Belgium: Pro-Palestinian activists place 9,000 shoes on Brussels square

Interestingly, as CNN pointed out in 2013: The Roma, a thousand years of discrimination continues in Europe. The European Parliament lamented in 2015 that Roma remain Europe's 'most discriminated and vulnerable ethnic group'. But European, who are so interested in the Palestinians, show little or no compassion for the Roma...

Via JTA:

Pro-Palestinian activists placed 4,500 pairs of shoes outside the meeting place in Brussels of European Union foreign ministers to protest Palestinian deaths since 2008.

The protest action, organized by the Avaaz group, covered Jean Rey Square with shoes, donated by citizens across Europe over the last week ahead of the Council of the European Union meeting in Brussels Monday. The organizers placed a banner reading “Palestinian lives matter” along the middle section of a Palestinian flag.

Some 4,500 people, including many dozens of Israelis, died in hostilities between Israel and Palestinians since 2008. The Avaaz group said its initiative was a “growing call for EU governments to protect Palestinian lives by reining in Israel’s government violence.”

Critics of the initiative, including Nicole Seekles, a supporter of Israel from the Netherlands, wrote on Facebook that the display was inappropriately evocative of the heaps of shoes on display at the Nazi former death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

Others noted that the protest included no mention of the nearly 4,000 Palestinians who have died in the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011, mostly at the hands of the forces of Bashar Assad in the government’s war on Sunni Muslims.

France: Macron says 2003 slaying of Jew was anti-Semitic

Via Artuz 7:

French President Emmanuel Macron said that anti-Semitism was the reason for the deadly stabbing in 2003 of a young Jew whose killer was found unfit to stand trial.

Macron said this in a letter dated May 20 to Meyer Habib, a French-Jewish lawmaker who last month wrote the president to request belated recognition for Sébastien Selam, a 23-year-old DJ who was killed by his Muslim neighbor, as a victim of anti-Semitic violence.

“Recalled because of the heinous killing of Mirelle Knoll, the memory of this young Frenchman who fell a victim to the darkest of fanaticism lives on,” Macron wrote. Knoll, a Holocaust survivor, was stabbed to death in her Paris apartment on March 23. Prosecutors said a neighbor and an accomplice killed her, partly because she was Jewish.

The memory of Selam, Macron wrote, is part of “our national community, which is profoundly affected by anti-Semitic crimes like the one perpetrated against Sébastien Selam,” Macron wrote. It was the first time that a French official recognized the slaying as anti-Semitic. However, this recognition is symbolic and will not be reflected in the judiciary’s records on the case.

A French court in 2010 ruled that Selam’s killer, Adel Amastaibou, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was unable to control his actions. He was released from a psychiatric institution earlier this year, in what Habib described in his letter to Macron as an “affront” to Selam’s relatives. Meyer wrote this on Facebook on Sunday.

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Greece: Thessaloniki mayor injured after far-right attack

Tsakalidis was called "slave of the Jews"

Via al-Jazeera (h/t glykosymoritis)

The mayor of Greece's second-largest city was admitted to hospital with injuries after he was set upon by a group of ultra-nationalist demonstrators.

The attack took place in the northern coastal city of Thessaloniki on Saturday during a commemoration marking the killing of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during the tail end of the World War I.

(...)

Kostas Tsakalidis, a Thessaloniki-based photographer, witnessed the attack while covering the flag-lowering ceremony during Saturday's commemoration.

"A group of people started to shout at him for his opinion on the Macedonian dispute, the LBGTQI community, Turkey, and [nationalist] football clubs," he told Al Jazeera, adding that he had seen many of the assailants at "extreme right protests" in recent months.

"Some people were shouting about Jews because he has had [a] close relationship with the Jewish community over the years."

Tsakalidis explained that Boutaris fell to the ground after being hit, while attackers threw bottles "and other objects" at him. One assailant proceeded to kick the mayor as he lay on the pavement.

Although a group of police officers were located nearby, Tsakalidis said "none of them intervened" to stop the attack. 

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Hungary: The safest country for European Jews? Try Hungary

Via PJ Media (David P. Goldman):

Last Friday evening I put on a kippah and walked half an hour across Budapest to the Keren Or synagogue maintained by the Budapest Chabad. After violent attacks on Jews in German streets, the leaders of Germany’s Jewish community warned Jews last month not to wear a kippah or any other visible sign of Jewish identification in public. The French community issued such warnings years ago. Belgian TV could not find a single Jew in Brussels willing to wear a kippah in public. I walked across Budapest four times (for Friday evening and Saturday daytime services), and no-one looked at my kippah twice. At services I met Hasidim who had walked to synagogue with kaftan and shtreimel, the traditional round fur hat. Whatever residual anti-Semitism remains among Hungarians, it doesn’t interfere with the open embrace of Jewish life. There are no risks to Jews because there are very few Muslim migrants.

On any given Friday evening, the Keren Or synagogue—one of several Chabad houses in Budapest—hosts two hundred people for dinner. Jewish life isn’t just flourishing in Budapest. It’s roaring with ruach, and livened by a growing Israeli presence. About 100,000 Israelis have dual Hungarian citizenship; many own property in the country and vote in Hungarian elections.

Prime Minister Orban has been a close friend of Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu for twenty years. When Orban first was elected prime minister in 1998 in the thick of an economic crisis, he asked then-Finance Minister Netanyahu for help, and Netanyahu lent him some of his staff to shape Hungary’s economic program. I asked everyone at Keren Or who spoke English what they thought of Orban. In that gathering the prime minister would have polled 100%.

Orban, in turn, is one of Israel’s few staunch supporters overseas. Earlier this month Hungary, along with Rumania and the Czech Republic, vetoed a European Community resolution condemning the U.S. for moving its embassy to Jerusalem. Cynics dismiss this as an instance of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That isn't the case. Hungary is in the middle of a nasty fight with the European Community over migration, and stands to lose up to $4 billion in EC subsidies—roughly 3% of the country’s GDP. It doesn’t help Hungary to provoke Brussels by sabotaging its diplomatic efforts, as in the case of the Jerusalem embassy vote. On the contrary, Hungary is spending precious political capital in defense of the Jewish state, to its own possible disadvantage.

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UK: Jewish student center serving the University of Oxford was subject to two attacks this month

Via The Algemeiner:

A Jewish student center serving the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom was subject to two attacks this month, drawing condemnation from community leaders.

On May 19, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, two unidentified offenders placed “antisemitic” notes and sparked a fire at the Chabad of Oxford, Thames Valley Police said.

“Thankfully the fire burned out within a couple of minutes, it didn’t cause significant damage and no-one was injured,” said Detective Sergeant George Atkinson of the incident, which was classified as a hate crime.

Four days later, a white powder and offensive notes — one reading “Jew House” — were found at the center. The substance was later identified as talcum powder.

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France: Posters show French president wearing Nazi uniform and Israeli flag

Via JTA:

Left-wing protesters against French President Emmanuel Macron paraded in Paris with a poster of him wearing a Nazi uniform and an Israeli flag — prompting legal action by a watchdog on anti-Semitism.

In the poster carried Friday by protesters against the centrist leader’s economic reform, he was wearing a black uniform emblazoned with his initials and two dollars signs instead of the SS symbol of the elite Nazi unit known by that acronym. The flag featured on the figure’s right-hand upper arm.

The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, complained to police that the poster was incitement to hatred and violence.

“We consider this an unacceptable outrage against the head of state, the republic and all the victims of the Holocaust as well as to the State of Israel,” BNVCA wrote in a statement Monday about the complaint. The protest was organized by the French General Confederation of Labour trade union

and the far-left party of Jean-Luc Melenchon, a communist politician who has been accused of inciting hatred toward Jews.

CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, said it considers both Melenchon’s Insuppressible France party and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front “movement based on hatred” and has refused to meet with officials of either party.

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Belgium: Brussels chief rabbi declines to wear kippa publicly, citing security concerns

Via The Times of Israel:

Amid reports of widespread fear among Belgian Jews of being attacked by anti-Semites, the chief rabbi of Brussels and other Jews declined over security concerns a public broadcaster’s request to film them walking on the street while wearing a kippa. The RTBF broadcaster reported Thursday it wanted to film Chief Rabbi Albert Guigui, among other rabbis, wearing a kippa for a program about anti-Semitism.

But Guigui declined, telling the channel he has stopped visibly wearing a kippa in 2001 following an anti-Semitic assault on his person. In December of that year, Guigui was attacked by a group of Arabic speaking youths.

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Read also:
Brussels and Barcelona chief rabbis say there is no future for Jews in Europe

Germany: Distorted antisemitism statistics

Via The Algemeiner (Manfred Gerstenfeld):

The German Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer recently presented the country’s criminal statistics for 2017. These included 1,500 criminal antisemitic acts — about four per day. The minister claimed that 95% of these were motivated by right-wing attitudes. Another source reported that there were 947 antisemitic incidents in Berlin in 2017, an increase of 60% from the year before.

But if right-wing perpetrators of antisemitic acts were so dominant, why did several leading politicians come out in the last few months against Muslim antisemitism? The major public exposure of Muslim hate crimes against Jews in Germany started after the burning of a homemade Israeli flag in Berlin in December 2017. The video of this event went viral around the world.

For many years, Muslim antisemitism has been intentionally ignored and sometimes whitewashed in Germany. Severe criminal cases coming out of parts of this community were treated as “incidents” instead of as a structural problem.

Since last December this has suddenly changed. The Christian Democrat Jens Spahn — the current Minister of Health and former Deputy Minister of Finance — put it clearly. He said that antisemitism in some Muslim countries was omnipresent. He mentioned ongoing incitement in families and mosques. He furthermore stressed that Muslim immigration had brought additional antisemitism to Germany. Spahn called on German Muslim organizations to do their duty and condemn the antisemitic crimes committed by Muslims.

By April, even Chancellor Angela Merkel felt she could no longer remain silent. After yet another antisemitic attack in Berlin, she said that the authorities should act with extreme force against antisemitism — both by Germans and Arabs.

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France: 53% believe Zionism = Jewish Conspiracy

Via Europe 1/JDD (in French):

A poll commissioned by the UEJF (Union of French Jewish Students) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israel has revealed that 53% of the French believe that Zionism is the product of a Jewish conspiracy.

For them "Zionism is an international organization that aims to influence the world and society in favour of the Jews". 50% believe that Zionism is a racist ideology. And an amazing 69% that Zionism is an ideology used to justify Israel’s policy of occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories

 

Holland: Antisemitic cabaret program on Dutch socialist television channel

Via Bad News from the Netherlands blog:

A cabaret program on the Dutch Socialist VARA television by Sanne Wallis de Vries has used Israel's Eurovision winning song as a parody.  

Her text contains antisemitic motifs such as jokes about Jews and money.  

It also accuses Israel of using Buk rockets which Israel does not have. These rockets were used to bring down a plane of mainly Dutch passengers in the Ukraine. They all died.

read more in Dutch here

Europe: Treatment of Jews is a “seismograph” for society says EU coordinator on combatting anti-Semitism

Via Politico:

Katharina von Schnurbein is firmly in the political spotlight. As the European Commission’s coordinator on combatting anti-Semitism, von Schnurbein finds herself in the middle of questionable, difficult and downright nasty behavior.

Multiple reports show that anti-Semitism is rising across Europe, and at times the rhetoric comes from leading politicians.

For every show of inclusion from Europeans — such as last week’s victory by Netta, Israel’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest — discussion about anti-Semitism becomes complicated by political controversy, such as Israeli Defense Forces killing more than 50 people in Gaza during protests against the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

Von Schnurbein feels the debate should look at not just extreme behavior but all of society. “To some extent the floodgates are open and anti-Semitism is expressed more openly [today]. Conspiracy theories are found in the middle of society. Teachers who have lost a compass as to what is anti-Semitism and therefore do not react properly in school when Jewish students are being harassed. Judges who think that throwing Molotov cocktails into a synagogue is a legitimate expression of a political opinion.”

Citing growing harassment of staff at the Auschwitz concentration camp museum, von Schnurbein said “it is not for nothing that in most EU countries it is necessary to have security in front of Jewish institutions”

What can people do in their everyday lives to combat anti-Semitism? “Fighting anti-Semitism in the end is a question of civic courage. It’s not easy to fight it in your own environment but this is where it starts. In your own party, with your own parents, your own sports club, to react when you hear something at a dinner party. It’s that kind of civic courage that we need and that will in the end change the situation.”

Von Schnurbein said treatment of Jews is a “seismograph” for society, citing the number of terror attacks against Jewish targets in Europe that included attacks in Paris, Brussels and Nice. Rising anti-Semitism “is a sign that something’s going wrong in society and therefore it needs to be tackled also by society at large.”

There is also “imported anti-Semitism,” often from migrants from Muslim-majority countries. Von Schnurbein said it’s important not to stigmatize a whole community but to recognize there is a problem. Criticism of Israeli policies is not anti-Semitic, she said, but questioning the right of Israel to exist and the right of Jewish people to self-determination is.

The ultimate aim of her work: “Normality for Jews in Europe” so they do not have to second-guess their movements and life choices in order to enjoy their basic freedoms and rights.

UK: Muslim group denounces anti-Semitism in full page newspaper ad

Via JTA:

Muslim leaders took out a full-page ad in a major British newspaper condemning anti-Semitism.

“We understand that many in our country empathize with the Palestinians and their right to a sovereign state,” said the ad Thursday in the Telegraph, a national broadsheet, and signed by a group called Muslims Against Anti-Semitism. “However, we must be ever vigilant against those who cynically use international issues to vilify Jews or promote anti-Semitic tropes.”

The ad was signed by the leaders of groups including Faith Matters, a Muslim anti-extremism group; the Association of British Muslims, and Tell MAMA, a clearinghouse for complaints about anti-Muslim attacks.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews praised the ad on Twitter. “Incredible solidarity – a full-page ad by Muslim sisters & brothers in today’s @Telegraph,” it said. “Thank you. Together we will defeat the twin evils of antisemitism & anti-Muslim hate.”

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Belgium: Academic equates Israel with a parasite infestation of Palestine

Via Philosémitisme blog:

Eric David is a professor at the Free University of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB) - and needless to say a much respected academic, so much so that he received the Peace Prize awarded by the Belgian Auschwitz Foundation... You just couldn't make this up, could you? His long-standing hostility towards Israel is unfailing, a sentiment shared by others at the university. He wrote a long piece about Israel on a blog run by Pierre Piccinin da Prata, a Belgian teacher, who once complained about the Zionist mafia ("Once again I was cowardly attacked by the Zionist mafia, but I'm not afraid. One day fear will change sides and they will be brought to account").

This is what Eric David wrote (Google translation):

"The history of Palestine resembles the parasitic phenomenon in which an individual colonizes an animal or a plant and feeds on it at its expense. In the case of Palestine, the phenomenon begins with World War I and what is named the Sykes-Picot Accords, two diplomats who, on behalf of the UK and France respectively, divided their areas of influence in the Middle East on the remains of the Ottoman Empire which was then the ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The agreement was signed, in reality, on May 16th, 1916, by Paul Cambon, French Ambassador in London, and Sir Edward Gray, Secretary of State.  In this context, the first stage of parasitism in Palestine is the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, in which Lord Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild, acting on behalf of the Political Committee of the Zionist Organization: (...)  

The fifth stage of the parasitic enterprise is the construction by Israel from 2002 of a wall that separates the West Bank from Israel but which, by its route, includes parts of Palestinian territory, prevents Palestinians from circulating in their own country. territory, deprives them of land and impedes their access to fields, health services, schools, water, a situation condemned almost unanimously by the ICJ in its advisory opinion of 9 July 2004 (ICJ, loc cit., § 163).  

The 6th stage of the parasitic enterprise - which is less of a "phase" than a consequence of the pathology of the Israeli parasitosis - lies in the armed operations carried out by Israel against the Gaza Strip, particularly the operations "Cast Lead" in 2008-2009 and "Protective Edge" in 2014, operations in response to rocket fire from Gaza and totally disproportionate as they killed and injured hundreds of Palestinian civilians. (...)  

The Israeli parasite has thus settled in the Palestinian body and it is part of it just as the millions of yeasts, parasites and bacteria that occupy the human body! "

Read the full article (in French) by Eric David @ The Courrier du Maghreb et l'Orient

Belgium: Israel's ambassador turns table on Brussels' Gaza reprimand

Via Ynet News:

After being lashed by Belgium and Luxembourg over Israeli policies and its 'disproportionate' use of force during latest wave of unrest, Ambassador Simona Frenkel refuses ‘to listen with a bowed head', tells top diplomats, 'your one-sided positions don’t contribute to peace.'

Israel's Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg Simona Frenkel chastised representatives of the two countries’ foreign ministries Wednesday after being summoned to be reprimanded herself following Monday's deadly clashes between the IDF and some 40,000 Gazan protestors. “It seems that the Belgian Foreign Ministry belongs to a school of thought according to which when an ambassador is summoned for a conversation or a reprimand, he is supposed to behave like a child who has misbehaved, to listen with a bowed head and not to respond,” Frenkel wrote in a report sent to the Foreign Ministry.

“I responded and fired back against Belgium: Your one-sided positions do not contribute to peace.” Frenkel was first invited to a meeting with Deputy Director-General of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anick Van Calster, who recently visited Israel.

Van Calster opened by saying that she had been instructed by Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders to invite Frenkel in order to clarify the Belgian position, to voice objections to events that occurred on Monday on the Gaza border and to protest against what was described as a “disproportionate” use of force.

Calster also expressed anger over statements made by Frenkel during an interview with the country’s RTBF radio station, in which she described those killed in Gaza during the wave of unrest as terrorists. “Regarding the independent investigation committee: There has never been an investigation committee that was independent when it comes to our affairs. All of them were political, where there is an automatic majority of people against Israel,” she replied. (...)

“Moreover, Belgium is the last to claim an independent investigation committee since its Prime Minister Charles Michel has determined even before the committee has been established that Israel had to be punished, You have already predetermined the outcome,” Frenkel argued.

She also defended her comments on the radio, drawing Van Calster’s attention to the fact that doubts had already been cast on whether a Gazan baby had in fact been killed by Israeli forces during the protests.

“You raised an outcry because I described them all as terrorists, but this morning we now know that regarding the 8 month old baby who was killed and allegedly hit by the IDF, even the journalists in Gaza are moderating their positions and are saying that she may have already been dying beforehand and was deliberately brought to the fence,” Frenkel noted, before offering what she described as “proof” that the Hamas terror group was responsible for the violent protests. 

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Germany: Jewish family refused service at Berlin restaurant

Via Tagesspiegel:

Last Friday a Jewish couple and their handicapped son came to a restaurant in Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt square.  The family wore a kippah, and the son wore a button saying "I love Israel".

Despite being the only guests, the waiters ignored them.  After ten minutes, when more guests came and were served, the family asked and were told they were at the 'wrong table'.  They weren't directed to a 'right' table, but rather told to leave.

When the father responded by saying that the restaurant doesn't cater to Jews, the waiter simply smiled.

German paper under fire for ‘anti-Semitic’ Netanyahu Eurovision cartoon

Via i24 News:

A German newspaper apologized on Wednesday for publishing a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dressed as Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai and holding a rock with a Star of David on it.

“It can be seen as anti-Semitic,” the editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung acknowledged Wednesday after evoking outrage.

The Munich-based newspaper, one of Germany’s top dailies with a circulation of 1.1 million readers, printed the cartoon Tuesday, as Israel was being scorned worldwide for its handling of the protests on the Gaza border.

The cartoon that appeared in the opinion section, by veteran caricaturist Dieter Hanitzsch, portrayed Netanyahu with oversized ears, nose and lips and in the Eurovision logo the ‘v’ was replaced with a Star of David. “Next year in Jerusalem,” the figure is saying.

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Ukrainian mayor, diplomat caught engaging in antisemitic rhetoric

Via Jerusalem Post:

 Amid international pressure on Ukraine over its perceived tolerance of antisemitism, a local mayor and a diplomat were documented engaging hate speech against Jews.

Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, posted a video on Facebook Monday of Mayor Vlodimyr Moskal’s address to city councilmen in which he railed against Jews. Moskal is mayor of the village of Skole, located 60 miles southwest of Lviv.

Quoting Henry Ford’s antisemitic writing about Jewish schemes for world domination, Moskal said: “A lot of that work is devoted to the death of the goyim,” Hebrew for non-Jews. “Christians, Arabs, Buddhists, they are not people to them after their reaching world domination, which they are clearly trying to do through cosmopolitanism and liberalism in order to destroy all nations, to leave the political nation, to mix everyone into one lump, migrants, blacks,” the mayor said. He also called the government, whose prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, is Jewish, “Muscovite Jews”– an insult in a country where anti-Russian sentiment is rife.

Separately, screenshots shared online show that Vasyl Marushchynets, who works at Ukraine’s consulate in Hamburg, Germany, blamed Jews for World War II and said “death to the anti-fascists” on his private Facebook page, Reuters reported Monday. Marushchynets and the Hamburg consulate did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Ukraine’s foreign ministry confirmed his suspension.

“Antisemitism and those who stir up inter-ethnic discord can have no place either in civilized society or in the foreign ministry,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Twitter.

Ukraine in recent weeks has seen a spate of antisemitic incidents, including vandalism at two monuments for Holocaust victims. One of the monuments was firebombed, and on another unidentified parties wrote neo-Nazi slogans.

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UK: Former soldier jailed for antisemitic speech where he incited supporters to 'free England from Jewish control'

Via Independent:

A former soldier has been jailed for a speech where he incited people to “free England from Jewish control”.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) initially decided against bringing charges against Jeremy Bedford-Turner, but reversed the decision after a judicial review was launched by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).

The 48-year-old, who is well-known for his involvement in extreme right-wing groups, gave the speech in central London in July 2015.

At the end of a protest which claimed to be against the Shomrim Jewish civilian patrol group, his rambling 15-minute tirade included a string of conspiracy theories about Jewish people.

“This is England, this is our land… We want our country back and we are going to take it back,” Bedford-Turner said, before calling on a small group of supporters to “free England from Jewish control”.

He added: “Listen soldiers, it’s time we liberated our own country.”

Most of his supporters were outflanked by counter-protesters, but he reached a wider audience after a video of his speech was uploaded to YouTube.

Bedford-Turner, of Lincoln was jailed for a year at Southwark Crown Court after a jury convicted him of stirring up racial hatred.

He bowed and saluted about 35 supporters including musician Alison Chabloz, who is also on trial, accused of writing and performing antisemitic songs.

Bedford-Turner, who served for 12 years in the Army, was given a standing ovation as he was led to the cells.

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Bulgaria: Anti-Semitic symbols at Bulgaria football match

Via European Jewish Press:

The World Jewish Congress has strongly condemned the “disturbing and provocative” photographs that emerged in Bulgaria showing two boys at the Bulgarian Cup football finals with neo-Nazi symbols scrawled across their chests.

The incident has caused an outcry after pictures circulated online of the two boys, who appeared to be under 10, making the Nazi salute, at the Bulgarian Cup final between Levski Sofia and Slavia PFC in Sofia last Wednesday night.

The Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria “Shalom” strongly condemned the incident. It has referred the matter to the National Co-ordinator against Anti-Semitism, Deputy Minister Georg Georgiev.

“It is unacceptable that young children should be encouraged to exhibit such behaviour,” Shalom said.

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Holland: Holocaust monument smeared with bood, mud

Via Jewish Press:

A Holocaust monument in the Netherlands was smeared with blood and mud last week, shortly after the nation honored its war victim on May 4, Netherlands’ Memorial Day.

Police said they didn’t know how the filth was applied to the monument, which was unveiled in 2015 and which is engraved with the names of 1,239 Jews who were shipped to their deaths from the city, Utrecht.

In addition to the anti-Semitic vandalism at the monument, there were a number of other incidents as well around the same time, including “Nazi-like posters” hung up at the Groen Links office.

The type of blood used was unknown, according to the report, published Wednesday by RTV Utrecht, which did not provide details on the desecration. The monument is allegedly to be cleaned by the end of this week.

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UK: Israel doesn't get hurt by BDS, the Jews of the Diaspora do

Via David Collier:

"Israel doesn't get hurt by BDS, the Jewish student on campus does. The Jewish man running a business in Aberdeen does. Those attending the Israeli film festival in London do. These are the people #BDS affect. BDS radicalises its followers and hurts only the Jews of the Diaspora." 

"Students are scared to wear Jewish symbols, the guy in Aberdeen is forced out of business with his workers harassed and Jewish theatre goers face hostile crowds or a denial of the right to choose what they see. Anti Jewish Fascists operate in the UK under the BDS banner." 

"A guy is hounded in Aberdeen, his workers have been harassed, anyone attending Israeli related film festivals / the shalom festival or orchestras face hostile crowds upon entry & I saw lines of fascists yell 'shame' at students at a campus event."

Visit
David Collier's blog

Greece: Repeated anti-Semitic attacks

Desecration of Jewish graves in Greece stuns community

Via World Jewish Congress:

The World Jewish Congress stands with the Jewish Community of Athens in condemning repeated anti-Semitic attacks, and its initiative to organize a silent protest at the site of a recently desecrated Jewish cemetery this Sunday in the presence of government officials and public figures. The WJC will participate in the protest, which is backed by the WJC’s local affiliate the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, and has launched in parallel a social media campaign to raise awareness of the anti-Semitic manifestations ongoing in Greece, urging people worldwide to join in support.

“The World Jewish Congress abhors the despicable and cowardly act of desecrating Jewish property and stands firmly with the local Jewish community in urging individuals, organizations, and public authorities to mobilize in any way possible to make it absolutely clear that there is no room for anti-Semitism in Greek society,” said WJC CEO Robert Singer. "It is inconceivable that still today, anti-Semitic stereotypes are rife in Greece. We cannot stand by in silence as hatred continues unhindered.”

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UK: First year Anti-Semitic physics group chat exposed

Via The Tab:

Shocking anti-Semitic messages from a University of Manchester Physics group chat have tonight been exposed, where one student twice commented that "6 million Jews ain't enough" and another called for an invasion of Poland.

The messages were sent to a "1st Year Physics" Facebook group chat, broadcasting them to over 200 fellow students, originally reported the Mancunion.

The abhorrent conversation was initiated when a student asked the group if they would rather become an engineer or a Neo-Nazi.

Another student replied "Pfft, why you asking that? Tis an easy question. Now brb while I make some lebensraum."

Lebensraum was an ideological principle of Nazism, referring to a territorial expansion into Eastern European countries and the removal or genocide of their populations.

When another student replied "I would rather die tbh," the student that instigated the conversation told him "Don't be a Jew."

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Belgium: Saudi-financed mosques teach hatred of Jews, gays

Via France24:

Teaching manuals in Gulf Arab-financed mosques in Belgium promote anti-semitic stereotypes of Jews and call for the persecution of homosexuals, according to a leaked Belgian intelligence report.

The texts used in mosques including the Brussels Grand Mosque call for gays to be stoned to death or thrown off buildings and describe Jews as "evil", the report by the OCAM national terrorism monitoring centre said.

The writings, which are used to train preachers and theology professors, were "inspired mainly by classical Islamic law from the Middle Ages," OCAM said in a copy of the report obtained by AFP on Friday.

They have "problematic content in terms of radicalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism," the OCAM report said.

Belgian lawmakers say they will discuss the report next week. 

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Greece: Vandals desecrate Jewish tombstones in Athens

Via Jerusalem Post:

Vandals destroyed nine marble Jewish tombstones in an Athens cemetery on Friday night. The headstones appear to have been kicked over and then smashed to pieces, according to a statement issued Saturday night by the Jewish Community of Athens.

“The scene is repulsive and our disappointment is great,” read the statement, which was posted to the Facebook page of the president of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, Minos Moissis, who said he was “very angry.”

“This is not the first time we see the result of a degrading act at our cemetery, but it is the first time we see such an act was organized and planned in part of the cemetery that is not visible from the neighboring houses and with incredible fury,” the statement said. “The view of the results of this abominable act causes us deep sorrow and anger.”

The community group said it would take all available legal steps and had contacted the police, who have launched an investigation.

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UK: Hatred of Jews is taking root in British society, Tony Blair warns

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

Former Labour leader Tony Blair has attacked the party’s failure to tackle antisemitism — days after the local elections saw voters desert the party in wards with above average Jewish populations.

Writing exclusively in the JC, Mr Blair makes a thinly-veiled reference to Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to take serious action against antisemitism in the Labour Party.

He writes that, “too often, we have seen how anti-Zionism trends easily into antisemitism. The scourge we fought to eradicate in the 20th century has been allowed to make a comeback.

“We must once again stamp it out, by progressive political forces ensuring that antisemitism is not allowed to take root in any space in our national life.”

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Holland: Amsterdam kosher eatery’s owner will close shop unless police curb vandalism

Via JTA:

The owner of a frequently vandalized kosher eatery in the Dutch capital said he will close it down unless city officials install permanent security measures outside his business. 

Sami Bar-On’s lawyer, Herman Loonstein, told the Het Parool daily Wednesday that his client feels it is “irresponsible to go on like this” at HaCarmel restaurant without permanent security measures. 

In December, a 29-year-old Syrian asylum seeker smashed the restaurant’s window while holding a Palestinian flag. He then broke into the restaurant and grabbed an Israeli flag as two police officers watched before they arrested him. He has been charged with vandalism, but not a hate crime. 

Since the incident, the restaurant’s windows were smashed once more and are repeatedly spat on and smeared with garbage, Bar-On said. Police beef up security after each incident but leave shortly after, he said.

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Europeans said boycotting Foreign Ministry event celebrating new US embassy

Via The Times of Israel:

European diplomats will reportedly skip a Foreign Ministry event next week marking the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem in protest of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.

Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inviting the entire foreign diplomatic corps to Sunday’s event, many European envoys, including those from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, will boycott the ceremony, Hadashot TV news reported Wednesday.

“It is a little strange to invite us to celebrate an event that we opposed and condemned. The Americans were more clever and knew in advance not to invite us to save themselves from embarrassment,” the network quoted a diplomatic source as saying. 

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Belgium: Antisemitic and jihad textbooks at the heart of imams training in Brussels

This has been known for many years, but somehow the numerous human rights NGOs operating in Belgium are not aware of this type of antisemitic activities going on quite openly - or maybe they are just not interested.

Via The European Jewish Press:

BRUSSELS - Antisemitic manuals advocating armed jihad are included in the curriculum of the training of future imams and teachers at the Grand Mosque in Brussels located a few hundred meters from the European Union headquarters, reveals a confidential report from OCAM, the governmental coordinating unit for threat analysis in Belgium.  

According to the report, revealed by Belgian daily La Libre and RTL TV channel, many of these manuals are freely available in Brussels and elsewhere.  

The OCAM document mentions the fact that "the teaching of the Muslim religion of the Arab section of the Islamic and Cultural Center of Belgium, the name of the Brussels Grand Mosque, "is in no way adapted to the Belgian or European reference framework. They contain Salafist ideas and doctrines that encourage the rejection of any different ideas and fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms".  

Moreover, the OCAM insists on the fact that "many mosques and Islamic centers in Belgium still have in their libraries and as part of their training activities textbooks and other documents presenting a problematic content in terms of radicalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism."

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Poland's Auschwitz Museum Staff Suffer Anti-Semitic Attacks After Holocaust Speech Law

Via Telesur:

In April, the brother of the museum’s director wrote a heartfelt message on Facebook decrying the “50 days of incessant hatred” directed at his brother, Piotr Cywiński.

"For 12 long years he’s worked in one of the most terrible places in the world, in an office with a view of gallows and a crematorium," Cywiński wrote. "Dozens of articles on dodgy websites, hundreds of Twitter accounts, thousands of similar tweets, profanities, memes, threats, slanders, denunciations. It’s enough to make you sick."

Paweł Sawicki, who runs the museum’s social media operation, told the Guardian, "The collateral damage of the dispute is that Auschwitz became a target. We’ve had people saying they were not allowed to have a Polish flag here, or saying that the memory of Poles is not represented here, that the museum is anti-Polish – all of this is untrue, and we had to respond."

The museum, however, continues with a stiff stance, as it continues to regularly interject in Twitter discussions and by publishing a long list of false claims that have been made about the museum, ranging from the issue of Polish flags to the accusation that former Polish prisoners being not invited to a ceremony in January to commemorate the camp’s liberation.

The hate campaign initiated by the Polish nationalists has raised concerns over the pressure exerted on the official guides at the site in southern Poland. 

The Guardian reported that at least two tourist guides suffered abuse,  in one episode a foreign guide was attacked while in another the supporters of a convicted antisemite filmed themselves repeatedly bullying their guide during a visit to the camp in April.

In February, the official responsible for schools in the region in which Auschwitz is located argued that only Poles should be allowed to work as guides at the site. And they should be licensed by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, a state body widely seen as a tool used by the government to impose its preferred historical narratives.

"Foreign, and not Polish narratives reign at Auschwitz. Time for it to stop," wrote Barbara Nowak, who until last year served as a local councilor for Law and Justice. 

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UK: Jewish boys assaulted in antisemitic attack in London

Via Jewish Chronicle:

An appeal has been made for witnesses to an antisemitic attack in which two young Jewish boys were “racially assaulted, verbally and physically”.

The incident took place on Sunday evening in Golders Green, North-West London, at the North Circular Road crossing between Golders Green Road and Brent Street.

Both the police and the North-West London branch of the Shomrim neighbourhood security group were called in the wake of the incident.

Shomrim said its volunteers “had detained the suspect, who was subsequently arrested by the police”.

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Italy: Roberto Saviano, author of ‘Gomorrah,’ takes on Internet Nazis

Via Tablet:

Tired of internet conspiracy theories and vile anti-Semitism, the journalist turns his attention from Italy’s mafia to its white supremacists

Later this month, Roberto Saviano, the renowned Italian journalist, will testify at the first hearing of a trial against 39 Italian neo-Nazis who were accused, among other things, of participating in an online group that incited racial discrimination and violence. For years, between 2009 and 2012, the group held discussions that included white supremacist and anti-Semitic rhetoric on the American hate site Stormfront.

In one of the threads, members of the site posted lists of alleged influential Jews: entrepreneurs, artists, and journalists. Among the people listed, were Carlo De Benedetti, former president of the publishing group L’Espresso, TV host Gad Lerner, and Saviano himself, whose maternal grandparents had Jewish origins, although he identifies as atheist.

An investigation carried out by the Italian police revealed chilling conversations among the members of Stormfront Italy. “I still believe that the great Führer had found the right solution for those damn rats,” wrote Filippo Galbesi, one of the users, in one of the threads. Another member, Alessandro Pedroni, stated: “To build—this time FOR REAL—homicidal gas chambers, applying for real what they pretend happened to them, I believe that would be the REAL FINAL SOLUTION.” All members took part in the discussions under nicknames, but the police discovered and published their names. (...)

Another reason for the online attacks was his participation in a debate on Israel in 2010, despite his openly critical stance on many of Netanyahu’s policies. “In Italy,” Saviano explained, “you cannot have a critical and interlocutory opinion on Israel; either you ask for its immediate dissolution, or you are considered to be part of the conspiracy.”

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Germany plans database to tackle rising anti-Semitism

Via Financial Times:

The German government plans to establish a new national database to register anti-Semitic crimes and incidents, amid rising concern over the safety of the Jewish community in the country.

Felix Klein, the government’s new anti-Semitism commissioner, said current criminal statistics did not capture the full extent of the problem, in part because they ignored verbal abuse and other incidents that fell short of criminal behaviour.

He also voiced doubt about whether the existing database accurately identified the background of many perpetrators.

“It shows that more than 90 per cent of all anti-Semitic crimes are committed by rightwing extremists. The victims, Jews living in Germany, tell us something completely different: they feel that Muslim-motivated anti-Semitism is much more dangerous than appears in the statistics,” Mr Klein told journalists late last week.

He also suggested a change to the German criminal code that would toughen penalties for physical assaults if the attack was motivated by racial, religious or ethnic hatred. 

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Netherlands: Cop requests removal of Holocaust memorial sign, cites Israeli actions / Jew attacked

Via Times of Israel:

A bookshop owner in the Dutch capital said that a police officer asked him to remove a sign commemorating Holocaust victims, citing Israel’s actions.

Gert-Jan Jimmink told the De Telegraaf daily in a video published online Friday that the request was over a sign that read “Open Jewish Homes, Houses of Resistance.” The sign is part of a grassroots initiative from 2011 in the Netherlands in which residents of homes that used to belong to Holocaust victims open them to the public on the week of May 4, the Netherlands’ day of Remembrance of the Dead for Dutch war casualties.

The officer asked Jimmink: “Would you mind taking that off, because Israel launched an attack,” he said. Jimmink did not say when the officer, who he did not name, requested this. He ignored the request, he said. “I will not bow to this,” he added.

Jimmink, who has commemorated Holocaust victims also by having memorial cobblestones installed outside their former homes, also said that he recently saw an anti-Semitic assault outside his shop. A man of about 40 wearing a kippah was waiting for a tram, when an older man spat on him and hit him, Jimmink said. The attacker had left by the time Jimmink rushed to intervene he said.

“But it happened right in front of my eyes,” he said.

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Germany: Cartoon showing Israeli PM as puppet master in classical antisemitic theme

Via Watch Antisemitism in Europe:

The local newspaper Thüringische Landeszeitung - TLZ published a cartoon showing the Israeli prime minister as the "string master" behind the anticipated termination of the Nuclear deal with Iran by Donald Trump. Benjamin Netanjahu is seen saying "The president decides" while reaching a sign from the back of Trump's  head through his open mouth saying "Iran is lying!". For those new to the topic of antisemitism: the image of Jews as puppet masters is an classical antisemitic theme. See for yourself:

read more in German @ Sergey Lagodinsky

France: Anti-semitic placard at anti-Macron protest

Thousands of people demonstrated in central Paris on Saturday amid a heavy police presence to protest against President Emmanuel Macron's sweeping reforms, a year after he came to office. (The Local)

An old man was seen carrying a placard with the inscription "Mac Aaron, Zionist, Crook".

Photos via Laurent Bouvet

And this too.  Look at the nose, the ears, the money, the crown, the gallows.

EU doesn't condemn Abbas' antisemitic remarks - it downplays them, and praises him as a peacemaker

Via The Elder of Ziyon:

From the European Union External Action:

The speech Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered on 30 April contained unacceptable remarks concerning the origins of the Holocaust and Israel's legitimacy. Such rhetoric will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated.

This is not a condemnation. This is merely saying that Abbas' statements are "unacceptable." And why are they unacceptable?

Not because they are antisemitic. Not because they deny history. Not because they blame Jews for causing the Holocaust.

No, the main problem with Abbas' speech is that it allows the Israeli right to point out that Abbas is an antisemite who does not deserve to be rewarded with a state!

The only direct characterization of Abbas' character in this statement is that he has "repeatedly advocated" a two state solution, meaning that a man who spouts Jew-hating conspiracy theories is better than the evil people who point out his antisemitism.

The EU then tries to obfuscate the issue by saying antisemitism is bad.

The Holocaust and World War Two have defined Europe's modern history like no other event. Holocaust education remains central to building up resilience against all forms of hatred in our societies. Antisemitism is not only a threat for Jews but a fundamental menace to our open and liberal societies. The European Union remains committed to combat any form of anti-Semitism and any attempt to condone, justify or grossly trivialise the Holocaust.

There is no wording that ties the second paragraph to what Abbas said. It sort of implies that Abbas might have trivialized or condoned the Holocaust, but the statement it so general that is could refer to anyone, anytime.

This EU statement does not say a single negative thing about Abbas, and it says one "positive" thing about him - that he supports a two state solution (on the way to destroying the Jewish state via "return.")

The statement also does not call on Abbas to walk back his statements or to apologize. He did something that is vaguely unfortunate and it must be forgotten as quickly as possible before those right wing Jews make a big deal over it.

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Read also:
Europe: MEPs give standing ovation to blood libel
Europe: Huge success for terrorist Leila Khaled at European Parliament
European Parliament: Portuguese MEP says EJC is lying and smearing her
 and Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes made "vile antisemitic expressions"

UK: Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary present at Abbas Jew hate speech

Question: How many other European delegates, among the 80 international observers, and journalists attended the meeting and said nothing?

Via Guido Fawkes:

Emily Thornberry attended the Mahmoud Abbas speech which made global headlines this week for its anti-Semitic content, Guido can reveal. Thornberry was representing Labour at the Palestinian National Council (PNC) meeting in Ramallah. The Shadow Foreign Secretary confirmed her attendance in a Facebook post published after Abbas’ speech. Her statement did not reference Abbas’ anti-Semitic comments…

Abbas delivered a rambling speech in which he claimed the Holocaust was not caused by anti-Semitism but by Jewish “social behaviour, [charging] interest, and financial matters.” In highly offensive comments, Abbas said:

“But why did this use to happen… They say, “It is because we are Jews”. I will bring you three Jews, with three books who say that enmity towards Jews was not because of their religious identity but because of their social function. This is a different issue. So the Jewish question that was widespread throughout Europe was not against their religion but against their social function which relates to usury [unscrupulous money-lending] and banking and such.”

Rather than reference the remarks or condemn Abbas in her initial statement, Thornberry instead said:

“While we of course want to see the resumption of meaningful peace talks, I said President Abbas had been quite right to argue that the Trump administration cannot act as a mediator for peace when they themselves are sowing the seeds of discord, and making a negotiated peace ever harder to achieve...”

Now Thornberry has put out another statement:

“It is deeply regrettable that, during a lengthy speech whose main and successful purpose was to urge the Palestinian National Council to remain committed to the Middle East peace process and the objective of a two-state solution, President Abbas made these anti-Semitic remarks about the history of the Jewish community in Europe which were not just grossly offensive, but utterly ignorant. His comments were out of keeping with the tone of the Council as a whole, and of my discussions with other delegates, and I hope President Abbas will immediately apologise for them, so that the message to come out of this important Council meeting can remain positive and progressive, and focused on re-establishing peaceful and constructive dialogue.”

Labour sources are concerned that the Shadow Foreign Secretary did not initially distance herself from the remarks or condemn them. It has been confirmed that she was in the room during the remarks, alongside 80 other international observers.

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EU spokesperson: Abbas’s speech on the origins of the Holocaust ‘unacceptable’, EU ‘committed to combat any form of anti-Semitism and any attempt to condone, justify or grossly trivialise the Holocaust’

Via European Jewish Press (Yossi Lempkowicz):

"The speech Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered on 30 April contained unacceptable remarks concerning the origins of the Holocaust and Israel’s legitimacy," said Maja Kocijancic, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs in a statement.

"Such rhetoric will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution," she said.

The EU spokesperson was reacting to Abbas’ speech at a rare meeting of the Palestinian National Council, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) parliament in Ramallah on Monday, in, which he said that the Jewish "social function" in 20th century Europe, such as money lending, caused animosity towards them which led to the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide of six million Jews.

He cited what he said were books by "Jewish Zionist authors" for the claim. Among others he quoted the controversial "The Thirteenth Tribe" by Arthur Koestler, which claims that Ashkenazi Jews, of European ancestry, are not real Jews, but descendants of the Khazars. He denied that Ashkenazi Jews count as a Semitic people.

He called Israel "a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism" and said "those who sought a Jewish state weren’t Jews."

He stated that the Holocaust was not a result of anti-Semitism, but the fault of Jewish "social behavior," and "charging interest and financial matters," and asserted that Adolf Hitler had actually facilitated the immigration of Jews to Israel.

The Holocaust has been a long time fascination for Abbas. His doctoral thesis, "The Connection Between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement 1933–1945," was completed in 1982 for the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, and published in 1984 as an Arabic book, "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism". He asserted that Zionists had been complicit in the Holocaust, which Abbas said was far overblown in scope.

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France: Can a Jew love France?

Via The New York Times (Alexander Aciman):

[...] But things are not so dreamy for Jews today in France. The country is struggling to maintain and protect its large Jewish population, the third largest in the world, which has been dwindling precipitously thanks to the wave of anti-Semitism that has gripped the country over the past decade. In 2015 — the year of the Charlie Hebdo attack — 8,000 Jews left France and headed for Israel.

My grandfather made a go at living in Paris in the 1960s, but found himself an outsider in a country still reeling from a war of roundups and deportations. This broke his heart, for he too felt that Paris was his real home.

France failed to make good for my grandfather on the promissory cultural note of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. The organization’s purpose was to lift Jews out of their benighted surroundings and offer them the tools to make a go at life in Europe. It was the promise of a country that took pride in being more civilized than the ones that would eventually expel all of their Jewish populations.

Today such distinction feels more blurred and more difficult to defend than at any point since World War II.

What hurts most about this realization is that it directly contradicts what Jews like me feel must also necessarily be true: France is our home, as if somewhere in the universe there is a real France, and the one in Europe is just a facsimile that keeps falling off the anti-Semitism wagon.

French-speaking Jews may have celebrated this year when Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République En Marche!, defeated the frighteningly far-right and anti-Semitic National Front, but this supposedly new France has done nothing to curb its Jewish problem. Every year in France Jewish storefronts are vandalized, including arson in kosher supermarkets this past week.

The general feeling of unrest is not unlike the one felt over 100 years ago during the Dreyfus Affair, when it became clear to many that Jewish life in France was ultimately unsustainable. For many, the situation has started feeling untenable again today. Anti-Semitism, as it turns out, is a flat circle. And yet, despite all the betrayal and heartbreak, I cannot bring myself to renounce France, as if after more than a century of love for this country, the love itself has become part of my genome. Generations removed from the work of the Alliance, its effects continue to exist in me.

I feel as ridiculous admitting that I am not French as I do saying that I am. I know all the transfer points of the Paris Metro. Like my father, I studied French literature at university. My favorite days in New York are those when it rains, because on those days the city reminds me of Paris.

I cannot resolve the idea that the place where I feel that I belong wants nothing to do with me. I struggle to accept the terrible truth, which is that many of my fellow Jews in France are feeling today those early warning tremors of disaster felt by French Jews in the early 1900s and the 1930s. I tell myself that in 30 years I’ll be back home, and my kids will be sitting and chatting under the heat lamps at cafes and picking up terrible premature smoking habits, when really I know that in that time there will probably no longer be any Jews left in France at all. But like any good French person, I just shrug one of those inscrutable shrugs and say something like “C’est de la politique.” Politics, right? Suspended in a strange gray space of muddled allegiances, like my grandfather, I realize that though I may feel French and though I want my children to grow up speaking French, the France my family dreamed of no longer exists — and maybe never did.

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German newspaper’s Israeli flag test yields ‘frightening results’

Via The Algemeiner:

As Germans continue to probe the connection between antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of recent antisemitic incidents across the country, a leading newspaper on Monday carried out a live experiment to determine how long an Israeli flag could be displayed in major urban thoroughfares before being removed. Israeli flags hung in three locations by reporters from the Bild newspaper were removed within ninety minutes by individuals who happened to be passing by, video revealed.

“The results are frightening,” the newspaper reported. “At the Hermannplatz in Berlin-Neukölln, the Israel flag flew for 42 minutes, for 61 minutes in Munich’s Bahnhofsviertel, and for 81 minutes in the center of Frankfurt.”

Video shot in Munich caught two men walking past an Israeli flag draped over a bicycle railing. Moments later, the men returned and angrily tore the flag down. Meanwhile in Berlin, two youths were filmed at the entrance to a rail station ripping the flag and throwing it to the ground, before one of them tried – and failed – to set it on fire with a cigarette lighter.

German politicians from across the spectrum interviewed by Bild were unanimous in their condemnation of the flag removals.

“The tearing down of the Israeli flag is something we will not tolerate in Germany,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the paper. “We will clearly stand against any form of antisemitism.” His colleague Horst Seehofer, the Interior Minister, pledged to show “zero tolerance” for antisemitic displays.

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