Europe hit by wave of antisemitism
EUROPE’S REACTION to the violent escalation between Israel and the Palestinians has been one of support for Israel at the diplomatic level and antisemitic protests on the streets.
Last week, the Israeli flag flew from government buildings in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, prompting Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif to cancel a planned visit to Vienna.
Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz (below) said the decision to raise Israel’s flag was “a sign of solidarity” with the Jewish state, damning Hamas’ “terror attacks against Israel” in “the strongest possible terms”.
Meanwhile, Islamists and Turkish nationalists staged a counter-demonstration on Saturday afternoon to a rally against antisemitism planned by the Austrian Union of Jewish Students (JÖH).
“Shove your Holocaust up your arse!” shouted one counterprotestor, prompting applause. Vienna police told the JC video footage of the incident is currently being investigated.
This followed
a similar pro-Palestinian protest organised on 12 May, which prompted Vienna’s Jewish community to warn its members to avoid the area where the march was due to take place. Organised by the BDS movement in Austria, the march attracted hundreds of people, including supporters of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Protesters bore signs that minimised or relativised the Holocaust and images of the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, chanting in Arabic, “With heart and blood we will go and liberate alAqsa”, and in English, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
“We are confronted with hatred and Jew-baiting every time the conflict escalates”, JÖH co-chair Lara Guttmann said. “That should not be allowed to happen in Austria in 2021”.
Similar events in Germany prompted its authorities to clarify their support for Israel and Jewish life.
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, had asked German authorities to “act urgently” to “provide security” for Jewish communities.
Police arrested 59 people at an antiIsrael protest in Berlin on Saturday, at which Islamist slogans were chanted and Israel was branded a murderer of women and children. The demonstration prompted the Jewish community’s supporters to stage a vigil at the city’s Fraenkelufer synagogue.
The call to protest was put out by the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which Israel believes to be a front organisation for the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In Bonn, three Syrians resident in Germany were taken into custody after they were witnessed throwing stones at the synagogue, breaking a window, and setting light to an Israeli flag.
And police in Gelsenkirchen halted protesters bearing Turkish, Algerian, and Palestinian flags making their way towards the synagogue.
In a widely-circulated video, kettled demonstrators start up a chant of “Scheiß Juden” (“F*** the Jews”).
Foreign minister Heiko Maas said his government “will not accept people of Jewish faith in Germany being made responsible for developments in the Middle East”.
Hamas “willingly and knowingly brought about the latest escalation” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by “indiscriminately firing over 1000 rockets at Israel’s cities,” Mr Maas said, concluding that “Israel is defending itself because it has to”.
Hamas ‘willingly and knowingly’ brought about the latest escalation’