samad came to Malmö they made appointments with the head of the police and the mayor, but those were cancelled at the last minute. They met the town’s American rabbi, Shneur Kesselman. He tells them that the shrinking community had to put bullet proof windows in the synagogue. Even that did not help. A bomb went off in front of the synagogue and another bomb was thrown into the chapel of the Jewish cemetery and totally destroyed it. 

The rabbi, who belongs to the Chabad movement, says that he is regularly harassed when walking on the street. From passing cars people may shout insults at him such as “Death to the Jews.” Objects thrown at him include an apple, a lighter, a glass and a bottle. Kesselman arrived in  Malmö twelve years ago. He says that if he had known the reality for Jews in the town he would not have come, but now he will not leave out of loyalty toward the shrinking Jewish community. 

Kesselman expects many children of community members to leave Malmö. A few weeks ago, long after the movie was completed, stones again shattered the synagogue’s windows. On that occasion a former chairman of the Jewish community told the press that most incidents are perpetrated by Muslims or Arabs. 

A Jewish teacher at a public elementary school in a problematic neighborhood in Malmö is also interviewed. He speaks about shootings in the neighborhood, sometimes with lethal consequences. Children from other classes sometimes open the class doors and shout anti-Semitic insults at him. An eleven year old yelled Heil Hitler. The school’s management does not want to publicize the anti-Semitic incidents saying: “they are only children.” 

Before driving through a Malmö neighborhood with a large number of migrants, the police warns the filmmakers that they should not leave the car or even stop. This translates into plain English as: “This is a Muslim ghetto where the police have lost control.”

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Germany: TV pulls the plug on Roger Waters concert due to antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

The German public television outlet WDR canceled its slated cooperation concert with the former Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters on Saturday because of a wave of protest against the singer’s anti-Jewish views.

Malca Goldstein-Wolf launched a petition campaign to prevent WDR from using taxpayer money to fund a “Jew-hater.”

She said the chairman of the Cologne-based TV outlet Tom Buhrow is allowing the spread of antisemitism by televising Waters, who is an energetic supporter of the BDS campaign, which targets Israel and has used antisemitic imagery at his concerts.

Buhrow responded in a Facebook post to Goldstein-Wolf on Saturday, writing “I sense that not many words and arguments will convince you, rather only clear action. The cooperation with the concert was ended.”

Goldstein-Wolf’s online petition titled “No support for the antisemite Roger Walters with public funds of the WDR” garnered nearly 1,400 signatures.

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German state exhorts gov't to ban Kuwait Airlines over Israel discrimination

Via i24NEWS:

The parliament of the central German state Hesse unanimously passed a resolution on Friday calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel and the federal government to stop Kuwait Airways from operating in Germany due to the airline's ban on Israeli passengers. 

As Kuwait does not recognize Israel, its law prohibits companies from doing business with Israelis. 

“Such legislation is contrary to the principles of an open society and is not only an ‘anti-Israeli’ policy, but also a clearly anti-Semitic one,” the resolution read. 

The issue has come to light as a German court recently upheld Kuwait Airways' right to refuse to carry Israelis aboard its flights. The case involved an Israeli student living in Frankfurt who sued the airline for canceling his ticket due to his nationality. 

Christian Democratic Union parliamentary leader Michael Boddenberg called the resolution “a clear signal against anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli policy,” according to the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

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France: Veiled woman, accomplices assault Jewish mother and son at supermarket

Via JTA:

A veiled woman in a supermarket near Toulouse assaulted with two younger women a Jewish woman and her teenage son, a watchdog on anti-Semitism said. 

The incident occurred in Carcassonne, a town situated 55 miles southeast of Toulouse, on Tuesday, the National Bureau for Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, reported Friday. The watchdog characterized the incident as an anti-Semitic assault. The alleged perpetrators — which BNVCA wrote may have been a mother and her daughters — saw the victim, a woman in her 40s, is Jewish because she was wearing a Star of David pendant, the group wrote in an incident report. 

The alleged perpetrators deliberately rammed their shopping cart into that of the Jewish mother and her son. The veiled woman and the two younger women accompanying her all slapped the Jewish woman and her son, said BNVCA, which named neither the alleged perpetrators nor the alleged victims in the incident. No one was injured in the incident.

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UK: Nick Cave's ire at Roger Waters re BDS

Via Spiked (Brendan O'Neill):

Not content with being the coolest man in rock, now Nick Cave wants to be the most principled, too. The Aussie rocker, of Bad Seeds legend, has said he is performing in Israel this week not only in spite of the BDS movement, but because of it. Yes, it is precisely because self-righteous Israel-bashers in the worlds of art and entertainment are forever imploring the likes of Cave not to set foot in the apparently uniquely wicked nation of Israel that he is determined to do just that. As one headline put it: ‘Nick Cave: BDS is the reason for my trip to Israel.’ Now that’s what I call rock’n’roll spirit. (...)

At a press conference bigging up the rock god’s arrival in the Holy Land, he said: ‘I like Israel and Israelis.’ That’s a borderline revolutionary statement these days, when hating Israel stands alongside crying over Brexit and fearing the Daily Mail as a baseline requirement for entry into the closed, strange world of the chattering class.
Yet while Cave might like Israelis, he doesn’t like censorious campaigns telling musicians which nations — and more importantly which peoples — they may perform for. He describes the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) pressure on singers and bands to dodge the Jewish State as an attempt to ‘shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians, and to silence musicians’. And so he decided to take ‘a principled stand’. ‘You could say, in a way, that BDS made me play Israel’, he brilliantly quipped. This might be the first time Israelis should be grateful to BDS: it has brought them Mr Cave and his Bad Seeds.

Cave saved much of his ire for Roger Waters, prog-rock dullard turned fumer against Israel. It was Waters and his Artists for Palestine who wrote an open letter to Cave last month imploring him to call off his Tel Aviv dates. Hilariously, the letter — also signed by Ken Loach, John Pilger, Mike Leigh, Judith Butler and other luminaries of the Israel-fearing dinner-party set — threw Chomsky in Cave’s face: ‘Noam Chomsky has recently said he’s opposed to any appearance in Israel that is used to cover up the denial of Palestinian human rights. We hope you will agree with him.’ Cave doesn’t agree with him! Blasphemy, I know. ‘Stand for freedom’, the letter contradictorily implored — it’s a funny freedom that wants to deprive one nation and one nation only of the right to enjoy the art and ideas of outsiders — and Cave has stood for freedom. He has stood for his freedom to perform in Israel and the freedom of Israelis to hear him. Cave said musicians shouldn’t have to suffer this ‘public humiliation from Roger Waters and Co’ every time they flirt with the idea of performing in Israel.

Cave’s defiance of the increasingly nasty cultural pressure to avoid Israel — and Israelis — should be cheered. For however much the BDS lot try to present their erection of a censorious moral force field between Israel and the rest of the world as a progressive campaign, on a par with artists’ refusal to play in South Africa during Apartheid (the impact of which has always been vastly overstated by self-loving cultural types in the West), in truth BDS is a species of bigotry.

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Spain: Ex Attorney General insinuates Israel/Argentine Jews killed his successor

Via The Algemeiner:

A prominent US-based Jewish human rights group has expressed outrage over an ex-Spanish official’s insinuation that Jews might have been responsible for the recent death of his country’s attorney general, José Manuel Maza, during a trip to Buenos Aires. 

The 66-year-old Maza passed away on Saturday after being taken to a hospital in the Argentine capital with a kidney infection. He was in Buenos Aires to attend an international law conference. 

Maza had been leading the prosecution of 20 Catalan politicians following the recent independence referendum in the autonomous region of northeastern Spain. 

In an Alerta Digital interview published on Monday, a predecessor of Maza in the attorney general position, Ramiro Grau, stated, “If we join the interest of some states for Catalonia to be constituted as a new country, for example Israel — as much as its president has said otherwise — and the existence of a large colony of Jews in Argentina, there are those who claim that the real controllers are the Jews, it would not be a bad idea to do an autopsy to check and verify the real causes of his death.”

Dr. Shimon Samuels — the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations — characterized Grau’s comment as “an extreme example of obsessive antisemitism” and called on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy “to condemn Grau and take measures to strip him of his honors and state pension as the price for his hatemongering.” 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Latin American representative, Dr. Ariel Gelblung, alerted the Argentine delegation to the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino) to the matter, and stated, “Grau had endangered the country´s Jewish community and thereby maligned Argentina.”

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Germany: “Antisemitism has been a massive problem in public schools for over 10 years"

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal): 

Germany’s largest regional Jewish community, in Berlin, condemned the Education and Science Workers’ Union (GEW) for disproportionately targeting Jewish schools for strike activity and failing to rope in antisemitism in Berlin’s school system. 

“In the last four years, the GEW has called six times for strikes at Jewish schools of the Jewish community.

No other private school has received so much attention from the labor union,” Ilan Kiesling, the spokesman for the over 10,000-members of the Berlin Jewish community, told The Jerusalem Post. Kiesling asked, why is the teachers union fixated on the community executive board even after a 12-year standstill raised the salaries of teachers? Likewise, Sigmount A. Königsberg, the Berlin Jewish community’s commissioner on antisemitism, told the Post, “Antisemitism has been a massive problem in public schools for over 10 years... Dozens of Jewish students have left public schools because of antisemitic harassment and were taken in by schools of the Jewish community in Berlin. Over all of the years, the Jewish community has not heard the sound of protests from the GEW [regarding antisemitism in the schools].” 

Königsberg said he would look forward to the teachers’ union bringing the same protest activity toward the outbreaks of Jew-hatred in public schools in Berlin. 

The labor dispute has sharpened into a civil society debate over whether the left-leaning GEW, with a Nazi past, has ignored Muslim and other forms of antisemitism in the school system, including one of its member unions supporting a full boycott of the Jewish state. (...)

A Post email query to the federal president of Germany’s teachers’ union, Marlis Tepe, was not returned.

Königsberg said the time is ripe for "the GEW to clearly distance itself from its first federal chairman Max Traeger because of his involvement in the National Socialist Teachers League, especially in connection with the confiscation of [Jewish property] still in use by the GEW in Hamburg."  

Kiesling asked, "Which support do teachers receive from the GEW who can't--or without fear-- teach topics at their schools like the Shoah and the Middle East?" He noted a study that showed that 40% of students over the age of 14 do not understand the meaning of Auschwitz. Kiesling asked, "where is the outrage from the teachers union?"

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France: Shops tagged with "Jew" inscription in Marseilles (update)

Update: Le Figaro reports that a young Jew is the author of the tags.  When he realised that his action had caused considerable pain and recriminations, the young men went to the police and explained that "Jew" was just his signature and that no harm had been intended.

Via La Provence:

Last weekend, several shops and garage doors were tagged with the word "Jew" in the center of the city of Marseilles.  They were not targeted at random - the perpetrators targeted property belonging to or occupied by Jews.

Germany: Heinrich Boell Foundation withdraws from conference featuring Hamas member

Via NGO Monitor:

On November 17, 2017, the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon exposed that the Ramallah office of the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (HBS) –  a German government funded political foundation affiliated with the German Green Party – was co-sponsoring a conference, “The 1987 Intifada: History and Memory,” in commemoration of “the thirtieth Anniversary of the First Palestinian Uprising against the Israeli Occupation.” The conference, scheduled to be held in Gaza on November 24-26 and in Beirut on November 28-30, will feature speakers that are former or current members of the Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organizations.

One speaker, Hasan Yusuf, is a “Leader in the Hamas movement in the West Bank” (emphasis added) and was “arrested for several years by the Israeli occupation authorities.” Other speakers include Younis Aljaro, “a former leader in the Palestinian (sic) Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP]… and Chairman of Board of Directors of [Al-Dameer] Human Rights Association in Gaza” (emphasis added).

The PFLP, from which Aljaro reportedly resigned in 2013 “for reasons that were unclear,” is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.

NGO Monitor provided Makor Rishon with details on HBS’ funding and activities. As stated by Olga Deutsch, NGO Monitor’s Europe Desk Director, “NGO Monitor’s years-long research documents the repeated support and cooperation of HBS’s Ramallah office with radical organizations, including those with alleged ties to terrorist organizations.” These include Palestinian NGO Addameer (not to be confused with Al-Dameer), identified by  Fatah as a PFLP “affiliate,” and Al-Haq, whose general director, Shawan Jabarin, was identified by the Israeli High Court of Justice in 2007 as a “senior activist in the PFLP terror group” (NGO Monitor translations).

Kerstin Mueller, director of HBS’s Tel-Aviv branch, stated in a response that “the conferences… are being held without the knowledge of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Israel. The foundation in Israel is looking into the details of the event, and further states that an event celebrating the Intifada is against the position of the foundation in Israel” (emphasis added).

Following further media coverage in Germany and significant public pressure citing NGO Monitor research, HBS withdrew its support of the conference.

UK: Bucking liberal opinion, some British rockers reject anti-Israel boycotts

Via City Journal (Seth Barron): 

Nick Cave, the brooding Australian poet and original Goth rocker, performed in Tel Aviv this week in what he described as active opposition to the campaign to boycott Israel. Calls to join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel annoyed Cave, who saw it as a crusade to “censor and silence musicians.” Not signing the boycott wasn’t enough, he decided; he wanted to play an Israeli venue, to spite the boycott’s self-righteous, politically correct organizers. “So really,” explained Cave, “you could say in a way that the BDS made me play Israel.”

The same week that Cave thumbed his nose at prominent anti-Israel campaigners Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd) and avant-garde producer Brian Eno (of Roxy Music), famed misanthropic emo-rock idol Morrissey told a German journalist that he “loves” Tel Aviv. Calling the boycott “absurd and narrow-minded,” Morrissey added that “being politically correct is incorrect. . . . It means forbidding freedom of speech. That’s how the BDS movement sounds to me.” The last track, "Israel," on Morrissey’s new album, is an anthem to identity and difference in the face of hatred. “In other climes they bitch and whine/Just because you’re not like them/Israel, Israel” croons Morrissey. “The sky is dark for many others/They want it dark for you as well/Israel, Israel,” he sings, skewering the hypocrisy of BDS campaigners who focus on every Israeli fault while ignoring the Middle East’s massive human rights abuses. (...)

Though it might seem as if Morrissey is just being provocative, his rebuff of BDS meshes with his pro-Brexit advocacy for regional European identities. Both these tendencies are congruent with the oppositional roots of rock ‘n’ roll, and punk rock in particular—especially in England. John Lydon—known formerly as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols—sneered at BDS and its bien-pensant supporters a few years ago, remarking, “if Elvis-fucking-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians, then good on him.” Lydon continued, “I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.” (...)

The rock-inspired punk ethos has always been two-fingers-up to established authority, and especially to party lines that demand adherence to a set of orthodoxies. British musicians’ anti-BDS sentiments don’t necessarily suggest that they favor Israeli settlement policy or that they urge a hard line against Hamas, but rather an appreciation for the predicament of a small country, with much of the world against it, soldiering on anyway—and up yours if you don’t like it. And in a supposedly post-national era, Israel’s definition of itself as the Jewish State might also hold appeal for these aging rockers, who remember a prouder, more happily British Britain.

As Ringo Starr put it, commenting on Brexit: “I think it’s a great move, you know, to be in control of your country is a good move.”

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No more access to the European Parliament for terrorists like Leila Khaled

Background:
Europe: Huge success for terrorist Leila Khaled at European Parliament

Via European Jewish Press:

"My complaint to the President was successful. The European Parliament is now not allowing access to people or groups, who have been involved in terrorist acts. Happy we have established what should have been obvious before!"

The European parliament has endorsed a proposal of its president, Antonio Tajani, to systematically deny access to all persons, groups, or entities involved in terrorist acts.

The decision followed a complaint by several MEPs after Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was invited last September to speak in the European Parliament at a conference hosted by two Spanish far-left MEPs. She used that platform to praise extremist violence and demonize Jews.  She glorified terrorism and trivialized the Holocaust.  "Don’t you see a similarity between Nazi actions and Zionist actions in Gaza?," she declared. "While the Nazis were tried in Nuremberg, no one has ever tried the Zionists," she said.

"The European Parliament’s Bureau unanimously endorsed the President’s proposal to systematically deny access to all persons, groups, or entities involved in terrorist acts, as listed in the annexed Council Decision (CFSP) 2017/1426,"  the parliament's Directorate General for Security and Safety said in an information notice.

"In view of that decision, and in the context of combatting terrorism, Members of the European Parliament and Political Groups are requested not to invite persons listed in the Council Decision or individuals representing entities or groups on that list, nor to facilitate their access to Parliament. In addition, these persons, entities, and groups may not be promoted through audio-visual presentations or other events on Parliament’s premises."

"I am happy that we have eventually established what should have been obvious before!" commented Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský (European People's Party, EPP) who was the initiator of the complaints to President Tajani.

''The Council may adopt some amendments now, so we can be sure the situation with Leila Khaled will not happen again," Zdechovský added.

Two other complaining MEPs, Danish Anders Vistisen and Dutch Bastiaan Belder, from the European Conservative and Reformist group (ECR),  thanked and congratulated President Tajani "for his resolute stance against terror."

"Pleased to see that our concerns and that of 57 other MEPs [out of 751] on the presence of terrorist Leila Khaled in the EP were addressed," they tweeted.

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UK: BBC star apologises for comment about "fat Jewish" music managers from north London

Via The Telegraph:

BBC star has apologised for saying how it is “great” that music artists are no longer managed by “some random fat Jewish guy from north west London” following accusations of anti-Semitism. 

Reggie Yates, a radio show host and presenter for the corporation, made the comments on a podcast earlier this month. 

Speaking about current music artists and how they differ from their predecessors, Yates comments: “The thing that makes it great about this new generation of artists is that they ain’t signing to majors. 

“They’re independent, they’re not managed by some random fat Jewish guy from north west London, they’re managed by their brethren.” 

Yates then mentions the popular grime stars Wretch, Stormzy, Skepta as examples of people who “we’ve all known, that we’ve all come up with”. 

“So it’s amazing to see now the example isn’t get hot and then give all of your publishing to these idiots. Or go and give all of your rights to these dickheads over here," he adds. 

“It’s now get hot, bring the family in, keep the family close, and win with your people. That’s the example now in music.” 

Gideon Falter, chairman of Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said that Yates’ comments “evoke the ugly stereotype of Jews as untrustworthy and money-grabbing”.

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France: Socialist in hot water over antisemitic Twitter post

Via JTA:

France’s Socialist Party said it has initiated a procedure for ousting a lawmaker whose Twitter account featured an image of President Emmanuel Macron deemed anti-Semitic.

Gérard Filoche’s account last week showed Macron wearing a Nazi-like armband with a dollar sign and three well-known European Jews – the French economist Jacques Attali, entrepreneur Patrick Drahi and the British banking magnate Jacob Rothschild — in the background towering over the earth while flanked by an Israeli and American flag.

Filoche, who removed the image and apologized for its posting, said he “did not do” it himself but assumes responsibility. He told the Liberation daily it “should not have posted because it and its source are bad.”

The Liberation traced the image to the website of Alain Soral, a far-right Holocaust denier and member of the Anti-Zionist Party that he founded with Dieudonne M’Bala M’bala. Both have multiple convictions for inciting hatred against Jews.

But Filoche, defending himself against accusations of anti-Semitism, tweeted that he does not apologize for calling out the “cabal” depicted by the image.

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Belgium participates in the inauguration of a new Palestinian school despite announcement it was freezing all projects

Background:
Is Belgium misleading the international community, continuing to support PA schools?

Via European Jewish Press:

The Belgian government recently announced that it would put on hold any projects related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools following after learning that financial aid it gave for the construction of a school after was renamed after a notorious Palestinian terrorist. 

The Beit Awaa Elementary Girls School, located in southern West Bank’s Hebron region, was built with Belgian government funds and through the Belgian Development Agency in 2012-2013. The plaque mentioning Belgium's funding on the wall of the Dalal Mughrabi School reads in English and Arabic: "Through a fund from the Government of the Kingdom of Belgium and through the Belgian Development Agency BTC constructed and furnished, Beit Awaa Basic Girls School." 

The school was later renamed the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education. Dalal Mughrabi took part in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, in which she and several other Palestinian terrorists landed on a beach near Tel Aviv, hijacked a bus on Israel’s coastal road and killed 38 civilians, 13 of them children, and wounded over 70. 

However, according to Donia Al-Watan, an independent Palestinian news agency, one week after the announcement by Belgium, Eric De Muynck, a representative of the Belgian Development Cooperation Institution participated in the inauguration of a new PA school. 

PMW said the Belgian Embassy in Israel didn’t respond to repeated requests for clarification of the issue. 

In September, PMW was the first to expose that a PA school built using money from the Belgium government was named after Dalal Mughrabi. 

Shortly after,  Didier Vanderhasselt, a spokesperson for the Belgian foreign ministry, responded that Belgium "unequivocally condemns the glorification of terrorist attacks," and "will not allow itself to be associated with the names of terrorists in any way." 

He added that "in the meantime Belgium will put on hold any projects related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools."

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Germany: Banks close accounts for Marxist-Leninist Party with ties to Palestinian terrorists

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany announced on Thursday that the Deutsche Bank and the Postbank shut down all of the party's bank accounts in Germany. 

The anti-Israel Marxist-Leninist Party has been engulfed in an election scandal alleging it campaigned during the federal election with The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)--an EU and US designated terrorist organization.

In a statement released on its German-language website, Gabi Fechtner, the Marxist-Leninist Party (MLPD) chairwoman, said the termination of the accounts "is a massive attack on the management of the MLPD." She added that that the closure of the accounts "means a new high point in the criminalization campaign against the MLPD and a politically motivated bank boycott." 

The Marxist-Leninist Party lashed out at The Jerusalem Post for its investigative series on the party's connection with the PFLP prior to the September, 24 federal election. 

The party, which adheres to the line of the late Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin, wrote that negative press coverage is related to its support for the "Palestinian liberation struggle." The Marxist-Leninist Party campaigned on a joint list with the PFLP and its supporters, according to German media reports. 

The Marxist-Leninist Party did not secure the required 5% of the vote to enter the Bundestag. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency monitors the Marxist Leninist Party and its 1,800 members because the party is deemed a threat to the country’s constitutional democracy.

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Italy: Good news from Italy - presented by Israel-haters

Via Elder of Ziyon:

Reading about Israeli political victories through the eyes of Israel-haters who are not used to having the tide turned against them is a lot of fun.

From Scoop.nz: 

Anti-BDS Laws and Pro-Israeli Parliament: Zionist Hasbara is Winning in Italy

By Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud
A proposed law at the Italian Parliament is set to punish the boycott of Israel. In the past, such an initiative would have been unthinkable. Alas, Italy, a country that had historic sympathies with the Palestinian cause has shifted its politics in a dramatic way in recent years. Most surprisingly, though, the Left is as implicated as the Right in the rush to please Israel, at the expense of Palestinian rights.

The sad reality is this: Italy is moving to the Israeli camp. This is not only pertinent to political alignment, but in the reconfiguration of discourse as well. Israeli priorities, as articulated in Zionist hasbara (official propaganda) have now become part of our everyday lexicon of Italian media and politics. As a result, the Zionist agenda is now part and parcel of Italian political agenda as well.

Italy’s anti-Fascist, anti-military occupation and revolutionary past is being overlooked by self-serving politicians, growingly beholden to the pressures of a burgeoning pro-Israel lobby.

The pro-Israel trend has been in motion for years. In a famous interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in 2008, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga declared: “Dear Italian Jews, we sold you out”.

Cossiga was referring to the so-called “Lodo Moro”, an unofficial agreement, which was allegedly signed in the 1970’s by Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and the leaders of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP). Its understanding supposedly allowed the Palestinian group to coordinate its actions throughout the Italian territory, in exchange for the PLFP keeping Italy out of its field of operation.

The “Lodo Moro” is often used in Israeli hasbara to highlight Italy’s supposed failures in the past, and to continue associating Palestinians with terrorism.

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Europe: The EU violates international law, steals Palestinian land, and then demands compensation from Israel

Via Mosaic Magazine:

Last month, the eight European countries that make up the West Bank Protection Consortium sent a formal letter demanding €30,000 in compensation for two classrooms with solar panels that Israel dismantled in August. The letter, as Ruthie Blum explains, ignores the fact that the structures, located in part of the West Bank called Area C, were built in violation of international law:

[The 1995 agreement known as] Oslo II, which created the Palestinian Authority (PA), divides the West Bank into three geographical sections—Areas A, B, and C—and specifies which government controls each. Area C is under the military and civil jurisdiction of Israel alone. . . . Yet, for years, there has been non-stop building in Area C, . . . in a transparent effort to populate Area C with Palestinians. . . . 

[The] Middle East analyst Bassam Tawil [has] noted massive “behind-the-scenes” Palestinian construction, the goal of which is “to create irreversible facts on the ground” and completely encircle Jerusalem. He points out that while Israel is condemned for any and every attempt to build housing in the West Bank and Jerusalem [which it never does in Area A, assigned by Oslo to the sole jurisdiction of the Ramallah], the Palestinian Authority has been undertaking, with impunity, a “colossal” construction project that is “illegal in every respect.” . . . 

On a recent tour of the area, [another] Arab affairs expert, Khaled Abu Toameh, explained that this ongoing construction, funded mainly by the EU and Qatar, is made possible through the “confiscation” of privately owned tracts of Palestinian land by unlicensed contractors whose interest is solely financial. . . All they want, he said, is to line their pockets at the expense of helpless landowners, who are told that they must sacrifice their property to help the Palestinian Authority populate the area for political gain against Israel. . . . 

It takes particular gall for European Union representatives to express “humanitarian” outrage at Israel for razing illegal structures in the West Bank—while the EU is in league with Palestinian criminals who have been brazenly stealing Arab-owned land.

 Read more at Gatestone

German court: Kuwait Airways can refuse Israeli passengers

Commenting the ruling on Twitter are:

Clemens Wergin : A German court just decided it is ok for Kuwait Airways to discriminate against Israelis, even when offering flights from Germany.

Adam Milstein : In controversial ruling & dangerous president German court approved discrimination based on nationality by allowing Kuwait Airways to refuse flying Israelis, because the company risked repercussions in Kuwait, ignoring that it operates internationally.

Benjamin Weinthal : Germany's judicial system in 2017: 1) German courts justify argument of Palestinians for torching a synagogue in Germany.  2) Today, a German court said Kuwait Airways can discriminate against Israelis.

Via Ynet News:

A German court ruled Thursday that Kuwait's national airline didn't have to transport an Israeli citizen because the carrier would face legal repercussions at home if it did.

The Frankfurt state court noted in its decision that Kuwait Airways is not allowed to have contracts with Israelis under Kuwaiti law because of the Middle Eastern country's boycott of Israel.

The court said it didn't evaluate whether "this law make sense," but that the airline risked repercussions that were "not reasonable" for violating it, such as fines or prison time for employees.

An Israeli citizen, identified in court papers as Adar M., a student living in Germany, sued Kuwait Airways after it canceled his booking for a flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok that included a stop-over in Kuwait City. 

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Germany: Non-Jewish teen honored for standing up to neo-Nazis

Via Times of Israel:

A non-Jewish German teenager from Dresden has been honored by the Jewish community for standing up to neo-Nazis at her school.

The 15-year-old, known as Emilia S., received the Prize for Civic Courage against Right-wing Radicalism, Anti-Semitism and Racism on Tuesday from the Jewish community of Berlin and the Association for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

(...)

She told reporters she had been afraid to stand up to her classmate alone, but changed her mind after he started circulating anti-Semitic images via cellphone chats.

“The most horrible one was a picture of smoke with the caption ‘Jewish family photo.’ I reacted and said they should cut out the Nazi stuff,’” Emilia recalled.

Her classmates laughed at her, and then the person who had shared the images started sending texts about how Emilia “wanted to emigrate to Poland” and how she had “inhaled too many dead Jews.”

Emilia said she planned to share the prize money of 2000 euros, about $2,300, with a 14-year-old Jewish boy in Berlin whose family moved him to another public school earlier this year after classmates harassed him physically and verbally.

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UK: 'Gay Times' editor suspended over string of anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist tweets

Via Sun:

THE newly-appointed editor of Gay Times has been suspended over a shocking series of anti-Semitic, racist and disability-mocking tweets.

Josh Rivers was handed the role less than a month ago after being promoted from marketing manager of the magazine.

He has now apologised for the tweets - which have since been deleted - but has been suspended pending an investigation.

One tweet read: "I wonder if they cast that guy as 'The Jew' because of that f****** ridiculously larger honker of a nose. It must be prosthetic. Must be."

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Europe: K. von Schnurbein: In Brussels "you know that something is Jewish because there is a military in front and there is no sign on the house"

Via European Jewish Press:

(...) As [the EU] Coordinator in the fight against anti-Semitism, she has to address all the various forms of this phenomenon: right-wing extremism, left-wing anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism within the Muslim community but also increasingly from the centre of the society. She also deals with the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Desinvestment and Sanctions) actions on university campuses and their  consequences on Jewish students. 

Katharina von Schnurbein also stresses the importance of raising the awareness about anti-Semitism among the general population. "In Germany, for example, 78% of the general population thinks that anti-Semitism is not a problem… while 77% of German Jews, almost the same percentage,  think that anti-Semitism is a worrying phenomenon on the rise." (...)

"We know that anti-Semitism is on the rise. Figures in every country don’t necessarily show that it went up but there is a large under-reporting and especially what I have noticed from travelling and talking to the Jewish communities across Europe, is the amount of fear. People are afraid even to go out on the street, of course it differs among member states. In some member states you will still have some Jewish infrastructures that do not need security. But if you look for example here in Brussels, you know that something is Jewish because there is a military in front and there is no sign on the house. Also particularly worrying is the fact that Jews are thinking about leaving Europe… It is very shocking."

The EU will conduct in May next year a large survey of the perceptions of the Jewish community about anti-Semitism and about their general situation. It will be done by the Fundamental Rights Agency which made a similar survey in 2015. "We will reach out to all the Jewish communities across the member states to make sure that we have a good sample and that we take the correct measure of how the situation is," says von Schnurbein. (...)

For Katharina von Schnurbein, however, the ultimate goal must be "normality" for the Jewish communities. "While we have security measures, in the end we must come to a situation where Jews, either observant or secular, can  live the lives they want to live, including when they send their kids to schools, whether Jewish schools or public schools. When they are in Jewish schools they don’t  have to go through security measures and when they are in public schools they shouldn’t be harassed for being Jewish. It is our benchmark and our compass..."

"When I go to a church there is no security. No need. It shouldn’t be needed in front of a synagogue but of course for the moment it is needed. I think it is sad. It is good that governments have stepped up security, it is absolutely necessary, but if we want to fight anti-Semitism, I think we should have high goals."

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